This site aspires to be a comprehensive listing
of the medieval castles, castle sites, fortified houses, urban and
coastal defences and other fortifications of England, Wales, the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man built or
in use from 1000 to 1600. It's not a history of castles and users of
the site are expected to have a basic understanding of castles and
medieval England and Wales. The site is a regularly updated listing with location information, some brief site details, carefully considered weblinks and a full academic bibliography. The site is a resource for those interested
in castles studies both professional and amateur.
This is an ambitious project and any such list is bound to have omissions and errors. However, it is hoped that by using the flexible and responsive media of the Internet that this list can be as comprehensive and as current as possible. I've taken, as my standard for what is a fortification, that which the various authors I draw my information from consider to be a fortification, although some sites have later been rejected as fortifications and these are noted as such. Sites which consist of entirely passive defences such as moated houses and walled sites without wall walks and parapets are generally excluded. However, as a 'control group', I do list all the royal and episcopal residential houses and hunting lodges of the period (lumped together under the title 'palace'). Some of these were fortified but many were not. Defining 'the castle' is difficult and any definition of a castle, whilst explaining why places of different social status and form are all castles, should also explain why some places of equal social status were not castles.
 |
|---|
The site consists of three main sections. The first is the listings of medieval fortifications; the second is a listing of the texts and online sources used in compiling information for these lists, this section also contains details of some other important or useful texts and Internet resources; the third section is a collection of other resources of interest to castle studies such as distribution maps, a list of licences to crenellate and some other transcriptions of primary sources and some lists and discussion of archaeological terminology.
There are relatively few pictures in this site since the information on the site takes up several ten of megabytes of space. I hope the content will make up for the lack of bells and whistles.
 |
 |
 |
||
SOURCES |
LISTS OF SITES |
OTHER INFORMATION |
In the web site are over 5000 individual pages for medieval fortified sites. Unfortunately it is not possibly to directly search for an individual site from within the web site (but the county and site indexes are useful). The site is pretty well indexed by Google and use of the Google search engine below should produce full results but see the news section below for latest information as the Google updating of the changes to the site takes some time.
I am not responsible for the advertisements on the Google results page and I gain no revenue from these.
AcknowledgementsThis project has been much assisted by the help and support of many kind and
knowledgeable people. DisclaimerWhile I have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the data held within this web site and the associated downloadable databases, it must be appreciated that much of this is compiled from secondary sources and that the information supplied may not be a full or reliable statement of the archaeological resource. I shall not be held liable in respect of any errors or omissions from the listing provided. (i.e. If you use this site for something important check the secondary sources that I give and then the sources they have used.) Please do inform me of any errors you do find. The site contains some copyrightable material belonging to third parties used with permission on the bases that this site is not commercial and is provided as an educational resource. Use of material from this web site for commercial purposes may breach copyright restrictions and result in prosecution. You will need to check all given sources to establish the actual copyright holder. |
 |
Castle Pulverbatch, Shropshire. Photo by kind permission of Julian Livsey |
NEWS |
||
Happy New Year. A couple more books added to the general bibliography; Peter Rex's 1066: A New History of the Norman Conquest and the excellent collection of conference papers The Impact of the Edwardian Castles in Wales edited by Diane William and John Kenyon. In the later a paper by Rick Turner drew my attention to the lost Pareas Hall, in Chester, a rare fortified town house. I had previous noted that this was an area where little study had been done and since Rick had only identified one other fortified town house himself it was clear that this really was an area where data was lacking. I was aware of about 20 such houses but had previously recorded these as fortified manor houses and they were rather lost in that large group of buildings. Therefore, I've introduced a new 'type' of fortified building the fortified town house and I hope a seperate listing will draw better attention to a rare and mostly lost medieval building. As always I do welcome further help and contributions with this list and any other part of Gatehouse. The relavant bibliographic references to The Impact have been added to the site bibliographies as have the references from the latest Castles Studies Group Journal - including the excellent paper from Pamela Marshall on the donjon of Colchester Castle.
