Hedgehogs

medievallove:

Carisbrooke Castle, Isle Of Wight, UK by daveyboyhill on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
There has been a fortress here - known as ‘Wihtgarasburh’ - since Saxon times, but the present castle was begun on this site in c. 1100, when the Isle of Wight was granted to the de Redvers family. The last of the family, the energetic Countess Isabella, extensively rebuilt the castle after 1262. Following the addition of its distinctive double-towered 14th-century gatehouse, Carisbrooke experienced its only siege in 1377, beating off a seaborne French raiding force which had burnt Yarmouth.
(English Heritage Website, 2008)