This site contains
information on over 750 English and Welsh castles, fortified manor houses, Bishop's
palaces and Pele towers constructed over the last twenty centuries. These range
from the most impressive and powerful of structures like Windsor and
Dover Castles to worn earthworks that are all that are now left of
sites such as Burwell Castle.
There is also information on 250 of the mainly 18th and 19th century coastal
forts and gun batteries that still stand around the south coast.
The first stone fortifications were constructed by the Romans in the
1st Century, and they were so well built that many of the walls
are still standing. The next wave of castle
building started in 1066 in all the major towns
and cities after the Norman
invasion. Between then and the year 1200, well over two and a half thousand castles were erected. The majority
were simple earth and timber castles and have now either vanished
or exist only as a motte, a grassy mound, or earthworks........more |