Osbourne house and the donkeys bring up the water.

April 26th

 Now, why don't we ever follow our own advice? A lesson learnt when FS was moored under trees and a night of torrential rain followed. The constant drip drip from the water droplets from those leaves were enough to drive one insane. We vowed never to do that again if rain was forecast. So I asked myself, why do it with MB. Oh how easily one forgets, but rest assured, after the night of rain we have had...NEVER again!

Today it was to Osbourne house for the second time of trying. The first was way back in December 2010 when thick snow stopped our visit. It was one of those coach Turkey and Tinsel holiday. This time it was still cold but thankfully no snow in the forecast.

Having arrived before 10 am, we were one of the first to take the self-guided tour of the house. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had vision with this house and wow, what an impressive building inside and out and for those that are interested in the history click HERE

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This painting hung above Queen Victoria's bed

Queens bedchamber. Also where she died in 1901

Prince Alberts bath. (I thought it was a chest freezer!)

Queen Victoria's lift h. No electric in them days, so it had to be cranked by hand.

We did the tour of the house and gardens in a couple of hours, longer could have been spent walking down to the beach but at over a mile, and the knees starting to give out, we called it quits. 

So where to go to now? Well nothing is very far away on this island  and Carisbrooke Castle was about 10 miles away.  A glimpse was caught of it as we drove to Carisbrooke and my heart sank. Was it really way up there on the hill? Well of course, where else would a castle be put! Anyway we drove up as far as we could, parked MB and walked a short distance up to the entrance.

You may have guessed by now that lots of steps had to be climbed to get to walk the walls. To do the keep, even more, and both decided that was not going to happen. We managed the walls, going up was okay but coming down was bad. It was at one particular bad moment that I realised why I hurt so much. Forgotten to take the painkillers!

At 3.30 pm a tread wheel demonstration of how buckets of water were brought up from the well. The well house and tread wheel were built in 1587 to get water to the castle. At first, the wheel would probably have been turned by prisoners. By the 1600s it was turned by donkeys. This well was 49m deep and holds water up to 12m. Today, during times of drought on the island, it is determined how much water is left in the well that decides whether a hose ban is put in place. Two donkeys taking it in turns do the demonstration. Now they work for no more than 5 minutes. In the days gone by those poor donkeys would have to work for 16 hours a day without rest, food or water. To check out the history of the castle and the donkeys, click HERE

 

And some of the gravestones where past donkeys have been put to rest.

Inside one of the rooms was a small museum telling the story of King Charles 1. He spent a year at Carisbrooke, had two failed escape attempts, and finally lost his head at Whitehall in January 1649. Click HERE to read the story

Trying to find a park for the night was a bit of a challenge, so it was decided to return to the woods. From memory, we knew a few parking areas that were free from overhanging branches and on our arrival, found one that would do. If it did rain overnight, at least we wouldnt be woken by those drips..