William's men brought their very first castle across the Channel with them in self-assembly form - the first-ever flat-pack - in order to make a safe 'base' at Hastings straight after the battle. Only when the Country was reasonably under control were the wooden castles gradually replaced by stone ones. The Normans shipped some of their building stone over from Caen in France, but they also took Over the stone quarries in England to supply castle- building materials. A typical stone Norman castle had much the same design as the earlier earth and wooden one it replaced. There'd be a four-storey keep, divided up inside into rooms for the castle owner and his family (lined with tapestries to keep the draughts out), and storerooms filled with provisions so that the castle could withstand a siege. The servants and other hangers-on lived in wooden huts built up against the inside of the stone walls surrounding the castle. And here's where our story really starts, because in the centre of this area was an open courtyard which Would later evolve into a very basic ornamental garden.
Windsor Sets a Trend Of all the castles built by William the Conqueror, only one can claim I,000 years of continuous roval occupancy: Windsor Castle. Built in 1070 as part of the outer ring of fortifications that the Normans constructed around London, it was deliberately perched on the only high ground for miles, which made the castle easy to defend. Although the site was chosen for sound strategic reasons, the big attraction for William was the nearby forest, which had been a popular Saxon hunting ground. Hunting was his favourite sport, so the accommodation was improved and Windsor became one of his hunting lodges. It wasn't until around the year IIOO that a later king, Henry I, bought the land immediately around the castle and made a garden. The original Norman castle and its early garden have long since been swallowed up by generations of extensions, improvements and alterations by successive monarchs.To impress the people of London, who were not easily conquered, William ordered the construction of his grandest castle of all - the Tower of London. This was a four-storey square tower, which was built from stone right from the start and whitewashed to make it stand out. Since the King and his court regularly stayed there, it was fitted out with much better living quarters than the average castle of its time. Later kings added outer defences, extra living accommodation and gardens, and it was to be a royal residence for some time before turning into a top people's prison and execution centre. Nowadays it,s more Iight grey than white, and houses the Crown Jewels.......
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Stowaways The original pinks -a wild species Dianthus caryophyllus -are said to have been growing as weeds clinging to stone which was imported into England in Norman times for building castles. Wallflowers were also introduced during the Norman occupation, and commonly self-seeded into chinks in castle walls, hence their name.
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