# Talk:Hylton Castle

There's a problem with ref 38, it just says 'Emery'. There are no other details, ie: the page number, this will need to be fixed. Nev1 (talk) 00:19, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I've corrected it. Craigy (talk) 00:59, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
A BBC article I've added as a source says English Heritage have given £50,000 to help restoration whereas the article says the Heritage Lottery Fund have given £50,000. Did they both give the same amount or is one source wrong? (Not the BBC I suspect) Nev1 (talk) 01:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've no idea which one is correct. I'll try and check in the morning, though. Craigy (talk) 01:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd have checked and sorted it out myself, but the Sunderland Echo links don't seem to be working. I was hoping it was just my computer. Let's hope they get fixed soon. Nev1 (talk) 01:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I know. It never works after about midnight until the next morning. TBH, the article might have read "Heritage Fund" from what I remember, so perhaps I mistook it to be the Heritage Lottery Fund, which I imagine must be different(?) Craigy (talk) 01:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Thinking about it, although they are separate entities, I don't know what links they have. On ocassion, English Heritage even applies to the HLF for projects, so in a way the money could come from both. If in doubt I think we should use the BBC source who, with all due respect to local newspapers (who I have used a lot on wikipedia), have an international reputation for reliability. Nev1 (talk) 01:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Although the BBC isn't perfect, the amount of incorrect information I spot in the Sunderland Echo compared to others like the Beeb, is second to none. Craigy (talk) 01:55, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I think there are some areas of this article that still need some work before the GA reviewer comes along. For instance:

"Why they are they has not been proven, but are believed to show the political alliances of the early Hyltons ..." doesn't make sense.
"To the west of the hall was a window, to which the portcullis must have been raised up in front of." That's the sort of sentence that would have them baying for blood at FAC.
"Below is a layout plan, by floor ...". You should avoid making any reference to things being below, above or whatever, as you have no way of knowing how the article has been rendered, or by what. It may be being listened to, for instance.
"In relation to the diagram below, the shields are:". As above, plus what diagram?
Date formatting needs to be consistent, even in the References section, where some some are autoformatted and others aren't.
I'd strongly recommend standardising on the {{cite web}} template for the web references; I've changed ref #21 as an example. Ga has become much tougher about the quality of sources in recent months, and even for web references the publisher is expected now.
 Done - All done. Craigy (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
--Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:09, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"The first castle on the site, built by Henry de Hilton in about 1072". Was this first castle also a manor house? I think the type  of castle should be mentioned.
I've not seen it mentioned what type of castle it was, so I'm not sure. Craigy (talk) 23:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Do we know what happened to the castle during the barons' rebellion against Henry II in 1173? Who was it held by, supporters of the King or the rebels? The King made a list of the castles held against him (although the list does not survive in its entirity); if there is no mention of the castle during this period it's probably because it was owned by a supporter of the King, sadly I don't have a source for this and would count as original research without evidence so couldn't go in the article. Nev1 (talk) 22:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I've not come across this either whilst reading about the castle. I think one of the down sides of the books on the subject is they tend to focus more on the period after it was constructed from stone. I'll see if I can find it out though. Craigy (talk) 23:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Re: Two questions:
The book Sunderland and its Origins: Monks to Mariners, by Maureen M. Meikle and Christine M. Newman, published in 2008 by Phillimore and Co Ltd on behalf of England's Past for Everyone, contains several pages on Hylton Castle.
On page 62, one passage of possible interest to the barons' rebellion question reads: "Alexander de Hilton, lord of Hylton in 1172, was a witness to the borough charter of Wearmouth, granted to Bishop du Puiset circa 1180 and was still head of the family in 1196, when he made a payment of £4 for the feudal due known as scutage."
Although it doesn't say specifically who the castle was held by in 1173-1174, Alexander was obviously around at that time, and the book doesn't mention he had to leave the castle at any point around then.
--seahamlass 10:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

That would indicate that Hylton Castle was on the side of the King as Alexander would probably have been punished had he rebelled (many rebels were executed and/or had their lands confiscated). It's good enough for me but sadly isn't good enough for wikipedia as it would count as WP:SYNTH. In that case we'll just have to leave it out. Thanks anyway. Nev1 (talk) 21:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

This article underwent a GA review on 06:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC) It can be found here: Talk:Hylton Castle/GA1

This review is transcluded from Talk:Hylton Castle/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.


