Carisbrooke Castle is located near Newport on the Isle of Wight, Hampshire, England. The castle is a motte-and-bailey one, and there was likely a fortress in the location from pre-Roman times as a Roman wall was discovered here to provide protection against Viking raids. Charles I was imprisoned in the castle after the Civil War and later executed. The castle contains a museum, wall walks, chapel, museum, gardens, and a well room with donkeys. I visited it in the summer of 2009.
The castle has beautiful views from the top of the mound where the older castle keep used to be situated. Cannons can also be seen here along with beautiful gardens. There are also nice wall walks around the castle.
The resident donkeys draw water from the well-house up, and donkeys have been doing this for hundreds of years. There are daily demonstrations to watch the donkeys bring the water up via the water wheel, 49 meters from the bottom of the castle well. When I visited, Jigsaw was the name of the young donkey that demonstrated this to our group.
The chapel is known as St. Nichloas'. It was built in 1904 to commemorate 250 years since the execution of Charles I. The chapel is a memorial for the war dead of the whole of the Isle of Wight after World War I.
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