Beeston Castle

Beeston Castle is located in Cheshire, and was part of the Earldom of Chester in the Middle Ages. It is a medieval fortress built in the 1220s on a high plateau by Ranulf, the 6th Earl of Chester, to consolidate his position in the northwest of England. Beeston has a long history of occupation, dating back to the Iron age, and the current castle incorporates these early banks and ditches into its construction. King Henry III took the castle in 1237, after the death of the last earl who died without an heir. The castle then became a jumping off point for the king’s campaigns in Wales. Prisoners captured at Evesham, during the Second Baron’s war, were held here, including Humphrey de Bohun, who died of his wounds while in custody. The castle remained in royal ownership until the 16th Read more…

All about King Arthur

King Arthur:  Was he real?  Was he even a king?  Someone reached my blog the other day by typing in “King Arthur wasn’t Welsh”.  What?  Clearly that person needed to be pointed in the proper direction and I’m glad my blog was here to do it. I have written extensively about King Arthur in many places on this blog, and with that poor lost soul in mind, I realized that it might be of some benefit to put these posts all in the same place.  To find out about the origins of King Arthur, see: The Fictive and Historical King Arthur Geoffrey of Monmouth Historical Sources for King Arthur Possible King Arthur (s) Was King Arthur Real? King Arthur: fact or fiction Who Was Guinevere? Lancelot Morgan/Morgana/Morgan le Fey The British (Welsh/Cymry) High Council For information on the places associated with Read more…

The History of Chester

The City of Chester is the first stop of our Wales Odyssey!  We began with a tour of the walls, which were begun when the city was called ‘Deva’, and fortified by the Romans.   “The Roman military presence at Chester probably began with a fort or marching camp at the mouth of the Deva Fluvius (River Dee) very likely established during the early campaigns of governor Publius Ostorius Scapula against the Deceangi in north-east Wales sometime around AD47/48. There is some evidence of pre-Flavian occupation, possibly even a timber-built fort, but proof positive of a Scapulan foundation has yet to emerge. After the first tentative forays of Scapula, the next military activity in the area was conducted during the early administration of governor Sextus Julius Frontinus sometime around AD74 when an auxiliary fort was constructed at Chester. The placement of this fort was a strategic move by Frontinus Read more…

Update on King Arthur’s ’round table’ in Chester

Yes–slacking off today.  But I did find this interesting piece on King Arthur’s round table by Keith Fitzpatrick-Mathews.  It is a much more lengthy rebuttal than mine (https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=1186), but makes many of the same points (also see, https://sarahwoodbury.com/?tag=king-arthur).  Fitzpatrick-Mathews also takes to task Christopher Gildow’s article entitled “Top Ten Clues to the Real King Arthur”.  What’s particularly great is the exchange between the two in the comments at the end.   Worth a read for anyone who thinks King Arthur might have really existed. http://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/king-arthur’s-round-table-discovered-in-chester/

King Arthur’s Round Table

. . . has not been found, despite recent news to the contrary. This article states with the very generalized ‘historians believe’ that King Arthur’s round table is actually the ampitheatre in the City of Chester.  When the Romans abandoned Britain, they left their forts and roads behind.  Many archaeologists believe that in the ensuing chaos, the Britons no longer used the ampitheatres for their original purpose, if they used them at all.  As I said in this post of the Romans, “within a generation or two, little trace of them, except for their roads and ruined forts–and their religion, Christianity–remained.  Everything had fallen into disrepair.  The ‘Saxons’ descended from the east, the Scots from the North, and the Irish from the West, driving the original Britons west, into what is now Wales.” The Chester ampitheatre was discovered in the Read more…