Monday 26 October 2009

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott

``I was born a native of these parts,'' answered their guide, and as he made the reply they stood before the mansion of Cedric;---a low irregular building, containing several court-yards or enclosures, extending over a considerable space of ground, and which, though its size argued the inhabitant to be a person of wealth, differed entirely from the tall, turretted, and castellated buildings in which the Norman nobility resided, and which had become the universal style of architecture throughout England.

Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland







Saturday 24 October 2009

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe

When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys.

Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire