Lulworth Castle and Jurassic Cove

Hi there and welcome to our Jurassic cove leg of our journey around southern England!

In this post we will be stumbling upon Lulworth castle as well as making our way down to Jurassic Cove (Lulworth Cove) in an attempt to see the "Jurassic Forest" as well as the famous Durdle Door.

So lets get to it! 

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First up Lulworth Castle:

This was a quaint little castle that we stumbled upon as we headed to the Jurassic cove and it turned out to be a nice little detour.

 

This castle was a 17th century hunting lodge and was built as a mock castle to entertain kings. In 1929 it was gutted by fire, so what we saw was a semi restored castle. All of the external restoration was done, and they were trying to rebuild the inside. There were no remaining wooden floors left, so the castle was essentially hollow - entering on the ground floor was just a sort of wooden flooring, with 4 stories of empty space above you to the roof. 

In the estate area just out from the castle there was as nice building with a large courtyard in the middle, which acted as the "visitor centre" if you could call it that. You'll see a picture of it soon. As we approached we saw some old farming equipment and thought we'd share them...

The Dening and Co "Cake Crusher"

The Dening and Co "Cake Crusher" was a farm machine designed to efficiently crush "oil cakes" made from Linseed and Rape crops. These oil cakes were usually sold and stored in large bricks which you would then break and mix with other feed for the stock. 

The Bentall and Co "Chaff Cutter"

These chaff cutters allowed a farmer to be sneaky and mix in various grassy substances for a critter to eat, which they normally might reject. By cutting various straw and hay into chaff the farmers could save money and provide a more varied diet to their animals. Supposedly by the late 18th century these were common sight in the UK in farms and stables etc. 

The Bentall and Co "Unchokable" Root Shredder

This machine is supposedly "unchokable" and was known for its reliability and speed. It's a hand crank model. This machine was used to shred and slice root vegetables such as carrot, beets, and turnips so that horses and other critters will be more likely to eat it. 

Above and below: The "visitor centre". In the courtyard of this interesting building - I think it was built in modern times, but the design is appealing and still old-school. Reminds me of roman architecture. The building is a large square with the middle missing, having living/working areas all the way around a central courtyard.

This is the Pilgrim Church of Saint Andrews, East Lulworth. This church is adjacent the castle on the Lulworth Castle Estate. The church has been around for 500+ years. 

Above: The heraldic arms of some local nobles. Supposedly this was restored because it was all crappy and dusty at one point. The Latin word inscribed "Resurgam" means "I shall rise again". 

We found a criminal in the stocks out the front of the castle. I wonder what this poor sod did to deserve this. 

Inside the Castle

Inside the castle, the damage from the 1929 fire was immediately obvious. basically all flooring and wall covers were gone, and the fact that the middle and upper floors were all made of wood meant the stone outer shell was now hollow! Walking around on the ground floor and looking up at 4-5 floors worth of castle was pretty weird. There were fireplaces and doorways all the way up, some of various conditions and some looking pretty good (possibly having been restored?). 

Above: Diagram of the castle - with the red highlighted area being the old great hall, turned into a dining room - the lords of the castle would be up in the raised dias, and the guests would be down on the lower area at long tables. This room used to also include the bit just before that which shows a pool/billiards table in it, back when the castle was more medieval and the "great hall" was more important and needed to be larger. 

New cross-beams and metal bracing have been added by the restoration crew to make the castle safe and less likely to collapse. The exterior of the castle took tens of years to restore, but is done now - progress on restoring the internals has been going on for a few years and has a looooong way to go!

Above: An example of a mostly in-tact fireplace with its colours etc still visible. 

There was a door which was bowed from the fire, and still in its original place. If I remember correctly this was connecting to the ground-floor kitchen tower.

This funny looking wheeled contraption is called a "Bath chair". It was invented(?) and used in 19th Century by wealthy disabled and elderly people. 

