Places: Winchester Castle

One of the main, if not the main, residence of the early Platagenet kings when they were in England was this castle, located in Hampshire, England.  The castle was begun by William the Conqueror I 1067 and added onto by successive generations of Plantagenet rulers.  It was here that a mural depicting an adult eagle being cannibalized by its young served as an omen to Henry II of the treatment he would receive at the hands of his sons.  And he was right. 

Henry III was born at Winchester and it remained his favorite residence and base throughout his reign.  He began construction of the Great Hall, which is the only part of the Castle to remain today.  The stone is flint, and the hall had lower walls and a roof with dormer windows.  An imitation of King Arthur's Round Table was placed on the wall of the Great Hall in the 13th century.  It would be repainted during the reign of Henry VIII, when all things Camelot were in vogue.  The roof was replaced in 1873 during the reign of Queen Victoria, a distant Plantagenet and Tudor descendant. 

The Castle and its Great Hall have been witnesses to a great deal of history.  Empress Matilda was besieged in the Castle by the forces of King Stephen.  In 1302, Edward I and his wife were nearly killed when the royal apartments caught fire.  Margaret of York, a daughter of King Edward IV, was born at Winchester, as were other Plantagenet princes and princess whom we'll run across in due time.  Royalists took over the castle during the English Civil War, until it was taken over by the Parliamentarians.  Oliver Cromwell ordered what was left of the Castle destroyed in 1646, which is why only the Great Hall stands today.  Behind the Great Hall is a reconstructed Medieval garden known as Queen Eleanor's garden, though there is no evidence that either Eleanor of Aquitaine or Eleanor of Castile ever used it.