explore | Grilled Cheese

The Palais des Papes in Avignon went up in roughly 17 years, 1335 to 1352, under two popes: Benedict XII, a former Cistercian monk who built a fortress, and Clement VI, who doubled it and bought the town in 1348. Why does a pope need a fortress? #Castles #History

#TerrierTuesday
Something has caught her attention, Hattie last month at the 12th century Helmsley Castle, Helmsley, North Yorkshire.
Building of it started around 1120.
See Alt.
#btposse #borderterrier #dogsofbluesky #castles #helmsley #yorkshire #photography #eastcoastkin

"A faceted diamond set by the Indre river." Balzac, on Château d'Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire Valley. Gilles Berthelot never saw it finished: François I confiscated the house in June 1528, over the protests of Philippe Lesbahy, who had run the site. Whose château is it, really? #Castles #History

Book Review! @nicmorton.bsky.social reviews Castles: A Fortified History of the World, by Dan Jones www.medievalists.net/2026/09/book... #castles #bookreviews #medievalbooks

Medieval Castle Reopens in Gibraltar www.medievalists.net/2026/09/medi... #castles #Gibraltar

In 1940 the line between occupied and free France ran down the Cher. The ballroom at Château de Chenonceau, in the Loire Valley, is built on a bridge, a door on each bank. People crossed inside until November 1942. Ask the guide about the crossings, and tell me what they say. #Castles #History

Getting my castle-spotting all up to date in The Book! It has been such an amazing week, and so much history covered... 🥰🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏰✍️

#history #castles #historicalfiction #inspiration

#Castles Kenilworth Castle #Warwickshire

The Throne Hall at Neuschwanstein, in Bavaria, never got its throne. The keep planned for the courtyard was never built. The second floor was never fitted out. It holds the shop. What would you put where the throne should be? #Castles #History

Castlegrace Moat, Carlow.

Hugh de Lacy may have built this castle for Raymond Le Gros in 1175, though that story remains uncertain. Parts of it might still hide inside the old farm outhouses.

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#Castles #Ireland

433 royal licences to crenellate are recorded for England, Wales and the Islands to 1600. Once read as building permits. Charles Coulson's case: a battlement was a badge, and the crown granted rather than refused. Permit or status symbol? #Castles #History

Schloss Mespelbrunn, in the Spessart forest, has stayed in one family line since a grant of May 1, 1412. Julius Echter, born here in 1545, was Prince-Bishop of Würzburg at 28. Das Wirtshaus im Spessart (1958) made the moat famous. Longest family tenure you know? #Castles #History

At the wonderful Dirleton and Tantallon Castles, Scotland, a year ago today! ##castles #history #robertlouisstevenson

Tiepolo was paid 15,000 Gulden for the staircase ceiling of the Würzburg Residence in Franconia, roughly 13 times Balthasar Neumann's annual salary. Those 218 days of wet plaster came through the firestorm of March 16, 1945. Neumann's vault held. Was Tiepolo worth 13 Neumanns? #Castles #History

Many moats held no water, and on a hilltop almost none could. The wet ones were not for drowning anybody. They stopped the miner reaching the wall foot: he had to push a causeway out in the open, which told the garrison where to dig back. Name a moat that ever drowned anyone. #Castles #History

Guides give four tests for a turret: small and round, corbelled out, does not reach the ground, sits on a bigger tower. The four reference works that define it require none of them. They agree on two things: small, and subordinate. Send me a turret that fails every test. #Castles #History

Idyllic Dorset, but it looks like the Mediterranean. Henry VIII's sister fort to Portland Castle. Protecting the deep water anchorage of Weymouth Roads. A deterrent for the Armada in 1588 but now a beautiful ruin, eroded by years of the salty sea wind.

#castles #tudors #dorset #visitdorset