Elsdon Castle in Northumberland and Raby Castle in County Durham have been named as two of the country’s top hidden gems to visit in the lead-up to the coronation of King Charles III.
Elsdon landed fifth and Raby ninth in a list collated by digital marketing agency Tank, who set about ranking the cream of the crop in terms of obscure English castles.
Some 155 castles across the country were analysed in the study, with judges ranking them on the likes of visitor reviews and social media attractivity - prioritising the less well-known.
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To create the list, Tank cross-referenced castles that have been tagged the fewest number of times on Instagram with how many of each historic sites’ visitor reviews on Tripadvisor and Google have five-star ratings. It means that the top five have each only been tagged between 100 and 5,000 times in the 12-year history of the platform, but all have been rated five stars in more than 70% of reviews.
The top 10 hidden gems of English castles to visit for the coronation weekend are:
Hever Castle, Edenbridge, Kent
Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex
Bewcastle Castle, Bewcastle, Cumbria
Berkeley Castle, Berkeley, Gloucestershire
Elsdon Castle, Elsdon, Northumberland
Goodrich Castle, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire
Walmer Castle, Deal, Kent
Old Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire
Raby Castle, Darlington, County Durham
Leeds Castle, Maidstone, Kent
Elizabeth Rhodes, founding director of Swain Architecture, said: "Castles always bring various stages of history to life. Almost all have been changed or added to at various times, which gives them differing styles of architecture across the same building or the same site, as their purpose and fate evolved.
“The most famous castles are often busy on bank holiday weekends but, by deliberately seeking out ones that most people are unaware of, you then have a chance to explore them properly and soak up their history.”
The castles in the list range from pristine and intact buildings to ruins. Many are owned by organisations like English Heritage or the National Trust, some are private homes that the public can visit and others are completely free and accessible to everyone.
Tank’s founder and director, Trevor Palmer, added: "As an agency, we’re fascinated by heritage and old buildings in particular, the history behind them and their architectural details. The coronation weekend is the perfect time to visit those that are less well-known, as well as the usual choices.”
To see the full top 20 list of castles, find out more about each one and discover the method used to rank them, visit https://tankpr.co.uk/coronation-castles-hidden-gems/
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