The Castle Studies Trust’s supporters and trustees, joined by castle experts from far and wide, were hosted by Keith Hill, owner of Clifford Castle, Herefordshire, to hear the results of the recent work funded by the Trust at the castle.
Clifford Castle is a large motte with remains of a stone castle on top, a vast bailey with elaborate stone gatehouse on the one side, and a mysterious earthwork known as the hornwork on the other, standing beside the river Wye. Originally founded in the first years after the Norman conquest Clifford became home to a baronial family whose wealth allowed them to erect the substantial stone structures now visible. The new work led by archaeologist Tim Hoverd and Nigel Barker has made it possible to confirm that these were almost certainly built at the end of the twelfth or in the first decades of the thirteenth century.
It was suggested that what has always been described as a great hall was probably a chamber block over a basement, reinforced by comparison with the structure at nearby Grosmont castle. Excavation recovered a door as well as the end wall of this block, which turned out to be very close to the external curtain wall. Pottery found on the motte confirmed a date of late twelfth/early thirteenth century. The arrow loops in the surviving mural tower are of the same era. The curtain wall also contains a large number of latrine chutes discharging down the motte side facing the long-abandoned earthwork on the far side and cut off by a man-made ditch. What it was remains a subject for speculation, as does the presence of buildings in the outer ward, because a post-medieval orchard was found to have removed most of the evidence.
The Trust is delighted that its funding has significantly improved our understanding of an important castle of the Welsh Marches. A full report will be made in due course.
Research on castles has outgrown the walls of architecture, sprung from the rubbly tangle of archaeology and taken flight from the pages of law texts, charters and literary exposition. In the hands of an adept writer, these are small bumps on the road to timely completion. Presently, however, I find myself in the camp of the almost-complete thesis writers (PhD fourth-yearers: here is fellowship!). It is a credit to castle studies that there is so much to think and write about and, perhaps, get lost in. This post shares some of the most interesting conclusions from my work looking at early stone castles in two polities in medieval Scotland, the Earldom of Orkney and the Lordship of Galloway. Among the themes I examined was the transition from timber to stone architecture, the relationship of castle to landscape and the political context for castle construction in these areas.
Why Orkney and Galloway? To begin with, we cannot be certain why castles appeared in non-‘feudal’ Orkney in the first place. Secondly, one of Orkney’s early castle sites, according to accepted wisdom, is the prototype for a larger group of early castle sites in the earldom – and has influenced larger debates on castles in Scotland more generally. Cubbie Roo’s Castle, this foremost plank of Orcadian castellar wisdom is, I believe, a little younger than widely believed. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests Orkney was probably home to a stone castle founded around the middle of the 12th century, decidedly early for this part of the world.
If the castle site (but not the surviving architecture) is genuine, then the attendant landscape must be examined too, for Cubbie Roo’s and other Orcadian castles. Following a conventional model of castle as the centre of lordship, one would expect to find churches and important farm sites close to suspected or documented castle sites. This was simply not the case in Orkney. Cubbie Roo’s and the other castle sites I examined were, on present (chiefly place-name) evidence, sited on marginal lands of indifferent quality. Some preserved evidence of associated chapel sites, which fits with the conventional model of early castellar lordship.
The disconnect between terrestrial wealth and castle location opened three possibilities about the origin and siting of castles: firstly, were these defensive sites? If defence included a consistent grasp of the surrounding area, including major seaways through the Earldom, then the answer is no. Secondly, were these sites connected to maritime wealth? It is entirely plausible: recent research has demonstrated the wealth of the earldom derived massive fisheries exploitation. Thirdly, were these sites connected to ‘new’ arrivals to the Earldom? The political upheavals in the Kingdom of Norway (to which Orkney belonged) saw magnates appear in the Earldom with no obvious familial connection. The lack of obvious relationship with good farming land may be taken to suggest the castles were built on land acquired more for the purposes of castle building (and architectural showmanship) and maritime exploitation than the inherent wealth of the soil. The new men’s power derived from proximity to the Earl, not a direct ancestral claim to a portion of Orkney’s economic output. Orkney’s earliest castles, whatever their form, were the product and reflection of a shift in how comital wealth and power operated.
Galloway’s castles present a different challenge; though as a group they are more numerous than their Orcadian counterparts, the evidence for them is drastically more erratic. The exquisite (and displaced) Loch Doon Castle is more clearly understood than the hummocky mound of Castledykes outside Kirkcudbright, for example. On a cursory examination of both sites’ landscapes shows that Castledykes is much easier to understand. Kirkcudbright was the centre of the powerful Lordship of Galloway. Its hinterlands feature no fewer than three monastic foundations by the Lords, and the probable extent of demesne estate concentration in the area around Kirkcudbright is one of the highest in the Lordship.
What of Loch Doon Castle? Any modern visitor will appreciate the eponymous loch is remote and difficult to access from the big towns of Scotland’s south-west. However, it was originally built on an island in the Loch and later dismantled and reconstructed on the shore. It initially sat on a substantial route-way between the Glenken in Galloway – another demesne area of the Lords – and the Scottish coastal royal burgh and castle of Ayr. Another route south of Loch Doon offered access to the southern area of Carrick and, via the River Cree, the Wigtownshire portion of the Lordship of Galloway, with its probable administrative centre at Cruggleton Castle. Though its landscape is presently dominated by fishing holiday cottages and forestry, place-name evidence suggests in the medieval period the area was exploited for its pastoral suitability, and analogous documentary evidence from monastic sources hint at mineral wealth too. Doubtless Loch Doon Castle also formed an upland centre in Carrick in counterpart to the lowland, maritime-oriented centre at Turnberry Castle (also surveyed during this project).
Lastly, an overview for all of Scotland. A small, prefacing section of my thesis examined the monuments record for all possible castle sites in Scotland, including the sites above and less conventional secular power centres in the 12th-14th centuries – palaces, enclosures, crannogs (artificial islands in lochs), duns and brochs. A growing body of evidence in Scotland suggests many sites typically understood as prehistoric (chiefly the last three aforementioned categories of sites) were re-occupied during the broad medieval period. One conclusion from this country-level study suggested that there were more medieval power centres (e.g. bearing evidence for occupation) per square kilometre in the western counties of Scotland than the east. This likely reflects the underlying patterns of early medieval lordship in Scotland over which the culture of castles was overlain. This may act as another, belated, nail in the coffin of the military-architecture thesis of castle studies in Scotland.
The framework of understanding castles through landscape as much as architecture and archaeology is one I hope to apply more widely to Scotland and, as I engage more fully with English castle studies in my new job, in the wider medieval world.
Bodiam Castle is well known in castle studies; whether it was a fortified structure or built to display the status of the owner. This debate has been explored elsewhere, particularly by Professor Matthew Johnson[1]. Traditionally the building has been considered from the exterior, with a few notable exceptions[2], further until recently only ground floor plans of the building have existed. As part of the Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages project we undertook a survey of the building and created plans of each floor level and some elevation drawings[3]. To undertake the survey we used a Leica reflectorless Total Station linked to download in real time straight into AutoCAD using the software TheoLT. This allowed us to view the survey data as work progressed and to record the building in three dimensions (3D).
Having the results of the building recorded in 3D allowed us to start thinking about the space beyond the traditional drawings, we had generated and we could think about the building in a number of new ways. The 3D data was used as a basis for creating models of the building in the medieval period; rebuilding the fallen walls, reroofing the apartments, and furnishing the rooms. These models can be used to create beautiful illustrations of the spaces, but they can also be used to tell us about living in those spaces.
A visualisation of part of the private apartments at Bodiam Castle
This can be seen when considering the private apartments on the eastern elevation. Previous interpretations[4] see them described as comparable; they lie one above the other and appear to consist of a similar layout of rooms; an unheated outer chamber, an inner chamber with fireplace and window seat, and a further inner chamber with fireplace. However, in 3D they begin to look very different; the roof converts the upper apartment; making the space much more open and the slightly different arragements of windows on the curtain wall combined with the position of the Great Hall will affect the outer chambers.
Comparison between the upper and lower apartments when considered in three dimensions
We can also use the models to consider the lighting of the spaces over the course of a day. A lighting analysis demonstrates how dark these rooms are and how they change over the course of the day.
A lighting analysis of Bodiam Castle showing the changing conditions in the upper apartments over the course of the day
Finally, in furnishing the rooms we can consider movement through the spaces. Floor plan can allow us to see how spaces connect and their size. But in furnishing the rooms the movement through that space can be considered within the frame of reference of an inhabited building.
A visualisation showing a fully furnished room, a different space to negotiate than the empty spaces depicted in floor plans
These examples show just some of the ways to consider how we are thinking about the use of space; in this case at Bodiam Castle and how it is beginning to raise new thoughts on the experience of living within the building.
