Download or read book Castles Town Defences and Artillery Fortifications in the United Kingdom and Ireland written by John R. Kenyon and published by . This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Castles Town Defences and Artillery Fortifications in Britain 1983 1989 written by John R. Kenyon and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Guide to the Medieval Castles of England written by Malcolm Hislop and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2024-03-30 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spread across the medieval kingdom of England in a network of often formidable strongholds, castles, like cathedrals, are defining landmarks of their age, dominating their settings, in many cases even to this day. By representing an essential aspect of our history and heritage, the interpretation of which is constantly being revised, they demonstrate the value of Malcolm Hislop’s compact, authoritative and well illustrated new guide to English castles. The gazetteer includes an astonishing variety of types, sizes and designs. Individual entries bring out the salient points of interest including historical context, building history and architectural character. The defensive and domestic purposes of these remarkable buildings are explained, as is the way in which their layout and role developed over the course of hundreds of years, from the predominantly earth and timber fortresses of the Normans to the complex stone castles of the later Middle Ages, many of which can be visited today. Hislop’s experience as an archaeologist specializing in medieval buildings, castles in particular, as well as his eye for structural detail, ensure that his guide is a necessary handbook for readers who are keen on medieval history and warfare, and for visitors who are looking for an accessible introduction to these monumental relics of England’s military past.
Download or read book Fortress Britain written by Andrew Saunders and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Castle written by John Goodall and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vibrant history of the castle in Britain, from the early Middle Ages to the present day The castle has long had a pivotal place in British life, associated with lordship, landholding, and military might, and today it remains a powerful symbol of history. But castles have never been merely impressive fortresses--they were hubs of life, activity, and imagination. John Goodall weaves together the history of the British castle across the span of a millennium, from the eleventh to the twenty-first century, through the voices of those who witnessed it. Drawing on chronicles, poems, letters, and novels, including the work of figures like Gawain Poet, Walter Scott, Evelyn Waugh, and P. G. Wodehouse, Goodall explores the importance of the castle in our culture and society. From the medieval period to Civil War engagements, right up to modern manifestations in Harry Potter, Goodall reveals that the castle has always been put to different uses, and to this day continues to serve as a source of inspiration.
Download or read book Castles in Medieval Society written by Charles Coulson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast majority of castles in England, Wales, Ireland, and France have virtually no military history' of sieges or physical conflict across the whole panorama of more than five centuries'. This is quite a sobering thought.
Download or read book Late Medieval Castles written by Robert Liddiard and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of the most significant articles in castle studies, with contributions from scholars in history, archaeology, historic buildings and landscape archaeology.
Download or read book Henry VIII s Coastal Artillery Fort at Camber Castle Rye East Sussex written by Martin Biddle and published by English Heritage Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-15 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Camber Castle is located on the south coast of England, a short distance to the south of the town of and Cinque Port of Rye. Largely constructed between 1539 and 1543, it was an elaborate artillery fortification that represented an important element of Henry VIII's 'Device', or coastal defence network, put in place from 1539 as a response to the threat of invasion following England's breach with Rome. The castle was operational for 100 years. By the 1630s, the steady advance of the coastline had left it stranded well inland from the sea. This combined with changes in the concept of artillery fortification, resulted in its decommissioning in 1637. Unusually, Camber Castle was not adapted for continued use through the 18th and 19th centuries, and survives as an example of a largely unmodified Henrician artillery fort. It displays several clear and discrete phases of construction, which reflect changes in thinking about the design of fortifications. The construction phase of 1539-40, under the direction of Stephen von Haschenperg, is of particular interest since it represents the first attempt to build in England an artillery fortress of ultimately Italian inspiration. Doubts about the effectiveness of von Haschenperg's design led, however, to a complete remodelling of the castle's defences along more conservative lines, undertaken in 1542-3. The castle, which is in the guardianship of English Heritage, has seen numerous campaigns of research, survey and excavation. This volume draws together all the available evidence to provide a full and synthesised account of the current state of knowledge regarding this monument. It includes a revised and expanded verion of Martin Biddle's authoritative study, originally published in The History of the King's Works. Full reports are also included on the artefact and animal bone assemblages, which are of considerable importance for the early post-medieval period. These include the extensive 16th- and early 17-century assemblage of English and imported pottery, a German ceramic tile-stove, a wide range of 16th- and 17th-century military artefacts, and a significant collection of vessel glass including facon de Venise cristallo. The animal bone collection is a useful benchmark for the zoo-archaeology of post-medieval England, and provides evidence for early livestock improvements. There is also a detailed review of the surviving building account for von Haschenperg's fortifications.
Download or read book Castles Town Defences and Artillery Fortifications in Britain written by John R. Kenyon and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Defending Cambridgeshire written by Mike Osborne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, Cambridgeshire (including Huntingdon and Peterborough) has figured in many of the conflicts which have shaped our nation. Doomed Roman legionaries marched from Longthorpe to defeat by Boudicca's Iceni; Saxons and Danes fought over the edges of the Danelaw; the Normans came this way to crush Hereward's Fenland resistance; in the Civil War it provided the defended frontier between Parliamentarian and Royalist; in Napoleonic times French prisoners of war were incarcerated here; and in the twentieth century its flat expanses were home to numerous airfields and missile bases. This book describes the function and purpose of these defensive structures and reveals the evidence which many of these major events left on the ground: the earthworks of hill forts, medieval castles and moats; the masonry of later forts and strong-houses; drill halls and militia barracks; and the lines of anti-invasion defences from 1940.
