Home

I felt such a nice sense of relief getting back home to the hotel room from my day trip to Wroxeter Roman Ruins, Craven Arms and the Stokesay Castle.  And I think of the relief I will feel tomorrow when I get back home to my flat London.  And then how I will feel when I get back home to LA.  Wait....where is my home?  What exactly makes a home?  They say home is where you hang your toothbrush.  I remember that the most when I was on the precipice of becoming a Road Comic back in the 90s.  It was supposed to make you feel better about being on the road 350 days a year and never seeing your friends or family.  I think it just reminded you to take your toothbrush.

It's fascinating to see so many ancient homes.  Wroxeter was built for 5000 Roman troops stationed in the area to keep the pesky Welsh and Picts under control.  When the Romans left, some stayed behind with their new Welsh friends and families.  They made themselves a new home.  But not having access to the money for upkeep and repairs (the Romans now had domestic issues to pour their wealth into) it fell into disrepair in the 4th century.  Artists' illustrations show it going from a large, marble covered Emerald City to a shanty town of sepia-toned shacks and lean-tos.  Stones were pinched for more important Anglo-Saxon buildings elsewhere in the 7th century.

The Castle on the other hand was a residence from 1291 when the refurbishments on a defensive tower were complete until 1869 when John Allcott bought it because he knew it was important, even though he was building the impressive Stokesay Court just 3 miles away which also still stands and was featured as the lavish residence in the film, Atonement.  That's almost 600 years of being called home.  What a lucky house!  Not so many get to claim so many residence, so many people who walk through the threshold and proclaim, "Home at last!"  These days, while it is a beautiful place, it is home only to tourists during the day and bats and cats at night.  At least there is someone there to love it.

My audio guide, an actor's interpretation of the Victorian lady responsible for much of the castle's restoration, tells me that each owner treated the house quite well, down to the first major landowner in the area who bought it from a close relative of William the Conqueror in the 11th Century.  A later owner loved it so much that when the Parlimentarians tried to conquer it (because it looks like a castle/fortress - it must be conquered!) in the name of Oliver Cromwell, they just simply surrendered, lest the house be damaged.  So much for the tower, secret passages and crossbow slits.  But thanks to their yellow-bellied cowardice, it continued to be a lovely, happy residence for many, many years. 

What is amazing is that this castle has survived about 700 years and Dad's house, where we moved when I was 4, only made it 45 years. It now sits post-auction, alone save for the contents that my brother an I don't want.   Dad was never one for value-added on that house.  The previous one, he certainly added a little somethin-somethin when he painted a mural of a stream with restful trees on the dining room wall, a tradition my brother followed at the Rodney Dr house by painting an American flag on his one window-less bedroom wall.  I wonder what it would take to keep my childhood home going for 700 years....?

Just a thought, but there were an awful lot of carved, wooden topless ladies in the castle.  Is that the missing link?