[1] These drawings and the results of the project have recently been published Johnson 2017 available http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/lived-experience-in-the-later-middle-ages.html [2] Faulkner, P. A. (1963). Castle Planning in the fourteenth century. The Archaeological Journal, 120, 215–35. DOI: 10.1080/00665983.1963.10854241.
Simpson, W. D. (1931). The Moated Homestead, Church and Castle of Bodiam. The Sussex Archaeological Collections, 72, 69–99. [3] Johnson, M. H. (2017). Lived Experience in the Later Middle Ages. (M. H. Johnson, Ed.). St Andrews: Highfield Press. [4] Faulkner, P. A. (1975). Domestic planning from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In J. T. Smith, P. A. Faulkner, & A. Emery (Eds.), Medieval Domestic Architecture (Vol. 115, pp. 84–117). Leeds: The Royal Archaeological Institute.
Goodall, J. (2011). The English Castle. London: Yale University Press.
Nairn, I., & Pevsner, N. (1965). The Buildings of England: Sussex. London: Penguin Books.
Hay Castle, in Hay-on-Wye, is undergoing a major restoration which will result in an exciting visitor destination and a centre for culture and arts. The Heritage Lottery Fund granted nearly £5 million toward the project. So far, a substantial amount of archaeology has been undertaken to help inform planning applications, conservation management plans and structural engineering solutions.
The site, a Scheduled Ancient Monument, embodies an astonishing array of architecture, including a Norman keep, an important medieval gateway, a Grade I listed Jacobean mansion and later Victorian and Edwardian additions. The keep was probably incorporated into a late medieval domestic building and then this was retained within the double-pile mansion built in the first half of the 17th century. The mansion was itself subjected to alterations in the 18th and 19th centuries and twice partly gutted by fire in the 20th century. The gate and curtain wall were retained and appear to have been repaired as garden features.
Fifteen archaeological test pits have enhanced our knowledge of the site in a variety of ways. Digs were undertaken within the derelict mansion to establish where the new lift could be situated. Just below the surface runs a medieval stone structure, at least 3.5 metres wide running along the north face of the mansion. The angle and relationship with the keep suggests that this is the 13th century curtain wall. A glimpse of the underground stonework will remain visible in the restored mansion.
Investigations also revealed that much of the site comprises about two meters of infill. Two boreholes were drilled giving results of approximately 2–3 metres of made up ground, 2–3 metres of sub soil and then at 7 metres the Raglan mudstone bedrock. It is thought that this infill was brought in when the Jacobean mansion was constructed, thus heightening it from the lower medieval ground level.
On the north face of the keep, facing town, a test pit revealed a wall of tufa. Large regular well-cut blocks measuring around 40cm long by 20cm high appeared to extend below the level of excavation. In his report, lead archaeologist Peter Dorling stated: “This finding appears to support the interpretation of the tower as the original castle gateway. The west side of the tufa forms a straight edge, which at this level was perhaps associated with a seating for a bridge/drawbridge”. This is an exciting find as freshly quarried tufa around a gateway arch would have been very striking and certainly would have had a strong visual impact.
Volunteers from the community have helped on a dozen or so of the digs. The Hay History Group and the Young Archaeologists Club have taken part. Further archaeological exploration will be undertaken, mainly in the derelict mansion to establish locations of new footings. In addition, it is hoped that ongoing archaeology will help determine the existence of the earlier gateway within the keep.
Construction is expected to begin in October and will take two years, when Hay Castle will be fully open to the public for the first time in many centuries.
Every year we organise visits to the projects we’ve supported. These visits are open to our donors and typically involve a guided tour and a sneak peek at the results. In May we journeyed to Castell Dinas Bran near Llangollen in North Wales.
The Welsh built the medieval castle on the site of an Iron Age hillfort and it dominates the surrounding area. It’s a steep climb up, making you appreciate the effort involved to bring in building materials or even everyday supplies. And the higher you get, the stronger the winds are. Now in ruins, it must have been an imposing site visible for miles around in the landscape.
Fiona Gale, County Archaeologist for Denbighshire County Council, lent her expert eye to the guided tour. She explained the important consolidation work over the past few years as well as the recent archaeological fieldwork. The castle is mostly built from slate, and in many places the weathered walls have needed modern intervention to make them safe and prevent further collapse.
The castle might owe its present condition partly to slighting (deliberate partial demolition) and archaeologists noticed patches of scorched stone before ramps were added to mitigate erosion.
