A Mystery & Tattershall Castle Gatehouse

Click to enlarge any photograph

We made our way past the beautiful alms houses, and round by the church, turned the corner and were met by this first glimpse of Tattershall Castle.

To the left is the Gatehouse.

It is a fairly small medieval red brick building, with a wonderfully saggy roof line and beautiful, stone dressed windows.

Tattershall Castle used to have two moats and the Gatehouse is built between the two.

To the rear of the building is the picnic area and a view of the inner moat.

Tattershall Castle was built between 1433 and 1443, on the site of an earlier castle.    It is said that it took almost a million bricks, made of local clay, to complete the building.   It was really a manor house built to impress;  a show of power.

This set of steps run down to the moat.

I read somewhere that as an alternative to walking in the grounds people could 'take the air' while being rowed around the moat.

I wonder whether this cute little building out to the back could have been the privy...unfortunately the doors were bolted so no chance of checking that out!

I will post about the castle itself, show you the interior and tell you the story of it, but in the mean time, this is the view from the top of the castle.  

The cute little Gatehouse/Guardhouse to the left and the little  'privy' building over towards the right.

One moat runs to the front of the Gatehouse, the other was behind it.

This is the same view from ground level; I took it at the entrance to the castle.

A few minutes later the sky clouded and storm clouds gathered...

The mystery is in the first four photographs.  Did you notice the strange orange ball?

I don't know what it was - at first I thought perhaps there had been a speck of something on the camera lens, but then I noticed that it is not in the same position in each photograph.

It varies in intensity, but I haven't manipulated it in any way.  What you are seeing is exactly what I saw when I downloaded the photos.

Does anyone know what it could be?   Answers on a postcard please!

One final photograph.  

In the picnic area we found this small, heart-shaped pear.

I'll leave you with a little snippet of information about Tattershall village.

Perhaps the most famous former inhabitant was Tom Thumb, who measured no more than 47 cms in height.   The church which you can see in the photographs has a marker showing where he was buried when he died in 1620, at the age of 101.  

One of the large houses in the village has a miniature house on the roof, this is said to be Tom Thumb's house!    If I spot it on my next visit you can be sure I'll take a photograph.