Download or read book Defending Bedfordshire written by Mike Osborne and published by Fonthill Media. This book was released on 2021-07-11 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the centuries, proximity to major routes\-\-\-the Great North Road, the Icknield Way, and Watling Street\-\-\-has made Bedfordshire strategically important. Iron Age hillforts occupied significant locations, and castles consolidated Norman control after 1066. In later medieval times, two major events occurred: in 1224, the siege of Bedford Castle marked Henry III’s attempt to reimpose royal authority after the chaos of John’s reign; and the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461 was a major defeat for the Yorkists. During the wars of the twentieth century, the county’s industrial base supported the armies fighting overseas. In the First World War, the county contributed significantly to the birth of the RAF as well as provided the base for the Home Defence armies. In the Second World War, its airfields despatched RAF and USAAF bombers over the continent, but the major activity was the secret war largely associated with the Bedford Triangle. After 1945, aeronautical research continued at RAF Thurleigh\/Twinwood Farm and electronic intelligence\-gathering was developed at Chicksands. \x27Defending Bedfordshire\x27 seeks to explain the significance of this dense concentration of military sites to be found in a relatively small county.
Download or read book Forts written by The National Archives and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-09-20 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since humans began to live together in settlements they have felt the need to organise some kind of defence against potentially hostile neighbours. Many of the earliest city states were built as walled towns, and during the medieval era, stone castles were built both as symbols of the defenders' strength and as protection against potential attack. The advent of cannon prompted fortifications to become lower, denser and more complex, and the forts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries could appear like snowflakes in their complexity and beautiful geometry. Without forts, the history of America could have taken a very different course, pirates could have sailed the seas unchecked, and Britain itself could have been successfully invaded. This book explains the history of human fortifications, and is beautifully illustrated using photographs, plans, drawings and maps to explain why they were built, their various functions and their immense historical legacy in laying the foundations of empire.
Download or read book Defending Nottinghamshire written by Mike Osborne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2014-04-07 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nottinghamshire's position at the very heart of England has given it important strategic significance throughout two millennia, underlined by the number of roads, waterways, and later railways, criss-crossing the county. An endless succession of armies have used the Great North Road: the Romans, the Vikings, the Normans, the Lancastrians and the Jacobites. Strategic river crossings and road junctions have been guarded by Roman camps, Viking and Saxon burhs, medieval castles, Parliamentarian and Royalist forts, and the anti-invasion defences of the Second World War. The area has traditionally provided a rallying point for armies to be gathered, from Richard III's in 1485 to Kitchener's in 1914. Building on the experience of the great training camps of Clipstone and the Dukeries and the extensive munitions works of Chilwell and Nottingham, in the Second World War the county expanded such provision, becoming home to a concentration of flying training centres, key components of the army's and the RAF's logistical support networks and further munitions plants. Much of this military activity has left its mark on the landscape, some of it relatively untouched, and some adapted to meet the demands of change. Some monuments are of enormous national importance; Newark-on-Trent, as well as retaining its unspoilt medieval castle ruins, boasts the best single concentration of Civil War-period fortifications anywhere in Britain.
Download or read book Castle Builders written by Malcolm James Baillie-Hislop and published by Pen and Sword Archaeology. This book was released on 2016-10-31 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Castle Builders, Malcolm Hislop looks at the hugely popular subject of castles from the unusual perspective of design and construction. In this general introduction to the subject, we discover something of the personalities behind their creation - the architects and craftsmen - and, furthermore, the techniques they employed, and how style and technology was disseminated. Castle Builders takes both a thematic and a chronological approach to the design and construction of castles, providing the reader with clear lines of development. Themes include earth, timber and stone construction techniques, the evolution of the great tower, the development of military engineering, the progression of domestic accommodation, and the degree to which aesthetics contributed to castle design.
Download or read book Defending Essex written by Mike Osborne and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2013-02-01 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For 2,000 years Essex, the county with the longest coast-line in England and dominating the eastern approaches to London, has been in the front-line against foreign invasion, from the Romans to the Spanish Armada to the two World Wars. It has also been involved in civil disorder, from the Anarchy and the Peasants’ Revolt to the English Civil War. Many reminders of these scenes of conflict may be seen in the landscape - Iron Age forts, a Roman walled town, medieval castles, strong-houses and homestead moats, coastal fortifications from Napoleonic times and earlier, and Victorian barracks and the drill halls of the Volunteers. From the twentieth century there are still more sites: military airfields from the First World War and Battle of Britain fighter airfields, radar sites and later bomber bases from the Second. Anti-invasion defenses line the coast, linear defenses criss-cross the landscape, and AA sites are everywhere to be found. Taking the story all the way up to the nuclear threat of the Cold War, this guide will interest residents and visitors alike.
Download or read book Fortress Britain written by Andrew Saunders and published by Oxbow Books Limited. This book was released on 1995-12-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative account of artillery fortifications in Britain from the days of the medieval castle to World War Two. Traces the modifications to castles in the late Middle Ages to accommodate fire-arms, follows the emergence of a national defence policy under Henry VIII, examines coastal defence works in the centuries when Britannia ruled the waves.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of War Volume 2 War and the Medieval World written by David A. Graff and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-01 with total page 854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume II of The Cambridge History of War covers what in Europe is commonly called 'the Middle Ages'. It includes all of the well-known themes of European warfare, from the migrations of the Germanic peoples and the Vikings through the Reconquista, the Crusades and the age of chivalry, to the development of state-controlled gunpowder-wielding armies and the urban militias of the later middle ages; yet its scope is world-wide, ranging across Eurasia and the Americas to trace the interregional connections formed by the great Arab conquests and the expansion of Islam, the migrations of horse nomads such as the Avars and the Turks, the formation of the vast Mongol Empire, and the spread of new technologies – including gunpowder and the earliest firearms – by land and sea.