The survey at Castell Dinas Bran
With funding from ourselves and CADW, archaeologists could carry out a geophysical survey of the castle, using resistivity and magnetometry to peer beneath the surface. The report is nearly ready, and when signed off will be shared on our website. The results are tantalising, and give us more information about the use of the castle, while leaving some questions which might have to be answered by excavation.
Castell Dinas Bran is an important Welsh castle, and one of the better surviving examples. After important steps to preserve the site and keep it open to the public, we have been able to add to our understanding of the castle.
If you visit Pleshey Castle on one of its open days, you are struck by the size of the place. The castle was probably founded by Geoffrey I de Mandeville in the late 11th century, and while no buildings survive above ground the earthworks are impressive. Excavations at Pleshey in the 20th century uncovered a tower or keep on top of the motte, and buildings in the south bailey. The Castle Studies Trust and Chelmsford Museums Service are working together to interpret the results and make sure they are publicly available.
The castle is laid out in three segments: a north bailey, a south bailey, and a motte in between. The northern bailey, which contained a small market place, has been built over, but the motte and the bailey to the south still survive. A timber keep probably stood on top of the mound, and was modified over the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries.
The keep had a courtyard at the centre, with ranges along the north, west, and south sides, and a forebuilding to the east. The south range contained a hall (important for entertaining guests) and a kitchen (important for keeping the guests fed!). It was probably built after 1167, which was when William II de Mandeville was given permission to refortify the castle after it had been slighted.
In the mid-13th to mid-14th century, the keep on the motte was clad in flint, and the hall refurbished. In the late 14th century the living accommodation on the north and east sides of the keep was renovated, and fireplaces and garderobes (privies) were added.
Starting in 1458, the keep was clad in brick, replacing the flint walls. The work was ordered by Queen Margaret of Anjou and records from the Duchy of Lancaster (researched by Pat Ryan) mean we know a lot about how the work was carried out. A new bridge over the inner moat was built entirely in brick in 1477-80, and the gatehouse to the forebuilding was reconstructed in brick in 1482–83. Brick castles are not very common in England, but you can see an excellent example at Tattershall in Lincolnshire.
The chronology of the mid-15th-century changes to the castle should be understood in the wider historical context of the Wars of the Roses. The major refurbishment of the keep in brick was ordered by Queen Margaret of Anjou, but the outbreak of civil war in 1459–61 led to the usurpation of Henry VI by the Yorkist Edward IV, and Margaret went into exile. Edward IV ordered a refurbishment of the castle buildings when he married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464-5 and Pleshey was granted to her as part of her jointure. However, Edward IV was hard-pressed in the 1460s and had to fight to regain his throne in 1470–71, and most of the building works in this period appear to be routine repairs. The rebuilding of the bridge and keep gatehouse in brick in 1477–83 after an interval of 20 years appears to be the completion of Queen Margaret’s scheme of building works in quieter and more prosperous times.
This blog post was prepared by Patrick Allen and Richard Nevell. The photograph of the bridge is copyright Patrick Allen.
This post was written by Dr Audrey Thorstad, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Bangor University.
As castle scholars and enthusiasts, we enjoy learning about history, exploring how the remains of the past can teach us about the lives of people who came before us, and perhaps what we might learn about ourselves through their experiences. Did those in the past feel the same way? How did they view their own history? How did they embrace or even manipulate the history of the landscape in which they lived?
The physical and material remains tell us a story of a layered history. Any given castle can have centuries of history layered and intertwined with one another. For Tudor castle owners, builders, and renovators, the past played an important role in how they used and interpreted the building and the landscape.
An interesting example, though just one of many, is Cowdray House or Castle in West Sussex. The building that survives today had two main phases of construction during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The first phase started by Sir David Owen from around 1492 and saw the completion of the eastern and northern ranges. The second phase began when Sir William Fitzwilliam, later earl of Southampton bought the estate in the late 1520s and completed the southern and western ranges. Although it appears that the surviving physical remains depict a completely new build, thirteenth-century floor tiles indicate there may have been an earlier residence on the site.
The placement and building of Cowdray was no mistake. To the west, the residence looks out onto the town of Midhurst; to the north and east the castle looks out onto parkland. Fitzwilliam received a licence to impark and crenellate in 1533 from Henry VIII. The licence allowed him to impark 600 acres of land, meadow, pasture and wood.[1] To the south of Cowdray is St Ann’s Hill, the location of a Saxon cemetery dating from the fifth and sixth centuries as well as a Norman castle owned by the Bohun family until the 15th century.[2] These views were meant for those in the castle as well as those approaching the castle. The town and parkland scenery evoked lordly privilege and status, while the closeness of the newly built Cowdray and the old Norman castle gave the observer a sense of historical significance.
