My thanks to Amber Books Ltd and NetGalley for supplying a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. The fortifications at Palamidi, Nafplio, Peloponnese, Greece seems to dramatically crawl down the mountain.Ī great book to browse through and to dream of times past. It was where the Scottish crown jewels were hidden when Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650. Dunnottar Castle, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Scotland is perched on a headland jutting into the North Sea.
The triangular Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland was the only British castle build in this shape. Caught on a misty day, Corfe Castle in Dorset, England, looks stunning perched in a commanding position on a steep hill in a break between the Purbeck Hills. The intricate fort at Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, India, its walls covered in sculptures depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. This collection comprises 150 stunning photographs detailing more than 100 fortifications. The structures featured here were built as early as the 6th Century BCE and as late as the 5th Century CE. It’s a pictorial journey through abandoned hill and sea forts, castles, towers and citadels from Europe to the Americas and from Africa to India and Japan. So when I spotted this book I knew it was something I’d lap up. And when I worked in Wales for a period I used to take my son to visit castles at Caerphilly and Cardiff – I’m not really sure whether this was for his education or to feed my own fascination with these structures. It’s probably the best present I ever received. It had four circular turrets, one at each corner, and a drawbridge that could be raised and lowered. When I was a boy my dad, a carpenter, made me a castle as a Christmas present. I can see myself going through it on a lazy Sunday afternoon the castles are that pretty! And the pictures inside are absolutely magnificent (to the point where I'm sorry that the cover looks like this, there are so many better options which would make this book more eye-catching).īut since I'm very much the target audience for this book, the rating is rather easy for me. That put aside I'm really considering buying this book in a physical copy. You know, this castle is on page XY, castles from Scotland are here and there. Because that's something that was really missing from the book was some sort of an index or list. If only for the sake of making it easier to look for castles in the book. Or maybe a combination of both would have been good, still maintain the time period division but also add the continental one. The book is split into five sections (Ancient Times to the Dark Ages, Early Medieval Period, Late Medieval Period, Early Modern Era, Imperial Era), and I still cannot decide if I liked it this way or if I would have preferred it to be divided based on continents. Yeah, so, that was my little TED talk about castles and ruins, back to this book. And very often looking at them or standing there imagining how it used to look like, it gives me strange sense of peacefulness. Like they do not belong to this world as if they were plucked straight from a fantasy story and left here. For some reason they have an eerie, almost ethereal feel to them. I have a confession to make I adore old castes and especially ruins. ***Advance Review Copy generously provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*** With 150 outstanding color photographs, Abandoned Castles is a brilliant pictorial examination of castles, forts, keeps, and defensive fortifications from the ancient world to the end of the nineteenth century. Some are beautiful, others brutal, but each tells a story about the way we fought and defended ourselves, and how the building has survived and aged, long after the people it was built by are gone. Others, such as the Cathar Château de Queribus in southern France, stand high above peaceful coastlines, testament to the wars of the past. Many have long ceased to serve a purpose, but then, like the crusader castle Krak de Chevaliers in Syria today, their impenetrable walls become the site of more fighting centuries later. From medieval Japanese castles to Spanish colonial forts in West Africa to Norman stone keeps, the book ranges widely across history. From ancient times to the end of the nineteenth century, Abandoned Castles explores more than 100 forts, castles and defensive strongholds from all around the globe. A fairytale medieval castle fallen into ruin. Sri Lankan Bride.An ancient hilltop fortress. Alisha: Ross Gourlay, Inga Kovalerova, Alishaīlind Reality: Shantnu Dulara, Vini Kapoor, SELIN MAGAZINE, Vedika Gupta, Harshita Sahu
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