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Castles.

Royal castles of England: Open Library

"None of the ancient buildings of England, neither its venerable village churches with their moving memorials of bygone rural life, nor its historic cathedrals with their resplendent tombs of " ladies dead and lovely knights," can for a moment vie in interest with those stately castles which have been associated with the loves and hates, the triumphs and defeats of the sovereigns of that land. A few of the most notable of those feudal fortresses have been razed to the ground, or have left no other vestige of their presence than those shapeless heaps over which nature is wont to cast her green mantle of kindly oblivion; but a great number have survived the iconoclasm of man and the ravages of time, and it is the purpose of the ensuing pages to conduct the reader on a pilgrimage to those haunts of vanished greatness. The story touches the whole gamut of human emotion: love, the love of a man for a maid; parental affection, which sways the royal as well as the plebeian heart; illicit passion, against which a crown is no talisman; pride of power; thirst of glory ; the effulgence of a throne ; the gloom of a prison; the poison or lethal blade of vii viii Preface the assassin; the final horror of the headsman's axe all the shows and shadows of regal life find their image here."

Britain's castles are either privately owned or are under the ownership of English Heritage, the National Trust, Cadw, or Historic Scotland. These latter organizations provide free entry to members.

Some of the best castles......

England: Bodiam Castle.
 
England: Windsor Castle.
 
England: Tintagel Castle
 
Scotland: Edinburgh Castle

Recommended ......

Read: Windsor Castle: Official Souvenir Guide

Watch: St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle

Read: Castles of the Clans: The Strongholds and Seats of 750 Scottish Families and Clans

Read: A Short Illustrated Guide to Edinburgh Castle

Read: Scottish Castles and Fortifications

Read: The English Castle: 1066-1650 (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)

Read: 50 Medieval Castles of Southern England

Read: The Castles of Edward I in Wales 1277-1307 (Fortress)

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