By rebuilding the castle not on the original site of St Ann’s Hill, but approximately 400 meters away, the Tudor builders were using the past in very interesting ways. The new build broke away from the Norman past and the Bohun family tradition, yet kept the site as a physical memory of that history. Cowdray does not have a completely new history starting in 1492 when Owen started building the castle, but an intertwining and connected history to the town and historical sites around it.
Owen and Fitzwilliam were not alone in their endeavour to create their own legacy by shaping the past. John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford renovated his familial stronghold at Hedingham Castle making the Norman great tower the central building of the inner bailey with his late-fifteenth-century brick towers surrounding the twelfth-century great tower like a monument to his ancestors. It was not just castle building that allowed the Tudor nobility and gentry to use the past. Sir Rhys ap Thomas, for example, used the coat of arms of Urien of Rheged as his own, claiming descent from the sixth-century king of Gower. The use, and arguably manipulation, of history by the sixteenth century elite was nothing new. The nobility and gentry throughout the Middle Ages were interpreting and adopting the past. What sets castles apart is the constant, and at times, unbridled incorporation of structures, materials, landscapes, and histories that came before.
Geophysical and photogrammetric surveys of this motte and bailey castle. Abandoned by c.1200 this has the potential for us to advance our understanding of early castles along the Welsh border.
One of the earliest castles in the UK and one of the most important along the Welsh border the geophysical survey and excavations, along with separately funded building analysis, will help understand the morphology of this little understood site. The CSG visited it as part of the 2016 annual conference. Please note this is a privately owned site and not accessible to the general public.
Co-funding with Cadw a geophysical survey of the most complete, but little understood, native Welsh built castle to discover what structures lie beneath the surface.
With almost nothing left above ground the geophysical and earthwork surveys will help shed light on the form of castle with strong royal associations, in particular the C15 palace associated with the House of York and birthplace of Richard III. Please note this is a privately owned site and not accessible to the general public.
Analysis of castle masonry from the completely destroyed late C15 castle built by Thomas, Lord Stanley either found via excavations or reused in the current building. This will help understand what the castle looked like and early Tudor palaces around London, like Richmond. Please note this is a privately owned site and not accessible to the general public.
Aerial photo of Pembroke Castle from the west, showing parchmarks (Crown Copyright RCAHMW, AP_2013_5162)
New work by Neil Ludlow and Dyfed Archaeological Trust (DAT) has revealed the remains of long-vanished buildings, and other features, at Pembroke Castle. Pembroke is famous for its large round keep, built by earl William Marshal, and a number of stone domestic buildings are preserved in the inner ward. But the large, outer ward has been an empty space since at least the eighteenth century.
In 2013, routine aerial photography, by Toby Driver of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales (RCAHMW), revealed a number of ‘parchmarks’ in which the outlines of buried walls could be seen, as shorter grass, in the castle. He contacted Neil, who applied to the Castle Studies Trust for a grant to carry out further work at the castle. Thanks to their funding Neil, in partnership with DAT, was able to undertake a full geophysical survey of both the inner and outer wards in May 2016.
Three different methods were applied. Magnetometry, which measures magnetic variation below the ground, was carried out by DAT while Tim Southern undertook resistivity survey, which measures electrical resistance, on DAT’s behalf. Both processes can reveal buried walls and ditches and Ground Penetrating Radar, which can detect features to a depth of over 1.5 metres, was also undertaken in the outer ward, by Tim Fletcher of TF Industries Ltd..
Plans of Pembroke Castle showing the parchmarks and the results of the geophysical survey. Copyright Dyfed Archaeological Trust and TF Industries Ltd.; Crown Copyright RCAHMW.
Survey in the inner ward suggested that two or possibly three previously unknown buildings may lie beneath the grass, but they couldn’t be dated or characterised. At least one of them may, however, be connected with food preparation as neither a kitchen nor bakehouse has yet been conclusively identified at the castle, which would have been necessary to feed the people who made up the earl’s household, his retinue, and the garrison.
The results in the outer ward were outstanding – and surprising. Even allowing for later disturbance, which was slight, the area seems to have been largely empty of buildings during most of the Middle Ages – in contrast to the busy, congested scene that’s normally imagined. This area was enclosed with an impressive curtain wall and towers in the mid-thirteenth century but may always have been envisaged as an open space – for ‘civil’ assembly, for military gatherings, for pageantry and display or for leisure, or perhaps all four; a garden was certainly present by the fifteenth century, and may have been laid out around 1300-20.
