The Hilltop Castles Were A Chain Not Landmarks

The castles on hilltops around the region are usually visited one at a time. They were built as a connected system, and their positions only make sense read together.

They were sited to see each other

Castle positions were chosen for sightlines as much as for defence. A garrison needed to signal to its neighbours, and that required unobstructed views.

Signalling was by fire and smoke, which travels a long distance but only in a straight line, so intervening high ground dictated the placement.

The result is a chain spaced by visibility rather than by distance, which is why the gaps between them are so uneven.

The line marked a moving frontier

These fortifications belong to a long period when the frontier between competing powers ran across this part of the peninsula and shifted repeatedly.

A castle's job was less to win a battle than to deny an area, control a crossing and hold out long enough for a relief force to arrive.

As the frontier moved, castles behind the line lost their purpose and were left to decay, which is why some are ruins and others were maintained for centuries.

Water decided how long a siege could last

A hilltop is defensible but dry, so almost every one of these sites has a cistern, a well or a covered tank cut into the rock.

Cistern capacity effectively set the length of resistance, and it is often the most impressive surviving structure on the site.

Looking for the water supply first is a good way to read a castle, because everything else was arranged around keeping it secure.

The town below is usually the older story

Many of these hills carried settlement long before the castle, and the fortification was built over earlier defences on ground already known to be good.

The town then grew on the sheltered side, and its street plan often preserves the outline of an older wall even where the wall itself has gone.

Walking the town before climbing to the castle usually explains the castle better than the reverse order does.

Visiting more than one in a day

Two castles in a day is realistic if they are on the same rail or road line, and the pairing is more instructive than a single site.

Choosing one ruined and one restored gives the clearest contrast, since the ruin shows the construction and the restored site shows the intended layout.

Climbing is the limiting factor rather than travel time. These are hills chosen for being hard to approach, and that has not changed.