Welcome to the New Castles 4 (Big)Kids
- Details
- Category: News
This website is aimed at sharing our experiences of visiting castles with our two children . We have listed some of the castles we have visited as a family with photos, tips and comments. I have thrown in a bit of history of each castle as well, although mostly this is gleaned from guide books- sadly I can not claim to be a qualified historian!
Our visits span a period of more than ten years , so the children were young when we started, but not so young now. I think our photography has improved over the years too! As this is an ongoing project the site will be updated whenever we have more castle reviews to add, so do keep checking back.
Most of the castles featured are within day tripping distance of the South West of the UK, which is where we live, but there are some holiday visits too which are further afield. I have included the date of our visit, the information I state was current at that time, but if the visit was a few years ago now you may want to check out the current situation yourself. I would certainly recommend checking prices/opening times before you embark on a trip. The official website of each castle is listed at the bottom of the page for your further information.
News From The Gatehouse
- Details
- Category: News
News from the Gatehouse- Our Blog
January 2025
In our 17 years of visiting castles we have clocked up an impressive number of visits in England & Wales, but in recent years also Ireland and mainland Europe. This year we dipped our toes into the large pool of Scottish castles too, with hopefully more of those to come in future. But as well as castles from the medieval times we have visited:
Ancient hill forts
Roman forts, palaces & even an amphitheatre!
Town walls
Tudor castles
Palmerston forts
Folly castles
Martello towers
Various other towers
A castle with absolutely no remains left above ground
A twentieth-century-built castle
Abbeys and religious sites (including two situated on islands)
Some of the sites are still being used today, as homes, museums and one is even used as a university classroom. Others are in ruins, or have no stone work and just have earthworks survivng. Some castles are built of brick, not stone.
In short, there is something to suit every taste, every style, every preference on our site.
But it is still not enough. Despite all this we have only just scratched the surface of castles to visit. So on we go. Even though the kids are no longer kids. We hopefully have many more years of exploring yet to come. Of course we will continue to share our visits here on this site! In the meantime we have just uploaded the final reviews for our 2024 trips. Hope to see you out and about at a castle maybe?
2024
Thought we would do a partial update, as we have already packed in quite a few visits and don't want to fall behind with uploading them onto the site. So all the new articles are on the top left hand side, but we have more visits planned so do keep coming back for the second update, probably towards the end of the year.
We have also added a section on castles connected with Richard III as Mum is in his fan-club (Ahem, the Richard III Society if you please- Mum) and is sure there are people out there who are of a like mind and may want to focus on R3 sites.
We hope you enjoy the updates and maybe feel inspired to visit a castle!!
