Be It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home.

When I was drawing this picture, two sayings came to mind. The first saying you can see in the title to this post - you can imagine the Baron safe and snug in his castle and the peasant snug in his hovel. Secondly, "An Englishman's home is his castle," which equally fits the scene. I'm Welsh, by the way, but heck who's counting?

When William the Conqueror came over from Normandy, France, in 1066, and conquered Britain, Alan Rufus came with him (aka Alan le Roux or Alan the Red). William gave Richmond to Alan as a reward for his part in defeating the people of Yorkshire. Alan became the Earl of Richmond and started building the Castle there in 1067, as a defence at the entrance to Swaledale.

Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, England   John Simlett 2012
Pen & Ink   16" x 9"

The castle is quite a large fortification, my picture shows only the keep, which is typically Norman. In fact if I stand in my garden and look South, I can see an identical Norman keep, Conisbrough Castle, which is almost the same distance and elevation as the keep in my picture. Incidentally, Sir Walter Scott used Conisbrough Castle as the setting of his book, "Ivanhoe". Consequently everything in our village is connected to the story: Ivanhoe School, Ivanhoe Community Centre etc..

Conibrough Castle, Yorkshire

Richmond castle has been drawn/painted/photographed so many times that I wouldn't have bothered with it until, however, I discovered a photograph of it that was taken in 1893 and I used that as my reference photograph.


The first recorded market to be held in Richmond was in 1155, and, by 1440 it was a market town trading in dairy produce, wine, fish, coal, lead-ore, copper and silk.

Here's how a Victorian Guidebook describes it:


The situation of Richmond is one of singular beauty, and the ruins are of exceptional interest. The town is perched on the summit of a plateau ... The river takes a bold curving sweep, so that nature has carved out of the plateau a bastion-like headland...From the market place a narrow and crooked street leads to the entrance to the castle ...


I think I've managed to capture that, 'narrow and crooked street,' winding its way up to the castle.


I've learnt about the shortfalls of photographing my work: some of the lines are only a tenth of a millimetre wide, so when I reduce the picture these lines are lost and the image appears much lighter than the original - clicking on the picture may help to darken it for you.