From Jubilee Tower

While Dan was at work, Abi and I decided* to go for lunch and a mooch around Clitheroe. It's a pleasant drive down and we had a nice little chat about her forthcoming trip to South Africa, amongst other things. On arriving, we decided lunch was our priority, so we went to Molly's, which is just down the road from the castle. 

We'd already agreed that we'd walk up to the top of the castle after lunch and by the entrance we found a stone bearing lines taken from CarolAnn Duffy's 'Lancashire Witches':

"From poverty, no poetry
but weird spells, half-prayer, half-threat;
sharp pins in the little dolls of death."

Perhaps it was the mention of poverty but as we ascended the mound, I thought back to the 'deal' under which the poor would live when the castle was in its pomp; living in its shadow, paying taxes to its inhabitants, but, ultimately, able to (usually) rely on it for protection back in those harder, less certain times. 

Later on, as we drove west to collect Dan from work, we passed through Over Wyresdale and, at its limit, stopped at the Jubilee Tower (I took this photo from the top). The engraving is almost too worn to read but Abi did a good job, almost deducing that it was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee. Perhaps on a larger scale, this folly was a nod to that same feudal system; taxes paid up to a monarch who in turn defended the land. 

*I suggested; she had no objections

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-5.2kgs