🏰 “ROCKINGHAM CASTLE ESTATE FROM 1066” - Rockingham, Market Harborough UK 🇬🇧 ~ Wednesday Walk

Hi all 👋🏻

Did you miss me?
I know some of you are questioning where I am.
Let me tell you what is going on the last month or so.
I am and have been preparing an unexpected country move again 😎 with many other things in between happening, as timing… isn’t always right, most of you will know 🤓

In between of packing, planning and sorting out everything I have also been tiling floors at the in-laws. (Driving to theirs was over 2 days south every time)
Once back again in Scotland I finished up packing. And made it just in time 🎉

The movers came and picked up our belongings last Wednesday, and we handed the keys of the rental house back to the owner on Friday. (Ok ok… we never met the owners, we had to send the keys via POST ✉️)
I will post at a later time about it all and the drive down south… 🤓 and all the next steps that still will follow.

So we said GOODBYE to SCOTLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 on the drive down over 2 days south 🇬🇧 on Friday. 👋🏻😢
At the moment I am again at the in-laws.

Soon new adventures start though 😉
Coming Saturday (6 May) we hop on a large ferry ⛴️ and I will finally move countries. 🤩 We hope to arrive at the next rental house sometime Sunday afternoon.
Again… I rented this house 🏡 unseen 🫣 but I have a good feeling about it.

All will be fine. 😊

But let’s not divert too far… back to this post and walk.
The second day I had off (in more than a month) I went again for a longggg walk.
And today I want to share this walk with you all.
It was around the ROCKINGHAM CASTLE GROUNDS, located in Rockingham, Market Harborough in the #UK 🇬🇧

With this post I’m joining in at the Wednesday Walk challenge and Make me Smile challenge. That are hosted by @tattoodjay and @elizacheng every week on Wednesday.

‼️Have a look: Here in the Wednesday Walk Community if you want to join in!… the community is run by @tattoodjay.
Look at his last Wednesdaywalk post here: ‘Wednesday Walk Random Details at Haskell gardens‘
It will tell you also the rules of joining in at the Wednesday walk posts 😁 come join us!

Today’s selection will be of 66 photographs.
Date: 30 April 2023.
The Photographs in this post are all taken with my iPhone 📱🤓
I will follow the time stamps on them. So it looks like you are walking along with me on this #walk, to 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻 #discover everything what I saw, like the little #details seen through my eyes and the stunning #scenery, #castle, #forest, #fields and #sheep. 😊

Screenshot of the Location on Google maps, see the yellow star ⭐️ :

Zooming out a bit for you… again a screenshot from Google maps.

More information about this castle and the grounds around it you can find here: “Here in their own website from Rockingham Castle”

Do have a look… you will find the long history about this site.
The website states;
That it dates from around pre-Norman times. 1066… records were found that it goes back that far imagine that 😳.
Source!

Let’s start our WALK now:
Are you coming along? 😉😊

After parking the car we see the following views:

Walking towards the castle…

The views over the valley. The castle is located on higher grounds.

Looking a bit further we see a church ⛪️

As we passed through the castle gates and walk further into the courtyard and have a look around.

Walking further around we reach this area, where we see the tower and a large grass field.

The castle does look amazing. It has all the features you would expect to find at a castle from this age.

Let’s walk towards the castle walls…

As you can see, it is spring and the vines… trees and bushes are getting leaves.

Peeking over the castle walls we have these fantastic views over the valley.

I take a #low #angle #photograph towards the castle.

The dark hedge you see on the right is called “the elephant hedge” I found on the visitor map in the leaflet we received at the entrance.

The leaflet with the visitor map. See number 11.

Looking closer at the hedge… I can’t see any figures of elephants just blobs…
What do you see?

We pass by this gate, we don’t enter yet… but will do later on today.

Looking at the beautiful gardens. The rose bushes are not bearing any flowers yet. Neither do the herbs alongside them.

A statue in the middle of it.

I find some daisies again… sorry @joetunex I didn’t make the necklace yet 😉 soon… I will.

As we walk further we see this structure with steps along the side. Let’s go and check it out. 😎

This must be amazing when the #flowers 🌸 start to bloom… on the branches covering the gazebo. The visitors map on the leaflet let us know it is a ’bandstand’ number 14.

