Our A – Z of Castles in the UK: As mentioned in our 2018 Bucket List we have a new challenge as a family. Now don’t get me wrong I don’t think that we are going to be able to get them all done in twelve months. But Monkey is fully on board, we hope to visit twenty six castles. Each beginning with a different letter of the alphabet.
At the moment I don’t have a castle for each letter! I have tried to to specifically find castles in the South East of England. To make it as doable as possible! I hope this will encourage us to get out more as a family. We tend to have our favourite places and visit them a lot. I hope this challenge will mean we expand our list an find a few more.
- Arundel West Sussex
- Bodium East Sussex: We have already visited Bodium this year so expect a post soon. This is by far the most beautiful castle I have seen. Its exactly how I imagine a castle to look when I was growing up. Hand down worth a visit if you are local.
- Cooling Kent
- Deal Kent
- Eynsford Kent
- Farnham Surrey
- Guildford Surrey
- Herstmonceux East Sussex
- I
- J
- Kirby Leicestershire
- Leeds Kent
- Middleham North Yorkshire
- Nunney Somerset
- Odiham Hampshire
- Pevensey East Sussex: We visited Pevensey caste last weekend so theres a post coming soon, in fact the picture of the boys on the canyon balls was taken there. Again its a ruin but has some nice pubs right next door and also a very good example of a roman wall.
- Q
- Rochester Kent
- St Michaels Mount Cornwall
- Tower of London
- Urquart Inverness Scotland: I was lucky enough to go Nessie hunting at the beginning of January. While on a cruise we also saw the castle from the water before stoping to explore on foot. Although much of it is a ruin its very peaceful and is set in beautifully scenic countryside.
- V
- Windsor Berskshire
- X
- Yarmouth
- Z
What are your favourite castles? Can you fill in my missing gaps or make any suggestions for ones we should visit? Bookmark this post and keep coming back to see how we are getting on with our challenge.
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63 Responses
We want to go to Arundel – they have a fairy themed festival there, so we could do the castle one day and the festival the next.
Thye threenager thinks it’s “Arandelle” from Frozen though, she’s going to be confused by the spring weather…
Warwick Castle is tremendous…but I see you have a W; likewise C, otherwise Caerphilly Castle is pretty good too!
I wonder if there is a Z?
That sounds like a fun challenge. I can’t help with filling in any of the blanks but I did have a quick look on Wikipedia which has some pages listing castles in England and Scotland which may be worth checking out if you haven’t already done so. Good luck! 🙂
Thanks! We have visited many castles – always a great day out!
Havent been to half of these – we’ll make it a mission to visit
THANKS
Great choices, we haven’t visited any of these, we live in South Wales so have visited lots of local ones, my five year old daughter is going to Cardiff Castle next month on a school trip, she is going to love it, we haven’t been there since she was a baby xxx
Sounds great
I have visited lots of castles down south, but never above the midlands
Oh my God! So many Castles… I need to see them all!
I have only been to a couple of these but my son is doing about castles at school at the moment so I feel another visit coming on !
We love a castle visit, my fave was Warwick castle.
I am embarrassed to say that I don’t have a favourite castle and actually I am struggling to recall when I last visited one. I enjoyed reading your post, though, and have promised myself that not driving is not an excuse not to take the children to historic buildings and ruins like these. I look forward to reading this A-Z post again.
I love Maiden Castle – i know not technically a castle but my favourite place in the world. My favourite castle that is a castle is Castell Coch in South Wales.
Ive not been to any of these. Need to venture out more
I love Chepstow and Tinturn castles, visited them many a time, taking different grandkids with me each time
What a great challenge it will make a great scrapbook project
Cant believe the UK has so many beauties
Fantastic list, perfect to refer to during the school holidays.
Our family love a castle visit. For this reason we belong to English Heritage.
What a really lovely idea! 🙂 xx
Now this sounds like my sort of challenge, I love the idea of basing a challenge around the alphabet, perfect for littlies. It’s great that Monkey’s excited about your new challenge, and even if you don’t complete it by the end of 2018, you’ll still have some fab places to visit in 2019! Love the shot of the boys on the cannon balls, Monkey looks like he’s ready to be king of the castle.
