Your favourite castle?

Not much to look at, but an amazing history. Built by Henry VIII and used right up to and including WWII.

Hurst Castle

Got to go local – Dumbarton Castle:

Also, Auchendennan House – not quite a castle, but pretty cool. I got married here!

Always impressed by the setting and rugged beauty of Corgarff –

Bet you still did most of your serious drinking in Cuth’s, though

Did I shite!

When i was there, the Undercroft was the place to be. Although, with its limited opening hours, most proper evenings started straight after Castle tea with a trip to the back room of the Shakey (when it was the back room, not the new back room, I mean the middle room now)

And away trips were almost always to either Mary’s or Trevs; before they went mixed, that was the place to go to have no success at all with girls.

More votes for the usual Northumberland suspects; Bamburgh, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh.

However loved Manorbier in Pembrokeshire as well.

Nothing from Disney yet? 🙁

Solent forts, along with Hurst Castle.

Bit of history here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/hampshire/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8340000/8340239.stm

Caerphilly Castle, it’s massive and has a leaning tower

Castle Coch not really a proper castle, but it looks good and has some great mtbing in it’s grounds, they even held an XC race there once.

Barbara Windsor

Goodrich

More a tower but still – it’s my Gran’s house

Bamburgh for me, but always been fascinated by Crac de Chevaliers (sp?)

You need to look here Cadw

Cadw is the Welsh Government’s historic environment service working for an accessible and well-protected historic environment for Wales.

and because everyday is a skool day Cadw is a Welsh word meaning ‘to keep’ or ‘to protect’.

and for me anything in Wales is brilliant

Carrisbrooke – projecting bastions are where it’s at!

I’ve got a massive soft spot for Pendennis too

Both of them were kept on the cutting edge of military tech for years.

I believe Pendennis had nuclear artillery capable of reaching France at one point (but can’t find anything online to back that up)

@ theotherjonv

You’re dating yourself there!

Mary’s was still segregated when I was there (had a bit of luck hunting in that particular environment as it goes), but Trev’s was co-ed by that time!

Most of the Castle rahs I knew used to have a couple in the Castle bar then come down the Bailey for some proper high jinks in Cuth’s when they’d got some dutch courage 😀

Hmmm, you’re dating yourself by describing me as a Castle rah. I was there in the first year of mixed intake, and castle was so unpopular i was assigned it in place of my first choice. Granted, it got steadily more Rah through the 3 years I was there, but if you call me that again, i’ll take great offence.

And the place for a proper session was the Catholic chaplaincy (not a catholic, not even religious, but father jess was always up for a non-denominational lock in)

you are all wrong,

the correct answer is castell y bere,

http://www.castlewales.com/cybere.html

Harlech’s got stature

Blast from my childhood, I watched some shite as a loon.

Or
Slains castle

@ theotherjonv.

Fair enough – at least you didn’t go to Hatfield.

I ended up at Cuth’s having cocked up my application and filled in an open application by mistake – turned out OK – great three years.

Spending my time studying something I was really quite interested in, boozing, playing sport and occasionally a bit of shagging.

If I had my time again…………..

Beaumaris is stunning as a projection of force, but Dunnottar beats it on location I think:

I’ve got a soft spot for Dunottar, too, coz it’s my family’s ancestral gaff!

Mary’s or Trevs; before they went mixed, that was the place to go to have no success at all with girls.

if you went to Castle it’s no surprise – you wouldn’t know what to do with one anyway 😀

[Hild Beder here]

Two pages and no one has mentioned:

Loads of palmerston follies round our way, some still in some sort of military use and others are council depot, library/community centre, garden centre, reclamation yard and so on…
Best kept one open to public (some open days and a few businesses including a bike/fitness coaching one) near us is Crownhill Fort:

Of course folklore fans and scientologists will love Tntagel Castle which is pretty lovely if not a lot of the actual castle left!

My favourite overall is Fort Libéria, in Villefranche-en-Conflent, Pyrenees. [/url]

It is sooooo cool, it even has an underground staircase all the way back down into the fortified town. And you can get to it on the coolest mountain railway EVER.

w@nker

{directed at Brakes}

dannyh, brakes, theotherjonv – Castle, Hild/Bede and Cuth’s and you’re arguing about who’s the rah? Surely all of you are appearing somewhere on here[/url]?

I was one of the plebs from up the hill

I was one of the plebs from up the hill

Oh, one of them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@ brakes

I actually meant to apply to Hild Bede, but I was such a snot-nosed halfwit at that point in my life I managed to put an open application in by mistake.

I actually rocked up to Hild Bede on my first day to find I wasn’t meant to be there(!)

In the end it didn’t make an awful lot of difference to my three years………

I didn’t realise you had to select a college either and ended up at Hild Bede – maybe I got your place.
I respect anyone who went to Durham, unless you went to the famous Hatfield college of course.

At least we can agree that NO-ONE likes Hatfield(!)

About to graduate from Collingwood! Durham wasn’t originally my first choice so I just copied a friend’s choice of college which was lazy but it’s worked out ok. Often regret passing up the opportunity to live with wizards etc though.

Re castles, I like this one. Less is more.

Ardvreck Castle, Loch Assynt by Asher H[/url], on Flickr

Not a castle to be messed with. There are a hundred ways to end up dead before you even get to the door, and a hundred more if you manage to get through. An untouchable projection of force.

[Bill Bailey] The week point in castle’s defences though is the gift shop, you just have to distract the old lady behind the till and you’re in [/Bill Bailey]

Some great examples on this thread.
Carcassonne is pretty amazing, not so much a castle as an entire fortified town – even if it was restored with debatable historical accuracy.

When I was a kid, we used to spend Easter hols in Snowdonia, and for sheer, running around finding odd passages and staircases and getting lost Caernarfon was hard to beat.

Friends have just returned from India, and some of the castles / fortresses there sound astonishing. I want to go.

Burg Pfalzgrafenstein

And away trips were almost always to either Mary’s or Trevs;

Mary’s was full of some of the most awful looking women I’ve ever met. And I had a giant rug from Trevs’s front entrance way, liberated in my final year.

I think I was about 8 when they started teaching us castles at school, from the basic motte and bailey, through to the concentric stuff built by Edward II. Exactly the kind of history you want as an 8 year old!

Beaumaris is an absolute beauty.

Caernarfon is also pretty awesome.

I always had a soft spot for Conwy, especially the way they planned ahead so the M56 could go past it:

Jodhpur is pretty impressive:

Lindisfarne for me, the only exciting part of being dragged around Northumbria by my parents as a young lad

Once, when the World was a safer place, I spent a day exploring this place.

Norwich

Skipton, its not massively impressive, but exactly what I imagined a castle should be like when I was a kid. And it’s handy for the shops.