Castles of England

Castles of England. Dover Location Kent When William the Conqueror defeated Harold II at Hastings he headed towards Dover where the Angle-Saxons had already raised a burh. William improved this fortification by erecting a motte-and-bailey. Dover Castle has the most massive tower in Britain, an almost 100-foot cube with walls from seventeen to twenty-one feet thick.

In 1216 the castle was besieged by Louis, son of the French king but saved when Louis returned to France. Overlooking Dover Harbour, the shortest sea-route to the Continent it barred the way of anybody trying to invade England. Early in the 19th century Napoleon stood opposite on the cliffs of Calais and through his telescope surveyed Dover. With the British navy controlling the seas and the steep cliffs beneath the castle he decided against an invasion of England, immediately turned round and invaded Russia instead.

Hitler followed the same pattern and again after contemplating the problem decided to invade Russia instead. Beneath the castle are the secret wartime passages where the evacuation of Dunkirk and the Channel sea battle was controlled. Warwick Castle Location Warwick Country Warwick Castle was founded in 1068 and was rebuilt and updated a number of times. Today it combines castle ruins, largely of the fourteenth century with one of the finest great houses in England.

Two small projecting towers, which date to the late fifteenth century are said to have built as artillery platforms. Warwick Castle rises like a precipice above the River Avon. On this natural cliff William I founded a motte castle in 1068, on lands seized from a nearby Saxon convent. A wooden tower built on the motte was evidently still there in the reign of Henry II, by which time a polygonal shell enclosure had been raised round the motte top. Only fragments of the shell enclosure now remain, incorporated in the rebuilt shell, which is of much later date. Late in the fourteenth century, by which time some additional buildings such as the great hall and residential blocks had been put up in the bailey, the castle passed to Earl Beauchamp who initiated a fresh programme of works.

These were substantially what can be seen today. They included restructuring the great hall and a range of other buildings on the south-east, a water-gate, and on the west front a high and stout defensive curtain leading from a gatehouse to a very tall polygonal tower, known as Guys Tower, which is 39.4 metres tall. The gatehouse is a remarkable building a pair of towers above the doorway passage, which had portcullises and murder-holes.

Projecting from the east side of the gatehouse is a tall rectangular building leading to another tower. This latter tower is 45.2 meters tall and capped by a two-fold system of battlements with machicolation all round below the battlements.

It is called Caesars Tower. The three main storeys in the tower are each vaulted, and have stone fireplaces. The castle is completed by curtain walling and further, much smaller, flanking towers. The wall at the west leads up the motte to the restored shell enclosure and down again southwards to the south range. The whole is thus a powerfully defended enclosure Leeds Castle Location Kent Leeds Castle, acclaimed as the most romantic castle in England, is located in south-east England, built on two adjacent island in the river Len. Leeds Castle was originally a manor of the Saxon royal family possibly as early as the reign of Ethelbert IV 856-860. The first castle was an earthwork enclosure whose wooden palisade was converted to stone and provided with two towers along the perimeter. This is now vanished.

Traces of arches in a vault thought to be Norman were found at the beginning of this century.

Around 1119 Robert Crevecoeur started to build a stone castle on the site, establishing his donjon where the Gloriette now is. Stephen, Count of Blois, and his cousin the Empress Matilda contested the crown of England. In 1139 Matilda invaded England with the help of his brother Robert, Earl of Gloucester, who held Leeds castle, but Kent was loyal to king Stephen and following a short siege he took control of the castle. The castle came into the possession of Edward I 1278 . He rebuilt much of the castle as it stood at the beginning of his reign, and enlarged it, providing an outer stone curtain round the edge of the larger island, with cylindrical open-backed flanking towers and a square-plan water-gate on the south-east. The gatehouse at the south-west, a single tower pierced by an arched passage was improved.

Later on, King Edward, the Confessor granted the manor to the powerful house of Godwin. Henry VIII, the most famous of all the owners of Leeds Castles, expended large sums in enlarging and beautifying the whole range of buildings.

At the same time, he carefully retained the defenses of the castle for he often had cause to fear invasion from either France or the Spanish. The king entrusted the work of alteration to his great friend Sir Henry Guidford. Leeds has been constantly inhabited and rebuilt since then. Most of the castle today is the result of the nineteenth-century reconstruction and addition. In 1926 Leeds was bought by the Hon. Mrs. Wilson-Filmer, known as Lady Baillie.

Immediately she began the restoration of the castle that took her over 30 years to leave it as it stands today.