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Thursday 11 April 2013

A castle, a sin-eater and a pilgrimage

I've had a friend staying the last few days so have been out and about.....we both love visiting new places, discovering interesting things and just being curious:)
So, on Tuesday we went to STOKESAY CASTLE in Shropshire....it is a medieval fortified manor house.




 I found Stokesay to be a very atmospheric place......you could almost feel the people that used to live there......this is the original staircase and hand rail.

 ADAM and EVE carved above the gatehouse

While we were there we picked up a leaflet about Shropshire churches.....over lunch we came across an entry for St Margaret in Ratlinghope where the last sin eater in England is buried!
 What the heck, I'd never heard of that......so we just had to go see it! And here it is!
 Getting there was interesting.......as you can see:)



So, onto Wednesday. 
We headed into north Wales this time to go to St Winefride's Well in Holywell. This has been a site of pilgrimage for over 13 centuries and it is said that if you bathe in the waters you will be cured. 
I have to say I found this quite a strange place, it had an odd feeling about it....kind of hard to explain!





 Crutches left by people who no longer needed them after being cured.


8 comments:

Helen said...

You always find the most fascinating places, Stokesay looks fabulous!! I'd not heard of sin eaters either...

Sarah Anderson said...

Just been past the back of your house - sorry we couldn't stop, I had a niece with me who needed to be home. Sounds like you've had some grand adventures over the last few days, that castle does look great. Did you find out what a sin-eater was?

Carol Q said...

what a fabulous and fascinating place to visit Sue. will have to add it to my list.

Artyjen said...

Oh my! How fab ;)
xoxo Sioux

Dawn said...

Ooh Sue what a fab post, you get to some fascinating places! Lol I know where you are coming from with the 'atmospheres', I have felt those myself in many strange places over the years. Don't know if it's any help but there is a film called 'The Sin Eater' starring Heath Ledger and Mark Addy, quite dark and intriguing, it portrays the sin eater as a mythical person who sucked a persons sins from their body as they were dying in order to cleanse their soul before they passed over - how accurate this is is beyond me!!
Huge hugs x

G Peplow said...

What a magnificent medieval manor house, ooh all the m's :0) You certainly do find some fabulous places to visit, this one is now definitely on my bucket list! The sin eater is familiar to me although I thought it was fiction, I would love to know if there was actually a person who performed this service, fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing!

lmp said...

That is fascinating!! Thank you for sharing.

Gráinne said...

Wish it was near ... I'd love to visit this place. Absolutely great and intriguing pics, thanks for sharing them. I love looking at the pictures of your ventures. I didn't know what a sineater is either, but once you know it's no surprise coming from that origin, I think ... very interesting. Suzanne xx