Skulferatu #110 - Bastion 14, London City Wall, Barbican, London

Travelling down to Kent, I found I had an unexpected day out and overnight stay in central London due to a train strike. So, what to do? Well, I did what I always do and went for a walk. After a foray around the banks of the Thames I cut up past Saint Paul’s and towards the Barbican. There, amongst an array of buildings from Brutalist concrete to glass and steel I spotted a ruin, sitting in a little oasis of green, just by the entrance to an underground carpark.

 

The ruins of Bastion 14 sitting by the 1970s Bastion House

 

Bastion 14 with concrete and glass buildings towering above it

 

Making my way down to it, I found that it was the remains of a fort that formed part of the old City Wall of London. This Medieval wall was built on the foundations of the old Roman wall around the city, and the fort, or Bastion 14 to give it its official title, was one of the 21 bastions built along it. 

 

Bastion 14

 

The original city wall was built by the Romans around 200AD as a defensive wall around Londinium. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, it fell into decay. In medieval times the need for a defensive wall was once again called for, and large sections of the wall were repaired and rebuilt. Then, in the 17^th century London expanded rapidly and the wall was seen as no longer necessary, so much of it was demolished.

 

Tourist Info Map at site, showing the course of the City Wall

 

When the city wall fell out of use, many of the bastions were incorporated into other buildings, with Bastion 14 at one time being used as part of a warehouse.

 

During the Second World War the area around Bastion 14 was flattened by bombing and the buildings encasing it were destroyed. The Bastion was then identified as a historic structure and was saved from demolition. However, the 1970s office block towering above it, Bastion House, doesn’t appear to be so lucky, as it is now earmarked for demolition. Shame, as it’s so ugly that I quite like it.

 

The walls of Bastion 14 with Bastion House towering above

 

Bastion House

 

I had the whole garden area to myself as I wandered the old wall and Bastion 14. As the sun warmed my old bones, insects buzzed around me, and two crows kept an eye on me as they skipped and hopped around the grass lawn looking for insects.

 

The old City Wall and Bastion 14

 

Dried husks and seed heads

 

Bastion 14 with glass and concrete buildings all around

 

Bastion 14

 

While walking along a path through a small garden area of dried husks and seed heads, I saw a gap in the old brickwork by the wall beside the Bastion. There I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me.

 

Skulferatu #110

 

Old wall beside Bastion 14

 

Skulferatu #110 in a gap in the wall beside Bastion 14

 

Skulferatu #110 in a gap in the wall beside Bastion 14

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #110

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 51.517828

Longitude -0.095148

 

what3words: bars.wider.teach

 

I used the following sources for information on Bastion 14 –

 

Tourist Information boards at the site

 

Museum of London Archaeology

A standing building survey of Bastion 14, City of London | MOLA

 

 

Skulferatu #74 - The Beheading Stone, Mote Hill, Stirling

 

On a hill, not far from Stirling Castle there is a strange little monument.  It looks like an iron cage sitting on a stone pedestal with a lump of rock locked in under the bars.  This is the Beheading Stone.

 

The Beheading Stone

 

The Beheading Stone was the traditional execution block in Medieval Stirling.  It sat, as it does now, on Mote Hill which was the place ‘of assembly, of judgement, and of execution in days of yore.’  It is thought that the stone was used to support a wooden block, and that the condemned man would place his chest on the stone and his head on the block.  The executioner would then use his axe to lop of the doomed man’s head.

 

A couple of cannons and the Beheading Stone on Mote Hill

 

In 1425 Murdoch Stewart, the Duke of Albany was executed here along with two of his sons and his father in law.  Stewart had served as Governor of Scotland while the future King James I was held captive in England.  After a rather large ransom had been paid for his release, James returned to Scotland.  Shortly after being crowned, James decided to consolidate his power and get rid of all those who may be a threat to him.  At the top of this list of potential threats was Murdoch Stewart.  On the King’s command he was arrested for treason along with several members of his family and a host of other members of the Scottish nobility.  A trial then took place against Murdoch Stewart, his two sons and his father in law, over which the King sat as the Judge.  Not surprisingly all were found guilty of treason.  They were then quickly marched down to Mote Hill and beheaded.  All their lands and properties were then forfeited to the Crown, so as well as getting rid of any potential threats to his rule, this was a nice little earner for James.

