page_title: List of castles in England
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: List of castles in England / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Peckforton and Beeston Castles
context_page_description: This list of castles in England is not a list of every building and site that has "castle" as part of its name, nor does it list only buildings that conform to a strict definition of a castle as a medieval fortified residence. It is not a list of every castle ever built in England, many of which have vanished without trace, but is primarily a list of buildings and remains that have survived. In almost every case the buildings that survive are either ruined, or have been altered over the centuries. For several reasons, whether a given site is that of a medieval castle has not been taken to be a sufficient criterion for determining whether or not that site should be included in the list.
  Castles that have vanished or whose remains are barely visible are not listed, except for some important or well-known buildings and sites. Fortifications from before the medieval period are not listed, nor are architectural follies. In other respects it is difficult to identify clear and consistent boundaries between two sets of buildings, comprising those that indisputably belong in a list of castles and those that do not.
context_section_description: A castle is a type of fortified structure, developed in Europe during the Middle Ages. The first castles appeared in France in the 10th century, and in England during the 11th century. A few castles are known to have been built in England before the Normans invaded in 1066; a great many were built in the years following, the principal mechanism by means of which the Normans were able to consolidate their control over the country. Whilst a few important castles, such as the White Tower in the Tower of London, were built of stone, most early castles were motte-and-bailey castles of earthwork and timber, which could be constructed quickly. Some were later rebuilt in stone, but there are a great many castle sites in England where all that is visible today are traces of earthworks.
  Castles continued to be built in England for several hundred years, reaching a peak of military sophistication in the late 13th century. The two principal elements in their construction were the great tower or keep, such as the White Tower, and the fortified enclosure, such as is provided by the outer wall of the Tower of London. During the 14th century, largely as a result of the decline of feudalism, the construction of strong castles began to decline, in favour of more lightly fortified structures often described as fortified manor houses. In the far north of England, where conditions remained unsettled, fortified buildings continued to be built as late as the 16th century, not only by the rich and powerful but by any with adequate means, as defence not against great armies, but against the notorious Border Reivers. Many took the form of the pele tower, a smaller, more modest version of the castle keep, and many of these still survive, often incorporated in later buildings.
  Castles differed from earlier fortifications in that they were generally private fortified residences. Typically, a castle was the residence of a feudal lord, providing the owner with a secure base from which to control his lands, and also a symbol of wealth and power. Earlier fortified structures, such as the Saxon burh or the Iron Age hill fort, provided public or communal defences, as did medieval town or city walls. The many Roman forts of which ruins survive in Britain differed in being wholly military in nature; they were camps or strongholds of the Roman army.  The Romans also built town or city walls in England, which can still be seen, for instance at Silchester.
  By the 16th century the role of fortifications had changed once more with the development of artillery capable of breaching even thick stone walls. In the reign of Henry VIII, fears of invasion led to the building of a series of new fortresses along the south coast of England, known as the Device Forts or Henrician Castles. These were designed to use and to defend against artillery, and since they were not private residences, but national fortifications, they do not possess what architectural historians have come to see as the defining characteristics of a castle. Nonetheless they are visibly castle-like, being compact, with battlemented walls, squat turrets and sometimes a keep; and they were the last generation of fortresses in England to be known as castles, long before architectural historians began to argue that they should not be. One of them, Pendennis Castle, was one of the last Royalist strongholds to fall to the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War—starvation forcing surrender after a siege of five months.
  As the role of the castle as fortress declined in the later medieval period, its role as a residence increasingly became the more important. Castles such as Herstmonceux were built with fortifications seemingly designed more for show than for strength, implying a further evolution in the role and concept of the castle, becoming less a means of enforcing power but instead a symbol of its possession, a castle becoming a grand residence proclaiming the status of its owner. Once fortifications had become altogether redundant, it became increasingly rare in England for new buildings to be des
caption: Peckforton Castle, Cheshire, with Beeston Castle in the distance
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