Carisbrooke Castle

We used our Island Rover ticket to be in Newport by about 11:30 this morning where we decided to stop for a spot of lunch.  PY discovered a great little comic-themed coffee shop, Comicoffe, which was a lot of fun with delicious coffee.  Then we set off for the 2km walk to Carisbrooke Castle where, for the second time on this holiday, we were able to use our English Heritage membership to access an amazing place.

It was the cloudiest day we have had so far on this break but that did not detract from the beauty of the castle. It’s an amazing place with a great walk around the walls, from where this picture was taken. Following the first English Civil War of 1646, King Charles I was held captive here for a period of time before he was returned to the mainland for negotiations and, ultimately, execution in January 1649.  Thanks to some local Royalist supporters, he tried to escape - and failed - several times. My favourite story being the one where he became lodged between an iron bar and one of the Castle windows mid-escape and had to go backwards rather than get away.