Hubby took the following photo of me in it 😎

Let’s have a view around from this higher place.
Where we came from… 😊

A view towards the rose gardens.

Looking a bit further around.

Come, let’s go down again and explore more areas… 😉
I find some buttercups along the way down, next to the steps.

A corner 😊🌺

Walking along… looking through arches.

We reach the tulips 🌷 they are in full flower.
This photograph will do well for #alwaysaflower as Denise / @dswigle shows us in her posts. Hi you 👋🏻☀️

We even see a little #butterfly 🦋

A close up 📸🌷

Aren’t they beautiful? 🥰

We find some large bug hotels… 🦗🐜🐞🐝🐌🕷️

In these grounds there are many benches to rest… and watch the beauty around you.

Remember the arch we peeked through? We saw this statue… now we see it up close. 🤓

Let’s walk further… are you still with me?
Yes! Great 😊

I have a little surprise for you… see the sign?
It’s a children’s trail: Wentworth explorer trail

Let’s follow it as we can see and learn a bit more. 🤓

Along it’s path… the trail has many #wildflowers 🌼🌸

We see this #BEE 🐝 #HIVE

Along this trail we find many signs with interesting facts on it. Here we can read about the #honeybee 🐝🐝🐝🐝

Behind the sign and Hive we find this large butterfly bush.

Next is the Badger 🦡

The tree has some awesome texture 😎

The #ladybird 🐞 within the background another insect hotel 😎

Next to us I see this little insect on a flower.

Some lovely spring flowers around us… so beautiful 🌸🥰

More trails… we won’t go that way today.

Our views as we walk the explorer trail further, I won’t show all the signs 🪧 don’t worry hehehe 🤭

Just this one from the #hedgehog 🦔

We walk further… and we find blossoms on the trees.
This was on the side of the tree trunk.

Walking under these 🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸 was just amazing.

How could I not take many, many….. and even more photographs here 📸📸📸📸🌸🌸🌸🌸 hahaha 😂🤣

Everywhere pink and white blossoms 🥰

At the far end we turn around and walk back towards the castle.

Along this tree lined path.

With some great views towards the castle 🏰

Remember that gate? I said we would go back for…
We go there now and follow this path that goes rather steep down the valley.

We see so many wildflowers around us. 🌸🌼

Until we reach these fields with the sheep.
Our path goes right through them.
The sheep 🐑 seem not to mind. The lambs are already a bit older…

Some look up while we walk along… 😊

We reach the castle walls again… 🐑🐑🐑

One of the sheep is resting with her lambs 🐑🐑🐑

As it is much later in the day now… we decide to take a look at the courtyard again. As there are not many other visitors around anymore.
We enter the gates 🏰

We have a look closer at some parts of the buildings.

Even the drainage is old and dated. 🤓

The courtyard looking towards the main castle buildings. You see clearly sections from different times.

Walking out of the castle grounds… we see 😊

I just needed to capture this last detail, as you may know… I love details 🥰

And with this last photograph I say “that’s all for today’s post my friends we are back at the car park and say goodbye, join me next time for more #adventures, #stories and #photographs 😎👋🏻 Even some #artworks once in a while will come by” 🎨
Thank you so much for looking, and reading.

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Any questions or comments, let me know. Always happy to help.

Have a great Wednesday all 😎
Grtz Jackie

The divider by SilverFish / mondoshawan

Unless stated otherwise: All art and photos used in my posts are taken, created and owned by me. If you wish to use any of my photographs, please contact me first. As I have used some commercially myself. We don’t want that you or somebody else gets into trouble 😉 So please don’t use them without my consent.

🖼 My PRINTSHOP: for the purchase of all kind of prints in many sizes from my Artworks 🎨 and Photography 📸 Which come on different objects too. Have a look in My Prints Shop!

If you want to see where I traveled to and what I already shared in @pinmapple, have a look at my personal map here: Littlebee4 PINMAPPLE MAP

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!pinmapple 52.51316 lat -0.72454 long 🏰 “ROCKINGHAM CASTLE ESTATE FROM 1066” - Rockingham, Market Harborough UK 🇬🇧 ~ Wednesday Walk d3scr