Castles of Britain and Ireland Book

This fascinating volume is the most comprehensive illustrated guide to the castles of Britain and Ireland ever published.

As ancient examples of the intersection of architecture and history, castles remain awe-inspiring today, centuries after they were built. This volume is an expanded and revised comprehensive edition of Plantagene Somerset Fry's classic study on this subject. Fry adds recent historical and archaeological research to his definitive history of life in and around the castles of the British Isles, including evocative descriptions of everyday life, war and weapons, and sieges. How the castles were designed and built, and how this reflects changes in politics and society, is fully explained in an engaging text enhanced by spectacular photographs and plans of the castles.

The first part of the book is made up of thematic chapters ranging in subject from "What Is a Castle?" to "The End of the Castle." The second part is a gazetteer--by far the most comprehensive ever published in a single book--that describes in great detail more than 1,350 castles in Britain and Ireland. For the tourist, scholar, or armchair explorer of castles, this is the ultimate reference book.

Other Details: 450 illustrations, 200 in full color 312 pages 8 1/2 x 8 1/2" Published 1997

about castles and castle sites, the result of visiting over 1,000 sites over the past few years and of studying the considerable literature on the subject, from the earliest medieval texts (in translation) to the most recently published books and papers. In several instances I have been able to examine and discuss findings yet to be written up, and it is a privilege to be allowed to include digests of these. Within the compass of the book it is not possible to include everything, but there is enough to whet the appetite of castle enthusiasts to take up the search for more, and to join the ranks of those many painstaking and enthusiastic local historians and archaeologists who have done so much for castle history, without whose work no book like this could be written.