A Selection of Interesting Castles

To access the Document, click on the link below.

A Selection of Interesting Castles

Synopsis

The document provides information on pre-1600 castles which have been viewed, and on others of particular interest, most of which it was intended to visit, but unfortunately physical limitations intervened. A total of 844 castles on the mainland and inner islands of Great Britain, are listed, of which number, 675 (80%) have been viewed. The list is a large sample, but not comprehensive; Salter, in his remarkable series of books, probably lists more than three times as many, which still exist in some form, and some websites present larger selections in local areas. To present the information, I have divided the country into regions, sometimes individual counties where castles are ‘thick on the ground’, otherwise groups of counties. For each, I have produced a document containing a listing of the castles and a set of single page information sheets for each castle. The front page listing distinguishes between the castles, which have been viewed, and those which have not; it gives the National Grid location of all of them, together with some further information. The information sheets, one per castle, always include a representational photograph, and text, but where the configuration is very complex, I add a schematic diagram or aerial view obtained from the web. Brevity is the rule for the text, especially when I know that guide books are available, but I give a verbal description of the castle’s whereabouts, an account of the history of the castle and its precursors, running through to the present day, and a description of the whole, including dimensions of at least one key building. Much of the information and numerous photographs of unvisited castles has been obtained from websites, which I list in the document preamble.