Castles!- Large Photos

[captmarga]

I'll take any one of the last three.  Mine, mine, mine. 



Capt Marga

[DonaCatalina]

Schloss Lenzburg is a castle founded above the old part of town of Lenzburg in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland. It ranks among the oldest and most important of Switzerland. The oldest parts of the castle were built in the 10th century. Schloss Lenzburg was first mentioned in 983 as a master seat of the Grafen von Lenzburg. It even comes complete with drawbridge.
map coordinates 47.387222, 8.185278
The castle, its historical museum and the castle hill with its Neolithic burial grounds are listed as heritage sites of national significance.

[DonaCatalina]

Unfortunately for Sweden, the country's prosperity from 1750-1900 means there aren't a lot of castles still around. If you go to one of the websites listing castles in Sweden, you will actually find large houses built after 1750, and up to 1899, where castles once stood. This doesn't make the present structure a castle since no defensive elements remain. However there are a few. Bjarsjoholm Castle is a Renaissance castle from the 16th century, 3 km northwest of Ystad, Scania, in southern Sweden. Originally consisting of four brick buildings built around a courtyard, the present castle consists of two buildings, with a newer addition close by.
Map coordinates 55.450833, 13.776944

Link to another photo here

[DonaCatalina]

The Citadel of Aleppo is a large medieval fortified palace in the centre of the old city of Aleppo, northern Syria. It is considered to be one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. Usage of the Citadel hill dates back at least to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. Subsequently occupied by many civilizations including the Greeks, Byzantines, Ayyubids and Mamluks, the majority of the construction as it stands today is thought to originate from the Ayyubid period.
Map coordinates 36.199167, 37.1625

[DonaCatalina]

Alanya Castle (Alanya Kalesi) is a medieval castle in the southern Turkish city of Alanya. Most of the castle was built in the 13th century under the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm following the city's conquest in 1220 by Alaeddin Keykubad I as part of a building campaign that included the Kazal Kule. This castle was built on the remnants of earlier Byzantine era and Roman era fortifications.
map coordinates 36.53321, 31.99076

[DonaCatalina]

The Brzezany Castle round which the modern town of Berezhany has sprung up. The first written mention of Berezhany dates from 1374, when the village and small fortification was granted by Prince W?adys?aw Opolski to Vas'ko Teptukhovych. The current structure was built on an island in the Zolota Lypa River in the 1530s and 1540s by Miko?aj Sieniawski as the main residence of the Sieniawski magnate family.
Map coordinates 49.446177,24.945106
In 1630, the castle's fortifications were expanded. It was so well fortified that neither Khmelnitsky's Cossacks (in 1648 and 1648) nor the Turks (in 1675) succeeded in taking it. In 1655, it was surrendered to the Swedes without a fight. The castle was damaged in World War I.

[DonaCatalina]

The Tours de Merle are the ruins of a castle in the commune of Saint-Geniez-ô-Merle, in the Corrèze département of France.
Nothing definite is known about the builder or lords of the castle.
Map coordinates 45.064167, 2.074722
As a whole, constructions appear to date from the 14th century, but local tradition holds that it is older. The elements composing these ruins would be as follows : barn occupying, according to the tradition, the site of the second vault Holy-Anne built in 1674; site of the house known as of Veilhan; site of the drawbridge of Veilhan whose abutment still exists; castle; house of Fulcon de Merle (1365); supposed castle of the commander of Saint-Leger; guardhouse of the bridge whose ruined piles still exist.

[DonaCatalina]

Kruje (Kruja) castle is in the city of Krujë, Albania and the center of Skanderbeg's resistance against the Ottoman Turks from 1443 until 1478. 
Map coordinates 41.507316, 19.793682
The original fortifications were estimated to have been built in the early 12th century.
But the construction underwent many changes in between several sieges. In addition the castles has undergone some modern restoration as part of the construction of a museum about Skanderbeg.










 

[Monsignor de Beaumanoir]

Kruje (Kruja) castle is in the city of Krujë, Albania and the center of Skanderbeg's resistance against the Ottoman Turks from 1443 until 1478. 

A little more on the guy who led the resistance and made this castle history.
http://sthweb.bu.edu/index.php?option=com_awiki&view=mediawiki&article=Skanderbeg&Itemid=249

[DonaCatalina]

Coity Castle is a Norman castle in the community of Coity Higher near the town of Bridgend, in the County Borough of Bridgend in Wales.
Map coordinates 51.521944, -3.553056
A strong fortress in its heyday, the castle began as a late 11th century ringwork. A rectangular stone keep and the main curtain wall were added by the Normans in the 12th century, under the de Turberville family. Information posted by Cadw at the castle says that initially the three-storey keep was primarily a defensive structure.

[DonaCatalina]

Erebuni is a castle from the ancient kingdom of Urartu in Yerevan, Armenia. According to the Khorkhor cuneiform record and two other identical records found in the citadel, Yerebuni was built by Argishti I in 782 B.C.
map coordinates 40.140556, 44.538056
The extensive fortifications at the site have been excavated by Russian and Armenian archaeologists since 1947.

[DonaCatalina]

Castle Upton is a castle situated in the village of Templepatrick, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. One side of the main street in the village of Templepatrick consists of the demesne wall of Castle Upton. A fortified gateway in the wall at the centre of the village leads up to the Castle itself. The core of the main house is a tower house with walls up to five feet thick, erected in 1611 by Sir Robert Norton and originally known as Castle Norton. This castle features a unique double yard, with the more modern manor house nearby.
Map coordinates 54.705602, -6.095784

[Sir William Marcus]

Monday, August 31, 2009
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7-8pm -- Modern Marvels - Castles & Dungeons.
Some of the most imposing structures ever built, medieval castles withstood both bloody assaults and the test of time. Designed like machines with nearly every architectural detail devoted to defense, castles represented the perfect fusion of form and function. Journey back to that unruly era as we examine the complexity of their construction and the multipurpose they served--homes to kings and nobles, economic centers, courthouses, treasuries, prisons, and torture chambers.

[DonaCatalina]

Burg Forchtenstein is a castle built in the late Middle Ages near the municipality of Forchtenstein in northern Burgenland, Austria.
map coordinates 47.709444, 16.330833
The first part of the castle with its 50 meter high keep was built in the beginning of the 15th century by the Lords of Mattersburg, who later named themselves Lords of Forchtenstein.
Around 1450 the Lords of Forchtenstein died off due to lack of a male heir and the castle was passed over to the House of Habsburg, which owned it for 170 years.

[DonaCatalina]

The Tower of Kamianiec is the main landmark of the town of Kamianiec in Belarus. Erected in 1271-1289 by the architect Oleksa as a frontier stronghold on the northern border of the principality of Volhynia, it is the only such tower remaining to this day in the area.
Map coordinates 52.404764, 23.819522
The castle was built as an enclosed community. Like many European castles, it had a great round tower, on the raised mound (motte), enclosed by a moat and the river on the northern side, and an adjoining enclosure (bailey), that was completely destroyed in 1903.