Busy day today - down to Fareham for a trike-related job this morning. Pleasantly, that turned out to be rather more straightforward than we'd anticipated and next we trundled off for a peer at Portchester Castle, a medieval castle built on the site of a Roman fort. Rob had wanted to visit it for some time, but never had the opportunity, so even the soggy weather didn't deter him :)



We rather liked the suitably-fonted loo sign :-






Before toddling round the castle, we fortified ourselves with tea and toasted teacakes at the St Mary's Church Tearooms, inside the castle's curtain wall. The ladies running it are lovely and serve a really nice cuppa for a very reasonable price.

They also have a lovely relaxed attitude to folk peering at the church architecture, which is jolly nice too.

Twelfth century carved font :-




Stained glass window commemorating a local naval officer :-




Castle entrance :-




The Keep - it has many, many stairs. Going up them wasn't too bad, but coming down was painful to the knees…




Rob braved the spiral staircase at the top of the keep to get a photo from the roof, but I delined to emulate his bold example :)

On coming out, we spotted this conveyance ready to carry newlyweds away from St Mary's :-




We left via the water gate :-




And they weren't kidding about that - the sea is about six feet away from it ;-





We'd booked into a hotel for the night, but having finished early, it seemed ridiculous to hang about overnight, so we decided to go home instead.