We had a trip to Hedingham Castle today, and it was a good'un! The oldest surviving Norman keep in Europe and the biggest domestic arch in all of northern Europe, cathedrals included! Mum caught a better picture of that than me so I decided to blip this model of what the castle may have once looked like. I did get some of the exterior but they weren't overly interesting! The insides were the best bit. Lots of ornate scrollwork on doors and windows etc. This was the de Veres seat, and they were mighty rich (they spent £2,500 on imported stone alone building this place during a time when the annual income of the royals was £10,000!), one of the families that pressured King John into signing the Magna Carta, so there was lots about the Magna Carta here as well.

We also had a nice walk around the grounds (very extensive!) and carried on to nearby Clare as someone in our church had recommended it. It was pretty interesting, had a pleasant late afternoon walk there, and explored the local railway which was one of the ones Beeching cut in the 60s, it was interesting as they'd built their local park around it (and the "castle" which was really just a wall) and kept it quite well, with grass down the middle where the tracks used to be, very surreal! Nature has done a scary amount of reclaiming in just 50 years.

Also we had to pass through Sudbury during our journeying and passed by the aftermath of the fire that they had there just yesterday! Was a bit of a mess, no-one killed fortunately. What are the chances of that happening while we were here!

So yes, quite a full day again, lots of upwards slogging between motts and baileys and spiral staircases, so we're well exercised! Just as well as we managed to find scrummy cake again...

Tomorrow is our last day here! It's felt like a good long holiday this one, we've done so much, no health troubles! Hoping to have a poke around Lavenham, we have been there before but there are a couple of houses that are open that we never visited, the Guildhall included.