The Castle Rolls
Castle Guides
History, architecture and the practical stuff - long-form essays that go deeper than a single entry, cross-linked into the full roll of 429 UK castles.
22 July 2026
Slighted Castles
Why so many British castles are dramatic partial ruins - the Civil War policy of 'slighting', deliberately wrecking a castle so it could never be held against Parliament again, from Raglan's undermined great tower to Corfe blown apart with gunpowder.
21 July 2026
Wars of the Roses Castles
The castles that mattered in England's 1455-1487 civil wars - not mostly as siege targets, but as the family power bases, prizes and execution sites that decided who actually held the crown, from Sandal's battlefield motte to Middleham, Richard III's childhood home.
20 July 2026
The 25 Best Castles to Visit in the UK
Every visitable UK castle ranked by one thing only: a review-weighted score built from over a million Google reviews. The full national top 25, with the method shown in the open - no editor's favourites.
19 July 2026
Visiting Castles on a Budget
The two honest routes to a cheap castle trip: over a hundred genuinely free castles, and the four multi-site passes - with which castles each pass covers, car-free options by train, and every number computed from the roll itself.
18 July 2026
Castles Turned Into Prisons
How castles became Britain's prisons - from medieval hostage-holding to the purpose-built Georgian and Victorian county gaols raised inside the walls at Oxford, Lincoln and Lancaster, some still locking people up into living memory.
17 July 2026
Follies and Fake Castles
Georgian and Victorian sham castles built purely for effect, never for defence - what separates a folly from a real castle, why the Victorians built them, and which fakes, from Burges's fairy-tale Castell Coch to neo-Norman Penrhyn, you can still visit today.
16 July 2026
Windsor Castle
How a timber motte William the Conqueror raised above the Thames became the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world - the Round Tower, St George's Chapel and the Garter, and the 1992 fire that nearly gutted it.
15 July 2026
Border Reivers and Peel Towers
Why the Anglo-Scottish border was defended by hundreds of small, plain stone towers rather than great castles, who the Border Reivers actually were, and which of these fortified homes you can still visit today.
14 July 2026
Caernarfon Castle
Why Edward I built his most theatrical Welsh castle with polygonal towers copied from Constantinople, and why it's still where the Prince of Wales gets invested.
13 July 2026
Alnwick Castle
How the Percy family has held the same Northumberland castle for over 700 years, and where Harry Potter learned to fly a broomstick.
12 July 2026
Warwick Castle
How a Norman motte on the Avon became the power base of the 'Kingmaker', survived a devastating 1871 fire, and ended up owned by Madame Tussauds' parent company.
11 July 2026
Stirling Castle
Why 'he who holds Stirling holds Scotland', and how two of the most famous battles in Scottish history were fought to control this one crag.
10 July 2026
Eilean Donan Castle
Why Scotland's most photographed castle spent nearly two centuries as a pile of rubble before one family rebuilt it from a dream.
9 July 2026
Edinburgh Castle
How a fortress on an extinct volcano became the most besieged place in Britain, why the Honours of Scotland are locked inside it, and what the One O'Clock Gun is actually for.
8 July 2026
The Tower of London
How a single stone keep William the Conqueror raised to intimidate a conquered city grew, over eight centuries, into a fortress, a menagerie, a mint, a prison and the strongroom for the Crown Jewels - and stayed all of them at once.
7 July 2026
Scottish Tower Houses
Why Scotland built over 800 vertical stone tower houses - more than any other kind of castle it ever produced - and which survivors, from fairy-tale Craigievar to the tower that made Sir Walter Scott, you can still climb today.
6 July 2026
Henry VIII's Device Forts
Why Henry VIII spent a fortune on squat, clover-shaped gun forts along the English coast in the 1540s, and which survivors - from Deal's flower-plan fortress to the RAF base built inside Calshot's keep - you can still visit today.
5 July 2026
Motte and Bailey Castles
What a motte and bailey castle actually is, why the Normans threw up hundreds of them after 1066, and which survivors - from Windsor's Round Tower to Lincoln's rare second motte - you can still stand on today.
4 July 2026
The Concentric Castle
How a single idea - a wall inside a wall - produced the most sophisticated castles ever built in Britain, and why it was almost the last. From Caerphilly to Beaumaris.
3 July 2026
Dog-Friendly Castles
Every UK castle where a real visitor has said, in their own review, that they brought a dog along - drawn from publicly available Google reviews across every operator and all four nations, not one region or one heritage body's own list.
2 July 2026
Wedding Venue Castles
UK castles that visitors describe as wedding venues, drawn from publicly available Google reviews across every operator and all four nations.
1 July 2026
Castles With Gardens
UK castles whose gardens visitors single out as a highlight, drawn from publicly available Google reviews across every operator and all four nations.
30 June 2026
Haunted Castles
UK castles where visitors themselves raise a ghost story or haunting in their own reviews, drawn from publicly available Google reviews.
29 June 2026
Coastal Castles
UK castles by the sea or with clifftop and sea views, drawn from publicly available Google reviews across every operator and all four nations.
28 June 2026
Family-Friendly Castles
UK castles visitors recommend for a family day out with children, drawn from publicly available Google reviews across every operator and all four nations.