Berry Pomeroy Castle

I decided to get out early (early for me is soon after 9) as the forecast suggested nasty weather coming in for lunchtime. It was a good move as it turned out. The castle is closed during the week at this time of year but you can still access it so I parked in the lane and walked down. There didn't seem to be anybody about. 

I'm a stealth drone pilot, I don't like flying when there are people about (especially when I'm an English Heritage property where it's bound to be banned). I got the bird up to 120 metres where I could get the whole of the castle in and took a few shots. Then moved off to the left and dropped down to a position where I could get a composition I liked. I had to take  two shots to get a vertical panorama for this one. It seemed no time at all before the controller started beeping to tell me the battery was getting low so I brought it home and packed it away. I have a spare battery but I felt I'd done enough. 

I'd just started taking some stills when I heard the sound of a couple of cars coming down the lane. I don't know what they were doing but they must be official to have a key to the barrier. I took a few more shots, one of the formidable gatehouse, which I've added as an extra.

It's Wideangle Wednesday (hosted by Bobsblips - thank you Bob) and the theme this week is Closed/Surrounded. Well, the castle is 'closed' and you can also see that it's 'surrounded' by trees, not a very good defence strategy for a castle, but it hasn't ever seen a siege. The nearest it came to trouble was in the Civil War, when it was only by adroit political manoeuvring that it was kept out of government hands. 

The reason for it's ruined state is that the Seymour family planned to make it a 'very stately house' but ran out of money and left it. A later Seymour took out all the huge timber beams, the flagstones and the lead from the roof and left it to fall down!