There are an increasing range of high-quality resources on castles, their history and architecture available for researchers on-line, often for free.
Online heritage
The major national heritage organisations present a range of information for online users. English Heritage’s website has a variety of information, mostly linked off its individual castle sites. Historic England, the government agency formerly part of English Heritage, is another powerful source of online information. It also hosts PastScape, the online National Record of the Historic Environment. which contains a wider range of information on individual sites.
Cadw has a similar range of information, presented in both English, and in Welsh. The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Wales also provides useful material in English and in Welsh, including the Coflein on-line database of Welsh sites.
Online records, books and histories
Around 5 percent of the National Archives records – a huge quantity of documents – are available online. The Archaeology Data Service is the accredited digital repository for UK heritage data, and a valued source of various reports and journals. Google books can be a valuable source of information, and for some older, out of copyright volumes, you may find that the Internet Archive is a useful online source.
Much of the Victoria County History series is available online, courtesy of the Institute of Historical Research in London; many of the volumes have also been digitalised and published online through British History Online.
The Landmark Trust charity’s website has a range of online information about their castles, and the Trust has helpfully recently scanned in the histories of their sites – formerly only available at the properties concerned. The Castle Studies Group, the leading UK network for castle research, has a range of online resources available on its website, including a list of of the group’s various publications.
User websites
The late historian Philip Davis spent many years building up a database on the castles and other medieval buildings across the UK. Davis published this as the Gatehouse website, and it has been maintained by the academic community since his death in 2017. Other good websites include eCastles, covering the castles and fortifications of England and wales; the Castles of Wales; and Lise Hull’s Castles of Britain.
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, has groups of volunteer editors with an interest in castles. Their Military WikiProject can often help with research questions.
Attribution
The text of this page is licensed under under CC BY-NC 2.0.