18.08.09 - St Mary's Church, inside Portchester Castle. Although there is no mention of a church here in the Domesday Book, many historians suspect that there may have been a small priory here in Saxon times, as the Roman walls, built in the third century, offered a degree of protection from the elements, which monks might well have taken advantage of when establishing their kitchen gardens.

Portchester Castle is one of my favourite places - when I was a young trainee journalist with The News, and stationed at the Fareham office, one of my duties was to compile the "Portchester Notes", for the now sadly defunct Hampshire Telegraph and the late Arthur Garrett, editor of the weekly paper and deputy editor of The News itself, gave me my first feature assignment, a back page special on Professor Barry Cunliffe's archaeological dig, which uncovered a great many graves of monks from the site.

I need to see if I can get hold of a copy of the article from The News, hopefully with permission to reprint it in these pages.