Carisbrooke Castle - A Tour of the Norman Fortress Used to Imprison Charles I

foreign [Applause] [Music] Brook Castle the perfect example of a Norman Martin Bailey Castle which has been in service on the Isle of Wight for over 800 years my name is Hannah and I'm going to be your tour guide [Music] Charles the first was imprisoned here at carisbrook before his execution during the Civil War to begin with he was afforded all the luxuries you could expect of a king and he even had his very own Bowling Green created for him however after two unsuccessful Escape attempts he was treated more like a prisoner and behind me you will see the window where he got his head stuck through the bars in an attempt to escape [Music] we know that there would have been a garden here throughout the Castle's history but it was Princess Beatrice who made it her privy garden now we don't know much about what it would have looked like back then but when it was designed in 2009 by Chris beard Shaw it was heavily inspired by the Edwardian Garden she may have enjoyed oh [Music] many of the colors you'll see throughout the garden are inspired by the colors in the chapel windows and they're also the colors you'll find in Beatrice's heraldic arms this is the perfect place to have a tranquil moment on your visit at carisbrook you can take in the sounds of nature from the birds in the trees [Music] the bubbling of the fountain and the sense of all of our beautiful perennials [Music] one of karisbrick's most unique assets is its donkeys and here at carisbrick we have six of them but what you might not know is they actually only spend about 30 seconds of their day on the wheel and they spend most of their day down here in their five acre field all of our donkeys have names that begin with J and this goes back to King Charles the first imprisonment at carisbrook it was said that when he wrote his letters to his allies he would always sign his letters with a J and since then the donkeys of carisbrook have all proudly had J names [Music] now it was actually the job of prisoners and servants originally to turn this wheel but it took them about half an hour to bring up one bucket of water and this was the Castle's only reliable water source so it really wasn't good enough so it's in 1696 that we had the first written record of a donkey taking to the wheel and once they went to donkey power they never looked back because these powerful animals were able to do the same amount of work in just 10 minutes this morning I am joined by the gorgeous jigsaw now jigsaw is actually one of six donkeys that we are very fortunate to look after here at the castle she did celebrate her 20th birthday just recently and she is one of the fastest of our donkeys so she does have a tendency to take this wheel at speeds that was never designed for so when working with Jigsaw we find we have to keep one eye on the break at all times girl that's it nice and steady now this wheel is over 430 years old it's made of solid oak and it weighs one and a half tons now historically the donkeys would have to turn this wheel 34 times altogether that gets the bucket up to the water line and then brings it back up and when the buckets filled to its capacity it weighs around 16 and a half Stone so I'm sure you can imagine why we don't ask the donkeys to do that anymore thank you [Music] this is the chapel of Saint Nicholas in Castro now we know that there would have been a chapel in this area throughout the Castle's history but this particular Chapel was commissioned by Princess Beatrice who was the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria it was a memorial for Charles the first and would later become a memorial for those lost in active service to the state we still have Services throughout the year and it's a lovely connection with our local community these have been some of the highlights here at carisbrook Castle but there's so much more to see and do with events running throughout the season for more information head to our website and we hope to see you soon [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]