At Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight

The social life in Freshwater with Bob and Mary has been quite intense, with two days of parties, one in the late afternoon, the other at teatime. Lots of wine and food and a several birthday cakes. Combined with regular meals, which were more like feasts, has made me very replete.

So today, Helena and I decided to explore the island by driving to near Newport at its centre, to visit the ancient ruins of Carisbrooke Castle. It was sited about ten centuries ago on an earlier anglo-saxon site, at one of the highest points of the island with strategic view to the coast in the distance and across the lower lying lands in between.

I had earned a free annual membership to English Heritage for some work I did earlier in the year, and today we started our subscription, which I think will be really well used, all over the country. We've been making plans to visit sites on Hadrian's Wall when we go to Scotland next week.

This castle has huge high walls as ramparts, and mostly ruined inner buildings within the massive courtyard. I was impressed with the way the castle is managed to provide family fun without it being tacky or commercial. We wandered around the highest ramparts, nearly in a complete circle, from which Woodpeckers took a view out over the countryside, looking very summery with the hay bales in the field.

After we had visited the old bowling green outside the walls of the castle, where Charles the Second had played whilst incarcerated in the castle, we returned to the centre of the castle complex. There were various enactments by actors of fighting in chain mail and suits of armour, maidens reading poetry to children outside a tent and donkeys regularly demonstrating the traditional waterwheel they trod to raise water from the very deep well.

In one small tent close to these other events this gentleman sat playing his instrument with this rather haunted look on his face. I think this is a hurdy gurdy, a medieval instrument that dates from before the eleventh century. Its history also seems to traverse across Europe from the Balkans, and i wonder whether he may be European, as I don't think there can be many hurdy gurdyists left in England. I didn't go up to him and talk, as he was busily talking to other interested listeners to his music, which I now regret.

This was to be our last trip as tonight we are going home, but not till we have watched the Olympics close down while we sit eating and drinking in the room that Charles Darwin stayed in, about one hundred and fifty years ago.


The hurdy gurdy or hurdy-gurdy is a stringed musical instrument that produces sound by a crank-turned rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, typically made of wood) against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed instruments, it has a sound board to make the vibration of the strings audible.

Most hurdy gurdies have several drone strings, which give a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian folk music.

A person who plays the hurdy gurdy is called a hurdy gurdyist, hurdy gurdy player, or (particularly for players of French instruments) viellist.