Some buildings were however present. A large rectangular building M against the southwest curtain wall, and a possible smaller lean-to N against the southern curtain, are both probably medieval; was the large building for storage, or was it domestic? To account for the apparent absence of a well in the castle, a number of local stories had developed including one which involved a system of water-pipes; the discovery of a possible well, O, may solve the mystery. Most exciting of all was the confirmation that an arrangement of parchmarks G, recorded in 2013, belong to a free-standing, winged mansion-house. Its form suggests that it’s from the late fifteenth century, and it may have been the building within which King Henry VII was born, which is known to have stood in the outer ward.
A ditch formerly separated the outer ward from the inner ward, and a buried masonry structure K, opposite the inner gate, may be a bridge abutment. This ditch was possibly infilled to improve the setting of the fifteenth-century mansion, and garden. Alternatively, the infill may belong to the Civil War period (1642-48) when the castle was held against the Crown, and then against Cromwell. Two former buildings A and B, which overlay the infilled ditch, may date to the Civil War; one of them was associated with a below-ground ‘passage’ that may be a gunpowder magazine. The castle again saw military use during the Second World War, when five ‘Hall-huts’ C were built to house troops based at the castle.
While a number of the other features denote modern service trenches, some may belong to early use of the castle site. A linear feature J may represent the boundary of a burgage plot, perhaps confirming that the outer ward was laid out over part of the town; if so, some of the patchwork of smaller, formless features may also be urban in origin. Others may be hints of prehistoric occupation.
While the results show what can be achieved through geophysics – and generous grant-aid – more work is required before they can be fully understood. In particular, even limited excavation in the mansion may confirm its date and form, and suggest how the outer ward was used during the fifteenth century. The mansion seems to have contained a latrine, so with luck some good palaeoenvironmental evidence has been preserved. Pembroke is a castle of national significance, both architecturally and as a setting for major historic events: it will repay close study.
The deadline for grant applications passed on 15th December and we’re going through the various projects now. Altogether the 11 projects, coming from all parts of the British Isles and Italy, are asking for over £50,000. They cover a wide period of history and types of research. For a little more detail, here are the applications we’ve received:
Abergavenny Castle, Wales – a geophysical survey of the whole site. The castle was an important baronial site and saw a lot of military action from when it was first built in the 11th century up until it was slighted (partially demolished) in the Civil War.
Bamburgh, England – assess and conserve a large collection of medieval metal work dating from the 8th to the 11th century discovered in the west ward. Bamburgh was a major elite fortress from the early medieval period so the project should help potentially understand how the site changed over the centuries.
Caldicot Castle, Wales – geophysical of the whole scheduled area. Building on the previous resistivity survey in the project will use all three types of survey technique to get the best understanding of any below ground remains of this major baronial site.
Castle Pulverbatch, England – geophysical and photogrammetric surveys of the site, one of the finest examples of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle in Shropshire.
Clifford Castle, England – geophysical survey and excavations to help understand the morphology of one of the earliest castle sites in the UK, and one of the principal castles on the Anglo-Welsh border. Please note this is a privately owned site and not accessible to the general public.
Dinas Bran, Wales – geophysical survey of the most extensive and complete Welsh-built castle to understand what structures lie beneath the surface.
Edinburgh Castle, Scotland – mapping and categorising suspected conflict damage at this iconic castle.
Fotheringhay, England – understanding the morphology of the caput of the honor of Huntingdon and 15th-century palace associated with the House of York and birthplace of Richard III, using ground penetrating radar and small unmanned aircraft. Please note this is a privately owned site and not accessible to the general public.
Lathom House, England – analysis of masonry dating from the late 15th-century castle built by Thomas, Lord Stanley either found via excavations or potential reused in the current building.
Lecce, Italy – to help with the publication of a history of the castle of Lecce which was founded by the Normans.
Lough Key, Ireland – to improve understanding of the medieval MacDermot lordship of Moylurg and its relationship with the Rock of Lough Key.
Fifteen archaeological test pits have enhanced our knowledge of the site in a variety of ways. Digs were undertaken within the derelict mansion to establish where the new lift could be situated. Just below the surface runs a medieval stone structure, at least 3.5 metres wide running along the north face of the mansion. The angle and relationship with the keep suggests that this is the 13th century curtain wall. A glimpse of the underground stonework will remain visible in the restored mansion.
Volunteers from the community have helped on a dozen or so of the digs. The 
