(Above) Baconsthorpe Castle in north Norfolk, which I visited as a child. I can remember being completely over-awed by the antiquity of the place. Baconsthorpe features prominently in the medieval Paston Letters, which describe feuding between the Heydon and Paston families over the Fastolf inheritance (Sir John Fastolf amassed a huge fortune from plunder during various invasions of France - Shakespeare satirised him as Sir John Falstaff in Henry V and The Merry Wives of Windsor).
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story
(as Tennyson said).
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