Thanks for linking up with me on #CountryKids.
This is a great bucket list idea! Zennor in Cornwall has an iron age hill fort that could work for your Z and if you include Roman sites there’s Vindolanda in Northumberland. You’d probably get all the other letters in Northumberland too with it’s bastles and Pele towers. Look forward to seeing the completed alphabet!! #CountryKids
What a lovely thing to do. I havent been to a lot of castles but those that we visited are always awesome. Castles are close to unicorns to me before as I am from the Philippines. Seeing them is a magical experience for me. #countrykids
Bodiam was one of my favourite places when I lived in Hastings! Looks like you are going to have lots of fun exploring them all.
I’d love to have a chance to visit those castles! How fun! #CountryKids
I love castles
What a fab post, if i need a castle I now know where to look x
We love our regular day trips out to Beeston Castle. My children love taking a picnic all the way to the top. Fantastic to eat our sandwiches overlooking Cheshire
Who knew there was so many, need to get out more!
Wasnt aware if how many castles there are in the uk
great time taken on this post thank you for sharing i hope to visit ones in the North
I have just checked out St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall and love the look of it. I haven’t had to check tides to visit a historic site before! Thanks for the nudge.
We love to visit castles, Conwy in Wales and Edinburgh are our favourites.
Great rundown
This is a neat idea! Though I wonder if you’ll be able to find one starting with x or z… ??
#CountryKids
Great challenge and exciting also. Such a great idea. They are so many great places and castle to visit in the UK
You’ve got me thinking about tackling visits to lots of sites alphabetically. I like the idea of delegating this task to the children. Thank you.
This is such a great idea for a challenge! It’s going to be so much fun to try and complete it, my girls would love to visit so many castles. #CountryKids
Lovely idea but looks really ambitious to a person like me. Wishing you luck with the missing alphabets.
We are starting our castle adventure with the Tower of London before it gets too busy in the summer.
Both Warwick and Kenilworth castles are our favs, both so different and close enough together to be done on a weekend break, could do in a day at a push but not recommended
Wow, what an adventure, something we would like to do! Castles are so interesting
My husband and myself love a day out at a castle, our most recent visit being Kidwelly Castle. The children don’t enjoy so much unfortunately, hopefully when they’re a little older they will 🙂
Sounds like a fun challenge. I have only been to St Michaels Mount from on your list, best to go when the tide is out so you can walk to the castle xx
I’ve enjoyed castles since I was a child, schools seem to rely on the cinema as a school trip these days, but we used to go to castles fairly regularly when I was in school and I remember loving it!
I spent a recent sleepless night researching castles to visit with the children this summer to pass the time. It was the best use I have made of a lack of sleep in ages.
I vaguely remember going to Warwick Castle when I was younger, I remember being really impressed by it, will try and visit again in the summer with the kids !
I love to visit castles
I’m a big fan of castles – there’s just something so romantic and exciting about them. I love to learn about the history.
We saw 3 castles in Bath today as we visited my partners grandmother . Beautiful town x
we have been to loads of castles
I have been to Edinburgh castle, lovely place
I had no idea there were so many castles and they are such fun for the whole family.
We have oly ever visited Warwick and Tamworth Castle, our kids aren’t really into cultured visits if I
‘m being honest, they’d much prefer a theme park at the moment which is a bit of a shame as it limits places we can go when they moan about being bored
Nottingham Castle is so disappointing. The only thing that resembles a castle is the gatehouse
Lovely review, it’s great to hear of all the places to visit in the UK
hope to more castles in the summer
What a great challenge! Edinburgh castle is amazing!
I’ve never been to any of them. we have been to few in North wales! going to Harlech castle next week.
I is for Inverness Castle. if you want to go that far. Great idea. There’s more here, even one with a Z. http://www.castlesfortsbattles.co.uk/atoz_part5.html#xyz Have fun. I love Leeds Castle myself.
We’ve had a lot of fun checking out castles for summer visits since we read your post. Thank you.
Great idea we love exploring all the fabulous castles we have up here in North Wales unfortunately we won’t be doing an A-Z like you guys though as most of the main ones start with a C – Caernarvon, Conwy, Criccieth, Chirk
Cant wait to visit some of these