Yesterday I went to the little known (to me anyway) village of Wigmore and explored the castle there. I had a brilliant time walking at my own pace up from the designated car park to the church first and then onto the castle. I had first thought the church was the castle as that was the only old building I could see from the village centre... so when I got to the church and realised my stupidity, I looked around for the castle - nothing visible to me at all. Strange, I thought, have I lost it! That became a bit of theme because as I approached the castle I lost it a couple of times when the path swerved a bit or dipped down. Once I got there, I decided to walk all around it and so followed a path to the right and lost it again. This time I found myself in the woods with no sight of the ruin at all. Luckily, my sense of direction is reasonably accurate and eventually after cavorting like a mountain goat I found a ruined wall, climbed round it and ended up in the centre of the old Great Hall!
There is a wonderful sense of history about the place and I could visualise the grandeur of the Mortimer family and their connections with royalty and looking out over the tumbled down walls at the views over Wigmore cemetery you can see for miles and miles. There are several information boards dotted around (useful for clue writing), and I came away feeling I'd learnt a lot in a relatively short space of time. The site is managed by English Heritage and I think they've got the balance of wildness and information just right.
I had a fab time, helped of course by the wonderful spring, actually, almost summer-like weather! My head was full of the views I'd seen and the stuff I'd learnt and the creative parts of my brain were coming up with fiendish and sneaky clues for a new Treasure Trail. Turns out I haven't lost it after all.
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