Local Colour

"pull you into a narrative of friendship and betrayal, vengeance and despair, unlocking unfiltered feelings and showing you war as both glorious exploit and futile carnage" 

We are sleeping in a 14th century priory, built by the lord of the castle on the hill overlooking us. The priors here would have had a daily reminder - just by looking up hill - that their activities were under constant surveillance; an ideal state that the ruling elite now wish to return us to

Today, we 'did' the castle - what else would you do on the hottest day for several years in one of the hottest parts of the country but haul yourself up and down precarious, spiral, stone staircases. As we were advised on the way in, the place to cool off was the windowless cellar dungeon prescribed for poachers and thieves

In an odd, almost literally incredible, quirk of history, Edward I (king 1272-1307) was assisted by the miners of the Forest of Dean in his campaign to defeat Scottish independence. In his siege of Berwich-upon-Tweed (550km from here) they 'literally' undermined the city's defences. Edward granted them and their descendents the right to mine in the Forest on their own account - rights that persist into the present and have been extended to women under contemporary equal rights legislation. This was key in shaping the unique history of the area and its role in coal, iron and steel production across 700 years of history

Meanwhile, Edward's uncle was an arriviste lord from France, not much loved by either working people or the rest of the aristocracy. The default Norman power projection was to build a castle, and William de Valence developed this one into the most biggest, beautifulest castle the world had ever seen - to make it clear who was boss. To be fair, he was more accurate than others who make those sorts of claims. The castle was the last redoubt of parliamentary forces in this region during the civil war, and breached only when the local ironworkers were sub-contracted to purpose-build a mortar that would deliver a bunker-busting bomb on to the north-west tower (the mortar is still in the castle) 

The King's forces surrendered; the castle was unroofed and damaged to render it uninhabitable and history turned the page. Yet it remains one of the best-preserved castles in the country and, of course, all the fire and fury came to naught. The revolution consumed itself; less than 15 years later, the monarchy was restored - futile carnage

The quote at the start is actually Jonathan Jones, writing about the artistic impact of the Bayeux Tapestry, which is coming back to England for a while, but the words echoed from castle walls. The picture is light from a millennium window, fitted into the castle chapel, celebrating the river Wye and the local communities beside it