38 historic sites
Castles in England
From the Tower of London to Windsor Castle, England's royal fortresses span a thousand years of history.
england · Greater London
Tower of London
A thousand years of royal history — palace, prison, treasury and fortress on the Thames
england · Berkshire
Windsor Castle
The world's oldest and largest inhabited castle — the official weekend home of the British monarch
england · Oxfordshire
Blenheim Palace
England's only non-royal, non-episcopal palace — the birthplace of Winston Churchill and a baroque masterpiece set in Capability Brown's greatest landscape
england · London
Kensington Palace
A private house that became a palace by accident — home to overlooked monarchs, a young Victoria, and Diana, Princess of Wales
england · Greater London
Hampton Court Palace
Henry VIII's Tudor powerhouse on the Thames, hiding the world's oldest hedge maze in its gardens
england · Warwickshire
Warwick Castle
England's ultimate medieval castle experience — with jousting, trebuchets and a thousand years of history
england · Northumberland
Alnwick Castle
Harry Potter's Hogwarts filming location and the seat of the Percy Dukes of Northumberland
england · Derbyshire / Peak District
Chatsworth House
The Palace of the Peak — the ancestral home of the Dukes of Devonshire, with one of England's greatest art collections, a Capability Brown landscape, and the highest private fountain in the world
england · Kent
Leeds Castle
Six queens called it home — the loveliest castle in the world, rising from a shimmering lake in the Kentish countryside
england · London
Buckingham Palace
The most watched address in the world — open to visitors for just eight weeks a year
england · Kent
Dover Castle
England's mightiest fortress — guardian of the Channel crossing for nine centuries
england · East Sussex — Brighton, seafront city on the English Channel coast
Royal Pavilion Brighton
George IV's Indian-domed fantasy palace on the Brighton seafront — and the WWI hospital that gave it unexpected meaning
england · Kent
Hever Castle
The childhood home of Anne Boleyn — a perfectly moated Tudor jewel hidden in the Kentish Weald
england · Northumberland
Bamburgh Castle
England's most dramatic coastal castle, rising from the Northumberland shore
england · East Sussex
Bodiam Castle
The perfect romantic ruin — a moated medieval castle rising from water lilies in the English countryside
england · Isle of Wight
Osborne
Where Queen Victoria died — Osborne House on the Isle of Wight was the private seaside retreat that Victoria and Albert built for themselves in 1845, and the place where she spent her final hours in January 1901, with the Durbar Room, the Swiss Cottage, and Albert's rooms left largely as he left them
england · Cornwall
Tintagel Castle
The legendary birthplace of King Arthur — dramatic clifftop ruins above the crashing Atlantic on Cornwall's wild north coast
england · North Yorkshire
Castle Howard
A playwright's Baroque fantasy in 10,000 acres of Yorkshire parkland — and the screen's Brideshead
england · North Yorkshire, York
Clifford's Tower
The largest surviving part of York Castle — a quatrefoil stone keep on a Norman motte, site of the 1190 York Massacre of the Jewish community, named for the executed Roger de Clifford, and reopened in 2022 with a new roof deck above the medieval skyline
england · South West England — Dorset, Isle of Purbeck, Corfe Castle village
Corfe Castle
England's most dramatic ruined castle — the shattered hilltop fortress that Lady Mary Bankes held against Parliamentary siege before Cromwell's forces tore it apart, leaving a broken silhouette above the Purbeck heath that has defined the English ruin ever since
england · West Yorkshire — between Leeds and Harrogate, Harewood village, LS17
Harewood House
Robert Adam's finest interiors, the world's greatest Chippendale collection, and a Capability Brown lake — all within 12 km of Leeds
england · Hampshire
Highclere Castle
Downton Abbey in real life — the spectacular Victorian Gothic seat of the Carnarvon family, where the 5th Earl discovered Tutankhamun's tomb
england · West Sussex
Arundel Castle
Nine hundred years of the same family — the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Norfolk rising above the River Arun on the Sussex Downs
england · Warwickshire
Kenilworth Castle
Five centuries of ambition and ruin — the castle Elizabeth I's favourite built to win her hand
england · Nottinghamshire
Nottingham Castle
The legendary lair of the Sheriff of Nottingham — a cliff-top castle reborn as a museum, with caves where outlaws once hid beneath Castle Rock
england · Oxfordshire
Oxford Castle
Nearly 900 years of continuous incarceration in a Norman castle — St George's Tower predates the university, the motte was here before Oxford was a city, and the prison that replaced the castle kept locking people up until 1996
england · Essex — Saffron Walden, 1 mile west of Saffron Walden, 15 miles south of Cambridge
Audley End House
The Jacobean mansion so vast Charles II bought it for Newmarket — now home to English Heritage's finest servants' quarters interpretation
england · London (Royal Borough of Greenwich)
Eltham Palace
A medieval royal palace with an Art Deco mansion grafted onto it, a lemur with a heated suite, and the third-largest hammerbeam roof in England — Eltham is the most architecturally improbable pairing in English Heritage's portfolio
england · Isle of Wight
Carisbrooke Castle
Where Charles I tried to escape through a window and got stuck — the island castle that held England's king before his execution, expanded by Elizabeth I against the Spanish Armada, and still visited by donkeys who pull the medieval water wheel from a 49-metre well
england · South West England — Cornwall, Falmouth, Pendennis Point headland
Pendennis Castle
Henry VIII's Cornish headland fort — a Tudor artillery castle guarding the mouth of the Fal alongside its sister fort, St Mawes, with WWII tunnels and 500 years of guns spanning the full arc of England's coastal defense
england · Suffolk, East Anglia
Framlingham Castle
Thirteen towers and no keep — the Suffolk castle where Mary Tudor rallied her army to reclaim the English throne in 1553, designed without a central donjon in a manner unlike any other Norman castle in England, later repurposed as a poorhouse by its own town
england · Leicestershire
Belvoir Castle
A beautiful view rebuilt as a Gothic dream — the seat of the Dukes of Rutland
england · Lake District
Lowther Castle
A 19th-century castle deliberately unroofed in 1957, now one of England's finest garden restorations
england · Cumbria / Lake District
Muncaster Castle
The 'Luck of Muncaster' — the cup Henry VI gave to his sheltering hosts after the Battle of Barnet; a medieval peel tower above the western Lake District, with a 4.9★ guided day trip including lunch and the Medieval Weapons Hall
england · North Yorkshire, Yorkshire Dales
Bolton Castle
Mary Queen of Scots' Yorkshire prison, standing in the heart of Wensleydale
england · London
Apsley House
Number One, London — Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner was Wellington's home after Waterloo, and the colossal nude marble statue of Napoleon standing at the foot of its staircase is the most ironic trophy in any military collection in the world
england · Gloucestershire
Berkeley Castle
Nearly 900 years in one family, and the dungeon where a deposed king died
england · Northumberland
Chillingham Castle
England's most famously haunted private castle in Northumberland — a medieval Border fortress that stood empty and roofless for decades, restored by its current owner, with a torture chamber, a ghost tour programme, and a herd of ancient white cattle in the park