Month: May 2025

Kicking Off ‘Visualising Canterbury Castle’

Canterbury Christ Church University was thrilled to receive funding from the Castle Studies Trust for a nine-month project that will produce a new digital reconstruction of Canterbury Castle’s Norman keep in the first century of its construction. The project’s ambition is to then use this new digital asset to create a pop-up exhibition and develop a curriculum resource for schools. 

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Screenshot of initial ‘whitebox’ of Canterbury Castle’s Norman keep and surrounding structures (courtesy of Mike Farrant)

Canterbury Castle is one of 104 national examples of a tower keep castles (Scheduled Monument Number 1005194 (link)), and one of 20 Norman Castles built in Kent. It is part of a series of royal castles on the route from Dover to London and identified as being one of the earlier examples of the period, usually dated to between 1085-1125, with archaeological evidence suggesting a date c.1100-1125. It has been comparatively overlooked in the research of royal castles of the area, and the role that the castle has played in shaping the city has been overshadowed by other historic monuments, namely Canterbury Cathedral.

Screenshot of whitebox interior of Norman keep (courtesy of Mike Farrant)

The digital model is being made in Unreal Engine 5, a games engine that enables the development of detailed and immersive digital environments, and draws on existing excavation data. Using a games engine to create the reconstruction facilitates an enhanced user experience; people will be able to walk around the keep’s grounds, and up through the floors of the castle giving them an enhanced sense of place and scale. Additionally, environmental conditions can be included to simulate seasons, weather patterns and even the night time constellations that would have been visible on a given date in the 12th century.

Visualising Canterbury Castle aims to interrogate the potential of multidisciplinary expertise in developing digital heritage projects. To support this, the project’s methodology includes an iterative design process where subject-specialists* will take part in a series of four co-design sessions.

The first co-design session was held on May 22nd, and participants were able to explore a ‘whitebox’ version of the Norman keep and surroundings. ‘Whitebox’ refers to an early stage of a digital reconstruction where a structure’s overall form is created without surface textures, furnishings, or other fixtures. Participants explored the model using large touchscreens and were able to evaluate how the excavation information had been interpreted to date, provide feedback on the current user experience, and make suggestions for how the experience could be developed. The session demonstrated to both the project team and participants the benefits of simultaneously considering the historical data and the audience experience. As Dr Jeremy Ashbee, Head Properties Curator, English Heritage, explained:

I am very interested in how digital media combined with scholarship can be used to improve public access and comprehension of these sites, which even to people like me who have become obsessive about them for decades, still are beguilingly mysterious.

Screenshot demonstrating the development of the underlying user experience functionality including the camera rail system for climbing the staircases and the green travel nodes for touchscreen navigation. (Courtesy of Mike Farrant)

The next milestone for the project will be a public engagement event at this year’s Medieval Pageant and Trail (link) on July 5th where visitors of all ages will be able to explore the reconstruction on screens and provide feedback. Following that, the second co-design session will take place on July 16th.

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  • The project team comprises Dr Katie McGown (Principal Investigator), Mike Farrant (Lead 3D artist), and co-investigators Dr Catriona Cooper, Prof Leonie Hicks, Sam Holdstock, and Prof Alan Meades whose combined expertise range from Norman History, Education, Digital Heritage, Exhibitions, to Games Design. To date, the project has recruited participants from organisations including English Heritage, Canterbury Museums, Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury Council and Canterbury Business Improvement District.

Queen Eleanor of Castile, Caernarfon Castle, and the Overton Connection

The conquest of Wales in 1283 did more than enforce English military control over Gwynedd: it reshaped the cultural and symbolic landscape of both the principality and its borderlands. At the centre of this transformation was Queen Eleanor of Castile. Though often overshadowed by her husband, King Edward I, Eleanor’s influence on the ideological dimensions of conquest has received increasing attention. My recent publication has focused on Caernarfon Castle in Gwynedd, re-evaluating its design in the light of Eleanor’s cultural and political presence: see Living the Dream. This blog also touches briefly on her involvement with Overton, historically in Flintshire and now part of Wrexham Borough.

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Eleanor’s broader impact on the architectural and material culture of the crown is becoming more widely acknowledged, especially in relation to estates and gardens. Yet her role in the narrative landscapes of conquest, particularly in Wales, has remained underexplored. Caernarfon Castle, long seen primarily as a fortress and statement of English dominance, may also be read as part of a more deliberate, symbolic project – one in which Eleanor’s influence shaped both meaning and memory.

Image of Eleanor of Castille (probable) at Overton Parish Church. Copyright Rachel Swallow

Born into the Castilian royal family around 1241, Eleanor brought with her an appreciation for garden culture, symbolic space, and the communicative potential of architecture. She shared Edward’s interest in Arthurian and Roman imperial narratives, themes that appear in the design language of his castle builds in Gwynedd. At Caernarfon, such symbolism could well have echoed ideas of conquest – not simply as occupation, but as renewal through continuity and legend.

