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Carisbrooke Castle
Most probably of Saxon origin, Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight saw military action only twice in its history, in 1136 and 1377. However, the site held enormous strategic importance, especially in defending England against the Vikings and was the place of imprisonment of Charles I in 1647. This concise guide includes both a history of the site and a tour of the major features of the interior and exterior.
40 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 28, 2025
I don’t tend to follow a guidebook when I visit a place, although I do appreciate a decent map or plan to make sure I don’t miss anything. So my favourite kind of guidebook is actually the kind that I can enjoy at a later point, which provides memories as much as it does direction and proves to be something worth reading later than having only immediate use. The National Trust are particularly good at such guidebooks and, so it turns out, are English Heritage.
I had found Michael Turner’s guidebook to Osborne to be perfect, so I was hopeful about Christopher Young’s guidebook to Carisbrooke Castle as well. It is set out in a largely similar fashion, with the first half of the guide covering a tour of the Castle, with the remaining pages giving you a history of the site, not only in terms of what you can see, but also in what was there before the current castle. The history talks about events as well as mere buildings, which gives it a personal touch that can’t otherwise be obtained from a site which is not used as it once was and is at least partially ruined.
The tour isn’t as complete or as effective as in the other book, largely because at least on the outside of the Castle, there is a lot less to see. But although it does seem to take you through all the areas and could potentially be used as a guide to take around the site with you, it does feel like a whistlestop tour that allows you to walk around, but not to take much in. The parts of the walls talk about how they were used, but not much about what you can see from there, looking either inwards to the site, or outwards around the island or across the water.
Equally, the interiors are skipped over fairly quickly as well, with little time devoted to what is there and whilst I don’t like a guidebook that is little more than show and tell, this one is virtually silent about the interiors. That’s true of the usage of the time as well as what you can see now, as there are parts that talk about how buildings were built and when, but aside from this, there isn’t much in the guidebook section about how lived there and how and why, which seems to have been saved for the history section of the guidebook.
Indeed, it is the history part of this guidebook that comes to the fore, although even here it is limited by the availability of information for a site which is well over a thousand years old. The closer the history gets to modern times, the more detail can be found, but even here, the history is based more about buildings and the general use of the site in terms of defence than it was about the people, other than a couple of notable instances where it was used to imprison Charles I during the Civil War. Even in these instances, it was about events and not the use and look of the site itself, which is a completely different approach to the Osborne guide, which focussed on the interiors and people and was much more interesting for it.
Admittedly, I have used guidebooks which had much less of both immediate and later interest than this one and I may be considering it unfairly as the partnering guidebook to Osborne was so perfect. This one had less to work with in terms of the site, but even taking that into account, it felt brief and rushed and given that it’s quite large, being an A4 format, it can be a little awkward to carry around all day or risks getting bent or having corners creased if you keep it in a bag. There are some useful and interesting pieces of history here, but not enough to be worth the trouble and expense of having this guide for the most part.
I had found Michael Turner’s guidebook to Osborne to be perfect, so I was hopeful about Christopher Young’s guidebook to Carisbrooke Castle as well. It is set out in a largely similar fashion, with the first half of the guide covering a tour of the Castle, with the remaining pages giving you a history of the site, not only in terms of what you can see, but also in what was there before the current castle. The history talks about events as well as mere buildings, which gives it a personal touch that can’t otherwise be obtained from a site which is not used as it once was and is at least partially ruined.
The tour isn’t as complete or as effective as in the other book, largely because at least on the outside of the Castle, there is a lot less to see. But although it does seem to take you through all the areas and could potentially be used as a guide to take around the site with you, it does feel like a whistlestop tour that allows you to walk around, but not to take much in. The parts of the walls talk about how they were used, but not much about what you can see from there, looking either inwards to the site, or outwards around the island or across the water.
Equally, the interiors are skipped over fairly quickly as well, with little time devoted to what is there and whilst I don’t like a guidebook that is little more than show and tell, this one is virtually silent about the interiors. That’s true of the usage of the time as well as what you can see now, as there are parts that talk about how buildings were built and when, but aside from this, there isn’t much in the guidebook section about how lived there and how and why, which seems to have been saved for the history section of the guidebook.
Indeed, it is the history part of this guidebook that comes to the fore, although even here it is limited by the availability of information for a site which is well over a thousand years old. The closer the history gets to modern times, the more detail can be found, but even here, the history is based more about buildings and the general use of the site in terms of defence than it was about the people, other than a couple of notable instances where it was used to imprison Charles I during the Civil War. Even in these instances, it was about events and not the use and look of the site itself, which is a completely different approach to the Osborne guide, which focussed on the interiors and people and was much more interesting for it.
Admittedly, I have used guidebooks which had much less of both immediate and later interest than this one and I may be considering it unfairly as the partnering guidebook to Osborne was so perfect. This one had less to work with in terms of the site, but even taking that into account, it felt brief and rushed and given that it’s quite large, being an A4 format, it can be a little awkward to carry around all day or risks getting bent or having corners creased if you keep it in a bag. There are some useful and interesting pieces of history here, but not enough to be worth the trouble and expense of having this guide for the most part.
March 7, 2024
The layout of each page can be a little annoying as you have to flick backwards and forwards, but the information is great to read. So much history and interesting stories.
January 27, 2026
A great insight into the castle and the history through the ages
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews