On the Duke of Gloucester’s estate at Barnwell can be seen three successive manorial centers in close proximity.
First there are the earthworks of a Norman motte And bailey, now hidden in a clump of trees.
Then comes the massive stone ruin of Barnwell Vastle, built by Berengar le Moine about 1265-66.
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Windsor Castle is one of England’s largest, containing thirteen acres within its walls.
It has enjoyed favor as a royal residence from Norman times to the present and is the only royal castle to have made the transition to palace.
Most monarchs have contributed in some way to its splendor and every century [...]
Trematon Castle stands on an eminence rising steeply above the River Lynher, two miles southwest of Saltash and the Tamar estuary.
Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall probably founded the castle.
It is referred to as his in the Domesday Book.
At that time Trematon was a place of some [...]
Castle and cathedral stand close together beside the River Medway.
For once, it is the castle, which dominates, the squat cathedral tower seeming insignificant alongside the magnificent keep.
This is the tallest of the Norman keeps, rising 115 feet to the top of its corner turrets.
Archbishop Corbeil’s keep is intact save for the [...]
Hever Castle, beside the River Eden, two miles east of Edenbridge, is set within a wet moat between beautiful gardens and what appears to be a Tudor village.
Gardens, “village” and the splendid interior of the castle are all the creation of a rich American, William Waldorf Astor.
He purchased the castle in 1903 [...]
Pendennis Castle crowns a headland a mile east of Falmouth.
The name suggests a Dark Age hillfort but any remains are buried beneath the later rampart.
What now stands is an Elizabethan artillery fortress surrounding one of Henry VIII’s coastal forts.
Erected in 1540-45, when the Reformation had made England a [...]
Berry Pomeroy Castle occupies a spur of land falling steeply to the Gatcombe Valley, three miles northeast of Tornes.
The ruins of a late medieval castle are juxtaposed with those of a great Tudor mansion.
The Pomeroys settled here soon after the Norman Conquest but their castle dates only from the fifteenth century.
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