Caernarfon Castle’s banded masonry may have been intended to recall the Theodosian walls of Constantinople, visually linking Edward’s authority with that of Roman emperors. Its location near the Roman fort of Segontium strengthens this earlier interpretation, suggesting a conscious linking of past imperial power to present rule. Yet the site also draws from native Welsh tradition, particularly from the medieval Welsh romance, The Dream of Macsen Wledig, in which the Roman emperor Macsen dreams of a great fortress beside a river, where he meets Elen Luyddog, a Welsh noblewoman who becomes his queen.

Macsen Wledig is not merely mythical: he corresponds to the historical figure Magnus Maximus, proclaimed emperor in Britannia, and later Gaul, in the late 4th century and whose memory was preserved in Welsh legend and genealogy. Magnus was said to have married his daughter to the British king Vortigern—a story enshrined on the Pillar of Eliseg near Valle Crucis Abbey in Denbighshire. The alignment of Eleanor with Elen—a queen associated with building, mediation, and dynastic continuity—would have positioned her within a narrative of legitimacy that transcended simple conquest.

Queen’s Gate, Caernarfon Castle, with motte evident. Copyright Rachel Swallow

This symbolic layering is most clearly visible at the Queen’s Gate at Caernarfon. Set above the landscape beyond and to the east of the walls of the castle and town walls, and with no obvious external access, I suggest that the gate served as a gloriette: an elevated, private space from which the castle’s elite landscape could be viewed. It overlooked a garden laid out in the former bailey of the Earl of Chester’s late-11th-century motte-and-bailey castle, recorded in 1284 as the garden previously belonging to the Welsh Prince’s llys (palace). This elevated viewpoint and garden arrangement is strikingly like Eleanor’s garden and gloriette at Leeds Castle, constructed in 1278. Replacing the former garden of the Welsh Princes, therefore, Eleanor transformed a site of pre-conquest identity into an English and Castilian landscape at Caernarfon.

Segontium Fort, Caernarfon. View from East. Copyright Rachel Swallow

Beyond the garden lay the route later known as the King’s Way, following an old Roman road from the Queen’s Gate from the east of the castle site to Segontium fort and the early Christian site of St Peblig. This axis—linking Roman, sacred, and regal geographies—was further extended through the nearby royal hunting park at Coed Helen. The resulting landscape echoed and enhanced upon the ceremonial design of Eleanor’s other gardens and estates, and brought together memory, power, and place.

Map showing location of Overton in relation to Edward’s Welsh Castles

Elsewhere, Eleanor’s influence now appears more discreetly. At Overton, then in Flintshire, granted to her as part of her dower lands in 1283, the traces of Eleanor’s presence are quieter but still significant. The site—once a Powysian princely centre—was visited multiple times by Eleanor and Edward and was elevated to borough status in 1292. Contemporary sources refer to a castle, chapel, mill, and gardens. In 1284, Eleanor commissioned stained glass for the chapel and hosted a feast there with the entertainment of over 1,000 Welsh minstrels – an ostentatious display of political theatre.

North of Overton. View north west of hills of Clwydian Range. Copyright Rachel Swallow

Overton’s significance extended beyond its material fabric. It lay within a region imbued with historical and legendary associations, particularly those of Powys, whose rulers claimed descent from Magnus Maximus. This legendary lineage, recorded on the Pillar of Eliseg near Valle Crucis Abbey, presented Powys as a kingdom with both Roman and British roots.

The geography of Powys is also preserved in another legendary dream: The Dream of Rhonabwy, a Middle Welsh tale set during the reign of Madog ap Maredudd, the last prince of the entire kingdom of Powys. In this story, Rhonabwy dreams of travelling back to the court of King Arthur, and the landscape described places Powys stretching from Porffordd (modern Pulford in Cheshire, north of Overton) to Gwarfan in Arwystli.

By considering Caernarfon and Overton together—not as isolated places, but as connected elements within Eleanor’s political and symbolic geography—we gain a deeper understanding of how legend, landscape, and queenship intersected in the making of English authority in Wales. Eleanor emerges not simply as a consort, but as a queen whose influence shaped a vision of rule grounded in ancient Welsh tales, place, and space.

My ongoing research and future publication are uncovering the form and probable siting of the lost castle at Overton, revealing its full role within the broader narrative of royal presence and designed landscape. Watch this space!

Rachel Swallow FSA (Swallowtail Archaeology ) is an archaeologist whose research has reshaped our understanding of castles and their landscapes. Elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2018, her work explores the social, political, and architectural significance of these sites within their broader contexts. Rachel completed her PhD in 2015, and she is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Chester and holds an honorary fellowship at the University of Liverpool.

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