The castle that was never once attacked

Here's the Totnes Castle fact that made me want to paint it. It's one of the best preserved Norman motte-and-bailey castles anywhere in Britain, and the largest of its kind in Devon, its mound rising 17.5 metres above the town it was built to watch over. William the Conqueror granted the estate to Judhael of Brittany not long after 1066, and Judhael raised the first timber castle on the site, only to back the wrong side in a rebellion, fall from favour, and flee into exile in 1088. He never got Totnes back.

What I find genuinely remarkable, though, is what didn't happen here afterwards. In roughly 900 years standing over the town, Totnes Castle has never once been besieged or attacked, an almost unheard of record for a Norman stronghold built during centuries of rebellion, invasion and civil war. The timber tower gave way to the stone shell-keep still standing today, added in the 1320s, and the whole thing has simply sat there quietly ever since, doing its job by never actually having to do it.

I painted Totnes Castle in watercolour and ink, that round stone keep above the rooftops. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Totnes Castle, Devon · Travel Poster