 

All of this made James quite an unpopular King and soon a group of scheming nobles decided it was time for him to go and for Walter Stewart, the Earl of Atholl to take the throne. Amongst this group of conspirators was one of the many nobles who had at one time been imprisoned by James, Sir Robert Graham.

 

On the night of 20 February 1437, King James and his Queen were staying in Blackfriars Monastery in Perth.  A group of around thirty men, with Sir Robert Graham at their head were let into the monastery by one of the King’s servants.  They made their way to his chambers where they stabbed him to death, with Graham administering the fatal blow.  The Queen, who had been wounded trying to protect her husband managed to escape.  She quickly took on the role of Regent for her young son James and then ordered the execution of all those involved in the killing of her husband.  It wasn’t long before many of those who had been involved in the assassination were captured, and in April of that year Graham was apprehended and taken to Stirling.  There he was tortured horribly over a period of three days before finally being beheaded on Mote Hill, with the old Beheading Stone playing its part in his execution.

 

The Beheading Stone was mounted on a plinth and enclosed in a cage of iron bars in 1887.  The money for this being raised by the Stirling Natural History and Archaeological Society through public subscription.

 

The Beheading Stone and view over Stirling to Wallace Monument

 

View from Mote Hill in 1897 - from the Merchants Guide to Stirling and District

 

View of the Wallace Monument from Mote Hill

 

Mote Hill is now quite a sedate place and near to the Beheading Stone are some benches to sit on, take in the view over Stirling, and quietly contemplate life, the universe and anything else worth pondering on.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk today in a hollow in the Beheading Stone.

 

Skulferatu #74

 

Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone

 

Skulferatu #74 on hollow in the Beheading Stone

 

Google Map showing the location of Skulferatu #74

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.127709

Longitude -3.942775

I used the following sources for information on the Beheading Stone –

 

The Merchant’s Guide to Stirling and District

1897

 

The Illustrated London News, September 22, 1906

 

Information Notices at the site

 

Wikipedia

Wikipedia - Sir Robert Graham

 

Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse

The dethe of James Kynge of Scotis

Skulferatu #51 - The Multangular Tower, Museum Gardens, York

 

It was my last day in York and having an hour to kill before catching the train home I went for a walk through the Museum Gardens.  There, not far from the entrance stands the Multangular Tower.

 

The Multangular Tower

 

The Multangular Tower is a defensive tower that was part of the Roman fortress of Eboracum.  It stood at the western corner of the fortress and is the last surviving one of eight similar towers that stood along the fortress wall.  The tower got its name from it having ten sides.

 

The tower and the surviving part of the original fortress wall were incorporated into the defences of Medieval York.  The top three metres of the tower and wall were added in the Thirteenth Century when the fortifications around the city were strengthened   The original Roman parts of the tower date from around the third Century.

 

Interior of the Multangular Tower

 

Walls at rear of Multangular Tower

 

Walls at rear of Multangular Tower

 

There is some debate on who originally had the tower and walls constructed, as in whether it was the Emperor Septimius Severus who had his headquarters in York between AD 208 and 211, or Constantine the Great, who was proclaimed Emperor of Rome while in York in AD 306.  We’ll probably never know, but I think everyone can agree that they are bloody ancient, having stood on this spot for around one thousand eight hundred years or so.  The things they must have seen…oh, if only walls could talk.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my stroll around the Museum Gardens, in a gap in the medieval wall around the back of the tower.

 

Skulferatu #51

 

Skulferatu #51 in a gap in the wall

 

Skulferatu #51 in a gap in the wall

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #51

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 53.961702

Longitude -1.086668

 

I used the following sources for information on the Multangular Tower –

 

Historic England – Multangular Tower and Wall Attached to South East

Historic England - Multangular Tower and Wall attached to South East

 

York Museum Gardens

The Multangular Tower - York Museum Gardens

 

Information board on the tower walls