It was a wheeled carriage with a hood to protect the occupant from the elements. The occupant would steer with the little handle thing, while a person (servant) would push from behind.  

Even though Lulworth castle was built more as a place for royals to hang out than as a fort, the castle did have a lot more "fort-like" construction before it was modified to be stylish and modern in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Castle originally did not have those complete circular parapets at the base of the turrets - they were half-circles and had short curtain walls coming out of them and out in front of the castle to make an enclosed fortified courtyard entrance area - probably with a guard barracks and gatehouse kind of thing. The modern designs extended the circular parts at the base of the two front towers to be complete circles, and the front fortifications were removed to make it more fancy than defend-able. 

Above: Panorama from on top of one of the turrets in Lulworth Castle.

Above: A recreation (from photographs) of the castle kitchen area in the basement before the 1929 fire. 

There were quite a few pictures taken prior to the 1929 fire, and it looked like the castle was pretty darn fancy back in the day. Really nice decorations and interiors, fancy furniture etc. Would have been a great party-palace!

The guardians of the castle were a bit hairy. After this guy stared at me, I suggested we leave before Sheep-ageddon started. 

Overall Lulworth castle was as great side-track and we enjoyed seeing the castle and the estate grounds. One interesting part was the military vehicle testing grounds very nearby, and the fact while we were walking around the castle grounds we could hear machine-gun fire the whole time.  

As we left the castle, we drove past the military establishment, and saw some tanks (parked, display ones..). 

Whoops it says no photography on the tank. YOLO.

On our drive to the Lulworth Cove/Jurassic Cove, we saw some cute little country towns with their strange looking thatched roof design, which clearly is not actually thatching anymore. Looks too fake and perfect. 

Jurassic Cove, Lulworth Heritage Centre

The "Jurassic Coast" is a 155km long stretch of the southern English coastline that has been made a World Heritage Site. The main reason being, the coast displays a wide array of very high quality geological examples and it is the subject of international field studies. The coast has some pretty exciting landforms such as the Jurassic Cove at Lulworth (were we went) and the nearby natural arch call the "Durdle Door" (we also went here by foot). Some areas we didn't end up seeing on the coast are the Jurassic Forest, with fossilised tree formations (the cliff path was eroded and still not repaired/replaced since last year) and the famous fossil deposits around Lyme Regis beach. 

The Cove we visited was interesting because it shows millions of years of geological processes at work - with visible layers of stone and ground materials 

Alrighty, It's Mercedes here and I will be taking you through to the end of this Blog!

The photo that you see below is of Kyran, and in the background is the hill we had to climb to get the Durdle Door.

Above: The ascent! Little did we know that there was also a descent and then the same again to get back!

Below: This was interesting to see the different sedimentary layers that were observable due to erosion in the area.

It was a bit cool that day and as you can see overcast and rainy, and rainy it did become and poor Kyran was ill-equipped for the high winds combined with the rain and he did not have a good time.

Ok lets get through some photos:

Below: The view looking back on the ascent, and if your eyes are good you cans see more geological features. Note the up-lifting and folding!

 

The whole walk had a pilgrimage feel about it (not that i have ever done a pilgrimage or am any expert on pilgrimages). So many people streaming to and fro, like on a mission!

Below: The view as we peeked the top before heading down to the Durdle Door.

 

Here is the Durdle Door in all its glory. Oh look there's Kyran in all his glory! He's probably feeling cold the poor bugger.

 

Above: This is to the left side of the Durdle Door the cliffs that you can see to the left are the ones that we walked along the top to get to that point.

Below: another view from on top of the cliff.

 

This me sitting on the beach at the Durdle door playing with the pebbles (really I was procrastinating in shelter from the cold wind and sideways rain that I would inevitably have to walk all the way back in)  

Below: The random left-over photos for this blog, enjoy!

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That brings us to the end of another blog, 
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I leave you with the image below of the English country side with the yellow flowers from the rapeseed blossoming in the distance.
This was a common sight everywhere we drove.
Over and out!