Totnes Castle, Devon · Travel Poster

Each poster comes with a letter home. Ella writes about the place, its hidden history, and the detail that never makes it into the guidebooks.

Totnes Castle is one of the best preserved Norman motte-and-bailey castles in Britain, and the largest of its kind in Devon, its mound rising 17.5 metres above the town it was built to control. William the Conqueror granted the estate to Judhael of Brittany after 1066, who raised the first timber castle here, only to fall from favour and flee into exile in 1088, never getting it back. And yet in roughly 900 years standing guard over Totnes, the castle has never once been besieged or attacked, a rare record for a Norman stronghold anywhere in the country.

This poster is an original illustration in watercolour and ink, painted exclusively for the Ella's Adventures travel poster series.

No frame included.