We had a nice slow start this morning, cooking ourselves bacon and egg sandwiches and having a coffee before getting up and ready to go. Our entrance tickets for Framlingham Castle weren’t until 12 but I wanted to stop by the Saxtead Green Post Mill on the way as it was right nearby. It took us about an hour to drive down there, but was fairly easy driving and a nice day. I was listening to the end of my audiobook while Peter had a look at stuff on his phone so it was nice and relaxing. We knew the post mill was closed but still wanted to have a look at a proper old school windmill, which is definitely something I associate more with the Netherlands than with England! When we got there and pulled up out the front it was gorgeous and bigger than I’d expected.. but also still closed, so it was a quick stop and photo before turning the car around and heading to Framlingham.

It was only about a 10 minute drive down to Framlingham and we quickly found a park in the market square, although after a walk up to the castle we established there was an English Heritage car park so power-walked back down the hill and moved the car up. May as well take advantage of those membership perks! It was a funny novelty parking in the field next to a castle too! We walked down the gravel to the proper bridge and crossed it to find ourselves in a fair line, which was a surprise after the smooth running of the castles in Wales. After waiting for about ten minutes or so, we were admitted with all the information about their cleanliness rules and were free to join the next queue for the wall walk. 

Luckily this one was fairly quick and within a few minutes we found ourselves in a beautiful old building with a timeline and some information about the history of the castle. Framlingham has passed from the hands of the Earls and Dukes of Norfolk and the royal family many, many, many times over its history and seems to have been a great bargaining chip for several kings to keep the loyalty of their subjects! After this timeline and some information about Mary I living there and its later use of the castle and buildings as a plague hospital and then a workhouse for the poor, we headed up a steep spiral staircase that led to the castle walls. From the top of the walls we had spectacular views of the deep ditch around the castle, as well as across the surrounding area. There were information plaques at intervals around the walls and these explained that at each tower there had been drawbridges that were able to isolate sections of the wall in case anyone had managed to climb up them (unlikely, they were very high). There were replicas of these bridges that maintained the continuance of the path around the walls, with quite ominous drops down to ground level or lower floors visible through the slats as you crossed them! As we came around to about three quarters of the wall walk it began to spit a bit and by the time we were back at ground level it was beginning to drizzle. After a final walk around the grounds, we headed out the gates. We’d intended to walk around the outside of the castle walls but with the drizzle settling in determinedly, we headed instead to the pub. 

Yet another ‘Castle Inn’ waited for us by the exit to the castle so we turned up there expecting an inside table. As a nice little surprise, they had outdoor booths that were covered by little castle roofs! We grabbed a spot and ordered scampi and chips for me and a sandwich for Peter and enjoyed our lunch while appreciating the shelter even more. Luckily by the time we’d finished eating it had mostly stopped raining so we headed off on the path around the outside of the castle. This was just a path following the ditch (it was never a moat, just a ditch to make climbing the walls even less attractive) around the outside, but had great views looking up at the walls and a few extra rooms, gates and bridge pillars of the castle. When we came to the end of the path we were basically across from the car park so from there we hopped back in the car and headed off again. 

We’d intended to visit two Roman ruins and Great Yarmouth in the afternoon but we’d taken longer than expected to eat lunch and the weather was also quite awful so we ended up shortening it a bit. It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to get up to Burgh Castle - longer than expected but there were some traffic delays and I was being careful because of the rain. When we got there and parked the car we took what seemed like a familiar walk through hedgerows towards the monument. Our first little stop was a Norman church with a gorgeous round tower that had been there since the early 1000s, but had been built upon and was still an active church. We giggled at the name of ‘St Peter and St Paul’ and Peter sent a picture to his cousin Paul. However, as we kept walking and found our way to the Roman fort itself we were quite dumbstruck at the sight of it! We’d read on the sign that the fort had walls that were original height but hadn’t really expected something that was almost 2000 years old to survive to this extent. On arrival though, we found walls that were impeccably preserved - crumbly-looking but still enormous and imposing and with a clear place for a gate in the middle. We followed the path to the gate and read the plaque explaining that there had been a Roman settlement here to protect the eastern coast of Roman Britain and that a variety of evidence of this settlement had been excavated from the area around the fort. Three walls were still existing and only the third (on the river side) had crumbled and disappeared over time. We did a loop around the site and admired the view across the river of another huge windmill - this one is also English Heritage but was too far to drive around to for something that was closed. After a walk along the reed beds at the waterfront we looked back around for another look through the fort, but at this point it started raining again. We’d both forgotten to bring umbrellas so when it started drizzling fairly decently we started the walk back. Lucky timing because by the time we got to the car, it was raining pretty decently. The plan had initially been to go up to another Roman fort at Caister but it was getting late and with the rain setting in, we decided to head back to Wymondham. 

It took about 45 minutes to drive back and when we got back we just sat around for a bit deciding what to have for dinner. There was a Thai place up the road so we called and ordered some takeaway and after some delays and waiting at 6:30 when the order was supposed to be ready, we got our food and headed back to the ‘apartment’. There we enjoyed an evening of Netflix, pad Thai and beers!