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Cary Clark / FAQ / Castle / resources

What are some good resources for Castle building?

From Mark van ‘t Hooft: !

While digging around for sources for my modular yellow castle I ran across two great books. I found them in the juvenile section of the local public library. They are similar to MacAulay’s book:

Castle: Stephen Biesty’s Cross-Sections (DK Publishing; ISBN 1-56458-467-4)
A Medieval Castle (Inside Story) by Fiona MacDonald (Peter Bedrick Books; ISBN 0-87226-340-1)

These are valuable resources for castle construction as well as village structures.

From John P. Henderson: !

Here’s some links with pictures and info of medieval peasant cottages:

http://www.wealddown.co.uk/poplar-cottage-construction-thatch-wattle-and-daub.htm http://loki.stockton.edu/~ken/wharram/peasant.htm

This book also has a few black and white photos of an Anglo-Saxon settlement reconstruction from 500 AD:

Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies (HarperPerennial, 1990; ISBN: 0-06092-046-7)

From Chris Maddison: !

Give David MacAulay’s Castle (published by Scott Foresman; ISBN: 0-39532-920-5) a try. It focuses primarily on the construction of a castle, from meager beginnings to the glorious final result, through sketches. Awesome book. It has a lot of village information in it. Also, Eyewitness: Castle by Christopher Gravett (DK Publishing; ISBN: 0-78945-888-8) and other Eyewitness books have a lot of great medieval information.

From Marc Nelson, Jr.: !

Timber-Framed Buildings of England (Sothebys Pubns; ISBN: 0-70906-092-0) by R.J. Brown is a great book. It is focused on the late medieval period.

From Bruce Schlickbernd: !

The Medieval Fortress by J.E. Kaufmann & H.W. Kaufmann, illustrated by Robert M. Jurga (Combined Publishing; ISBN: 1-58097-062-1) has numerous examples of the details of castles: crenels, allures, hoardings, machicoulis, loopholes, gatehouses, drawbridges, bartizans, wells, cisterns, etc. with examples of how they work and were designed. It includes siege techniques, general history, Motte and Bailey, how castle design evolved, and has a great eye for detail in the photographs of castles that you generally don’t see elsewhere. A must-have.

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