I've done some slight design changes, the most obvious is a new, cleaner and clearer logo. I hope a more useful feature is a small page with comments and links for obtaining online and hard copies of the books, serial articles, theses etc. The slow steady review of records continues and the records for Derbyshire, Devon and Suffolk have all been reviewed and edited. The Suffolk HER has been added to Heritage Gateway. Heritage Gateway is now becoming an extremely useful archaeological resource and I do hope all English authorities will add their HERs to it. Increasing numbers of C19 and early C20 books and journals are being scanned and put online and I am gradually adding direct links to some of these older papers to the site bibliographies. New sites – the online Suffolk HER has added Pismere Castle, Barrow Hall, Necton Old Hall, Wadgell's Farm, Helmingham Hall, Melford Hall, Braiseworth Hall, Wattisham Hall and the Castello of Hamo Petit at Brantham, mainly fortified manor houses plus a few 'reject sites'. Also added Kingsholm Palace, a Saxon palace near Gloucester that may have some use by William the Conquerer. An old paper by George Clark, the prime Victorian castellologist, 'Contribution towards a complete list of moated mounds or burhs' (1889, The Archaeological Journal Vol. 46 pp. 197-217) added a couple of dozen sites most one which can be rejected but Horsbury Castle Hill near Wakefield, levelled before 1816, may well have been a motte. Chasing down his reference to 'The Yoder' lead to the particularly sad account of the treatment of the deserted medieval village of Yoden in Peterlee. Here, in the early 1970s, attempts were made to preserve the site 'as a park of archaeological interest with easy access for the public'. This involved destroying the archaeology by using a tractor drawn rotovator prior to (unsuccessful) grass seeding!
A busy summer out in the field, visiting sites and taking photos, as well as my ongoing research into murage, has slowed down my more generally reading but I have final caught up with reading Colin Platt's paper Revisionism in Castle Studies: A Caution and the response by Oliver Crieghton and Robert Liddiard Fighting Yesterdays Battle: Beyond War or Status in Castle Studies. Whilst caution is worthwhile I do feel that the call made by most modern castellologists to view castle as complex and diverse and not in simplistic militaristic ways is compelling. Two texts show this; Osprey publications latest text by Christopher Gravett English Castles 1200-1300, clearly written for a military minded target audience is narrow and has nothing of value in it; it could have been written by Sidney Toy eighty years ago. One ends up feeling that Gravett, who was a custodian of the Royal Armouries, sees castles as little more than large, immobile suits of armour. The 'revisionist call for a wider study of high status buildings and Naomi Payne's 2003 PhD thesis, available via EThOS, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury is, for a PhD thesis, very readable and full of much valuable stuff. The difference between the two is most clear in the way the landscape is dealt with. Gravett ignores landscape entirely, picturing Bedford castle as isolated in open country rather than as part of an urban landscape, whilst Payne gives much detail of the deer parks, fishponds etc. Payne includes, as an appendix, a gazetteer of all medieval episcopal residences in England and Wales and this has added much bibliographical detail to the databases and two possible sites; Congresbury Bishop's Court and Yatton both in Somerset. She also listed Burstow, although I have rejected this as an episcopal residence and Chartham, mis-located by her as at Chatham but was a at small village west of Canterbury where a manor house of Chirstchurch Priory seems to have been used by Archbishop Winchelsea in the early 14th century when he was excluded by the king from the usual palaces of the see of Canterbury. These new details and several other small additions and updates to site records make it worthwhile republished the databases.
The site by site review of the databases, correcting some errors and expanding the site descriptions and giving clearer attributions continues with Cornwall, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands (now seperately listed). This review has resulted in me reconsidering Botelet Castle, Cornwall and Loweswater Pele, Cumberland. John Kenyon's annual bibliography for the Castle Studies Group has been published and the bibliographical details that I've not previously spotted have been added to the various site pages; this brought to my notice Burghill 'Castle' in Herefordshire, (re)identifed by T. Wardle. The Archaeology Data Service have put online the Wiltshire Extensive Urban Survey which added Ramsbury 'Castle' Added to the bibliography are Julian Humphrey's account of 'English castles under siege' Enemies at the Gate, part of the classic and over emphasised military view of the castle. A more modern revisionist account is Oliver Creighton's Designs Upon the Land which demonstrates the importance of castle as centrepieces of designed landscapes. One of the most important parts of these designed landscape and a major reason for the siting of many castles was hunting; Richard Almond's Medieval Hunting is a very readable account of this pursuit. The passage on poaching (a practice carried out by all levels of society inculding lords and senior clergy men) shows some of the reason why hunting lodges would need to be strongly built and defended and dressed up with the martial symbols of lordship and the power to prosecute. Added to links is Andrew Herrett's CastleFacts website. Based on the databases collated by me. Andrew's well designed site makes use of the developments in broadband access to provided high resolution photographs. Not yet as extensive in coverage as the older photo catalogue sites but usually provides many more photographs, of higher resolution, allowing a much better chance to understand the castle. I certainly hope users of this site will be willing to share their own photographs of castles with Andrew.
Some slight changes to pages (mainly picking up on spelling mistakes). I am slowly doing a site by site review of the databases, correcting some errors and expanding the site descriptions and giving clearer attributions. I've done this for Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Berwick, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire and Cheshire. The other counties will slowly follow. I've been informed a several new potential sites; Jack Long informed me of a tradition of a castle at Ospring, near Faversham, Kent.
The web pages have undergone some changes. Clicking on the National Monument Record number will now open the PastScape or Coflein record page in a new window. Clicking on the County Historic Environment Record number will either open the online record page, where this exists, or the contact details for the specific HER. The pages for the Islands site now have a mash up with an air photo from Google Maps. A few more county HERs have gone online (details of all online HERs on the links page) and this, and a general run through the other online HERs, has produced the following new entries on the database.
Databases will all be republished in the next couple of days.
Databases all republished in the last couple of days. There have been some slight changes–mainly removing dead web links and the following significant changes and additions:
My current research is looking at murage, using a working definition of royal and quasi-royal support for the building of urban communal 'defences'. This is still in a relatively early stage, although I have added some of the primary source references to the relevant towns pages. One thing of note was the issue of a grant, in 1310, 'for a term of two years, to the bailiffs and good men of the town of Ravensere, of murage for the repair of their quay, overthrown by the violence of the sea.' (CPR 1307-1313 p281). Whilst clearly not a fortification in the usual sense I've added a page for Ravenser Odd, a port near Spurn Point, long lost to coastal erosion.
A Happy New Year to everyone. The Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record has gone online as Oxfordshire Heritage Search and this has added a few sites. Most of these are doubtful or lost sites but Leafield Barrow, previous considered as a barrow, has been rescheduled as a motte. The lost Jews Mount, a mound outside Oxford Castle now has a separate page. The National Trust Sites and Monuments Record is part of the ArchSearch database and from this a couple of doubtful sites have been added including a possible lost tower at Hotbank, Northumberland. I've checked through other HERs and this also has added a few more sites; A hunting lodge at Tollard Royal, Wiltshire, a tower at Tower Brae and a moated site at Gale Bay, both in Cumberland. After careful consideration and examination of some of the primary sources I've now rejected Derek Renn's identification of a moated site at Storwood as the site of the historically recorded Wheldrake castle, which now gets its own page. Site pages and databases will be republished over the next day or two.
The site pages have been reposted to reflect some slight changes and latest updates in bibliographical details.
The list of licences to crenellate has been repost to reflect the slight changes my ongoing research has made to the previous version. The details page for each licence now includes some biographical details of the individuals granted such a licence. Hours and hours of work produced not a lot in many cases I'm afraid but what little was found I've made available.
A new, cleaner, look to the site will, hopefully make using the site a little easier for people with poorer sight. The margin is a picture of herringbone masonry at Tamworth Castle. The 'mash up' with the MultiMap air photo has been changed to their newer, higher resolution site with bigger pictures and a better interface, although slightly less precise location. Location is now at six figure OS -100m accuracy rather than eight figure 10m accuracy. The OS reference should be the south west corner of the square area containing the site so usually the site will be in the upper right part of the air photo. These MultiMap air photos can be very useful, although castles in woodland remain difficult to see. Some areas, mainly in the south of England, also have 'birds eye' oblique aerial views which are particularly nice. The databases have been reposted although alteration are slight (other than the creation of a new field 'sixfigOS' needed for the link to MultiMap.
Some additions to the site bibliographies justify updating and reposting the databases and I've added a few texts to the bibliography. I've added to the welsh database the medieval tower and manorial site at Harold's House, Portskewett, Monmouthshire, where the tower was described as 'fortified' in the TimeTeam programme of the evaluation excavation done in June 2007, where it was nice to see Jeremy Knight.
Research has identified another site given a licence to crenellate. This is 'Brugewaltii' (Bridgwater castle, Somerset) licence granted to William Briwere in June 1200. The statistic on the analysis of licences and the distribution map have been updated.
A new essay "Crenellating the Ego " has been added. This essay explores the psychological factors influencing castle forms and the psychological origin of the distorting bias towards military views of the castle.
I've spent the last month catching up with the online developments that I missed over the summer. Several Historic Environment Records (or Sites and Monuments Records) have come online in various forms. The records held by the Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust are now part of the ADS database. This has added over a 100 new records to the Welsh database, although almost all of these a dubious mounds or placenames which can actually be rejected as castle sites. A major new site is Heritage Gateway which is a database combining the National Monument Record (PastScape), the Listed buildings index (Images of England), the NMR Excavation Index and the HER's of Cambridgeshire, Essex and Norfolk. Clearly this intended to expand to include all HER's although searching such a vast database may well prove near impossible - even at the moment it seems to be pushing the boundaries of the server with some very erratic behaviour. New county databases are; British History Online has had a change of looks and has added several more Victoria County History volumes and other texts to which I've added links in the relevant building bibliographies. I've also updated the Journals links page. A notably site is that for the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society which not only has an index of its Transactions but actually has pdf copies online of the full contents of the journals from 1876-1995. See my links page for more details and sites. The online records and downloadable databases have all been updated.
Samuel Lewis's 1849 4th edition of A Topographical Dictionary of Wales added to the monument bibliographies with links to the online edition provided by British History Online. Whilst not an authorative archaeological resource this is useful for descriptions of sites and parishes in the early 19th century generally before industrialisation. A few dubious sites added on the bases of local traditions reported by Lewis; notable is a castle site at Llangynidr. The link to Old Maps, which has been broken for a while because of their change to their site, is repaired for Welsh sites. The English sites web pages will be updated to repair this link in the next week or so.
My health having improved somewhat over the summer I shall continue with this project for the meanwhile, although at a reduce level of activity. For the time being this means just some small additions to the individual monument bibliographies.
Charles Taylor of ecastle.co.uk has kindly offered to host this web site. No more work is being done on the site and it will stop being available at the homepage.mac.com domain in mid October 2007 but will be available at http://www.ecastles.co.uk/philipdavis/index.html. I express my sincere gratitude to Charles for his very kind offer to keep this site online.
Ill health has forced me to end this project. The databases and web site have undergone a final revision. The site will go offline at the end of October 2007. Please feel free to download the databases and any parts of the web site., including pictures and maps, for your own use.
A new essay "Defining the Castle" has been added. This essay attempts to debunk the castle as a military building, arguing the main function was administrative. It also looks at the gatehouse as a symbol of lordship, acknowledging that this aspect of the castle is a pre-Conquest, saxon, tradition. It calls for a greater appreciation of the psychology factors that effect the choice to fortify a building and to describe a building as military.
English and Welsh site pages and indexes again reposted because of more small additions to the bibliographies and the addition of a couple more dubious sites. A slight change to the site page design template should make the site pages a little easier to read.
English and Welsh site pages and indexes reposted mainly because of widespread but relatively small additions to the bibliographies. I'm starting to go through Leland's itinerary and this is producing some interesting results (I suspect that there may have been a medieval castle on the site now occupied by Lullingstone Castle) including a few new possible sites, such as Glasney College. A few other possible English sites entered. A new updated and more detailed distribution map of artillery fortifications posted. Some slight additions to the licences to crenellate listing, most notably Moigne Court which was licenced to be fortified with an uncrenellated wall. This is not a licence to crenellate but an important document if licences to crenellate are to be truly understood as recognition of nobility rather than as some permission to fortify. I've added a link from the page of sites issued licences to crenellate to the details of the licence. I've also reposted the databases and added an excel version of the databases to the downloadable formats. See the download page. The individual site pages and the indexes are being reposted because of;
A distribution map has been added to the article on licences to crenellate.
Three weeks of intense research has updated the list of licences to crenellate. These now have much more information and detail, licences have been added and reference are now given to the PRO translations of the original Patent and Charter Rolls. Some analysis of the details of these licences is added. This research has identified another 18 or so possible fortified manor houses which have been added to the database, the pages have been added and the indexes updated. A direct link to the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service has been added on the individual site pages. This gives a direct look at the 1:25,000 scale map, which is useful for understanding the landscape form.
A reorganisation of site has introduced an 'Other Information' section. I've gradually been adding extra bits to the site such as distribution maps and a list of Licences to Crenellate and these now have their own section and menu link. The latest addition to this section is some contemporary late medieval list of castles and towers in Northumberland.
A slight reorganisation of the bibliography into three sections should make this feature more usable by reducing the length of lists to scroll down. The Bibliography is now split into General Texts, for background information; Gazetteers, my main sources; and Journal web sites.
The major part of my work continues to be expanding the bibliographical references for sites. (Sitting in libraries trawling through books is much less enjoyable than going around the countryside taking photographs. There are quite a few web sites with collections of castle photographs, there are very few with proper bibliographical references.). I've recently moved to Manchester where I have better access to quality libraries so this major part of the project continues with somewhat renewed vigour. A provisional list of Licences to Crenellate is now included and available for download. A short essay on minor Norman earthwork and timber castles has been added under the help section. A section with distribution maps derived from the databases has been added, this is, as yet, in it's early stages and I intend to add many more distribution maps in the future. (The latest addition is a map of early castles, mottes and ringworks. Many sources are still using Renn's map of 1959, and King's map of 1966 so an update of this probably due). Also added to the help section is a short piece on some of the difficulties in classifying medieval fortifications with details of the currently used classification schemes as they apply to medieval fortifications. Click here to view. I'm doing some work on the the various forms of castle mounds and this may result in something. If you have suggestions for what you would like see added to the site please contact me. They tab
delimited ASCII files of the databases from
which these listing are derived are available in the file sharing part
of the web site (Use the Downloads link).
Please feel free to download this listing to use for your own studies. Remember
the site and the database are being continually being updated so please update
your own files as often as you want. The databases were last updated on 15 June
2006. |
||