### Early comments
As a result of my first review of the article, I have the following comments: 

The sheer number of footnotes is distracting.  There are roughly 130 separate footnotes and most sentences have at least one.  Several have three or four.  For example, I don't believe that this sentence requires 4 footnotes: "After 1728, Hylton's second son, John Hylton, de jure 18th Baron Hylton added a complementary south wing (its foundation wall still extant), crenellations to both wings and removed the door on the north wing."  Excessive footnotes will not only prove distracting, but they can break up the article into stand-alone sentences.
Now, on some contentious issues there can be a need to document each statement, bur this is a rather dry subject.
I've removed the unneeded refs. Some with two or three are to reference different points in different sources, if they're part of the same sentence. Craigy (talk) 07:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
The opening paragraph is a historical overview that, in my opinion, tries to say too much for a lead paragraph.  I myself would move this paragraph and place it as a lead of the History section, which itself has no overview.  Instead of this lengthy overview, I would add something a bit shorter.
In general, the article is well-written, with no immediately-apparent typos etc.  I will be back with further comments after a more thorough read-thru.  Thanks, Madman (talk) 18:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Originally, I wasn't sure what to include in the lead, but I agree, it was a bit too specific. Without adding an overview in the History section, I've re-wrote the lead - hopefully it's ok. Craigy (talk) 07:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


### 2nd read-thru
Some notes:

This will not disqualify the article from a GA rating, but I wish the images or image captions tied in better with the text.  I realize that the present trend in Wikipedia is to thumbnail the photos, but I wish that the photo (under Exterior) was large enough to show "octagonal, machicolated turrets" and the caption would point them out.  Similarly, the Interior layout section contains some interesting information, but I can't picture it all in my head, and the schematic on the right is so tiny as to be no use at all.  Again, this won't stop the article from reaching GA, but the article would benefit immensely from a tighter integration of images and text.
I've resized some of the images and expand a bit on the captions. Craigy (talk) 02:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I also note from the earlier GA review that there were supposedly too many images.  It's hard to imagine this, particularly for a Yank like me who is quite unfamiliar with the finer points of castles.
There were quite a few, but they did clutter the article somewhat. They've been moved to the Commons and can be found via the link at the bottom of the article. Craigy (talk) 02:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
What does "consolidated the shell" mean?
I believe it's an architectural term, meaning to strengthen a building's outer walls.Craigy (talk) 02:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
The Heraldry section is difficult, but I believe that comes with the territory.  I think that the list of 20 shields are perhaps excessive, but I would never suggest you remove them.  I do think that some of the more unusual terms should be linked or re-linked.  This would include "debruised", "Lucy", and "a fess inter three crescents Gules".  I would suggest wiki-linking these terms even if they were linked earlier in the article.
I've linked all of the heraldic terms which have articles. There doesn't seem to be an explanation of "debruised" on Wikipedia, but it's basically something on top of an animal. "Lucy" (like "England", "France", "Percy") is used for abbreviation, as opposed to writing out the full blazon. Craigy (talk) 02:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
Regarding debruised, maybe we (you) could create a stubby article.  I'm suggesting that you do it since you probably have a good citation.  (P.S. This is independent of the GA rating).
Regarding Lucy and Percy, what do they refer to?  If they refer to some noble family (as mentioned, I'm an ignorant Yank), then perhaps it would make sense to wiki-link those words to the family article.  Your thoughts??Madman (talk) 03:51, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
I've expanded on Percy/Lucy, but with regards to debruised: I don't think it deserves its own article. What might be better is something like List of heraldic terms to include all the other heraldic verbs on Wikipedia which aren't explained – however, I can't really be arsed to write something like that at the moment :-) Craigy (talk) 05:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
Done with second read thru. Madman (talk) 02:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


### GA review
It is reasonably well written. 
a (prose): Very clear, straightforward prose.  Works well, but is a little on the dry side. 
b (MoS): Precisely follows Manual of Style.  
It is factually accurate and verifiable. 
a (references): Good references.  Who'd know there were that many?? 
b (citations to reliable sources): Fine citations, good, but there still are, in my opinion, a distractingly large number. 
c (OR): Nope
It is broad in its coverage. 
a (major aspects): This article does a good job of exploring the various aspects of the subject.  The "Interior" section is a little dense, consisting of little more than description after description.  What this section needs is more of a show-and-tell. Images are needed to support the text, but unfortunately the schematic is too tiny to be of use.  
b (focused): No, doesn't ramble. 
It follows the neutral point of view policy. 
Fair representation without bias: Oh yes
It is stable. 
No edit wars etc.: Nope 
It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. 
a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): Yes 
b (appropriate use with suitable captions): I think expanded captions would improve the quality of the article, something more than straightforward descriptions.  
Overall: Definitely a good article.  Without a doubt.
Pass/Fail: Pass
Good job!  Madman (talk) 02:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Madman! Your further comments are certainly appreciated and I'll be sure to address them should I plan on taking this to FA. Thanks again Craigy (talk) 02:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Hylton Castle. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080517130622/http://www.sunnisidelocalhistorysociety.co.uk/eleanor.html to http://www.sunnisidelocalhistorysociety.co.uk/eleanor.html
Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080331042142/http://www.lhi.org.uk/projects_directory/projects_by_region/north_east/sunderland/hylton_castle/ to http://www.lhi.org.uk/projects_directory/projects_by_region/north_east/sunderland/hylton_castle/
Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091029082143/http://kerrysdavis.home.comcast.net/~kerrysdavis/p25.htm to http://kerrysdavis.home.comcast.net/~kerrysdavis/p25.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:55, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

"past few years; most notably on 4 July 2004". Uuh. nothing new since?? 47.71.37.1 (talk) 10:56, 24 October 2018 (UTC)