From the north bank, Bodiam Castle looks like the castle a child would draw: four round towers, a gatehouse with its portcullis still in the arch, a moat so still it doubles the whole building. Walk through the gate, and there is almost nothing inside. In six hundred years no one is recorded fighting for it.

This is an episode about Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, licensed in October 1385 to Sir Edward Dallingridge, a Sussex knight who had been "grievously wounded" defending this coast against French raiders five years earlier (the Close Roll of 17 September 1380). Was it built to fight, or built to be seen? We stand in three places to find out: on the north bank, where it is a fortress; on the octagon in the moat, where the medieval approach turned through a right angle and the castle becomes a display; and in the courtyard, where it is a shell. Along the way: the gunloops and the "murder holes", one of Britain's few surviving medieval portcullises, the order of 1483 to besiege a castle that seems simply to have opened its door, the Civil War story its own historian took back in 1871, and the man who decided not to rebuild it.

Three places to stand, and one argument.

Watch the documentary version: https://youtu.be/CM4flRAcWtU

Full written guide, with every source and visitor information:

https://stonekeepatlas.com/castles/bodiam-castle/

CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — the perfect castle

1:25 Chapter 1 — The coast that burned

3:08 Chapter 2 — A licence and a lawsuit

4:54 Chapter 3 — Station one: the north bank

6:01 Chapter 4 — The gate

7:54 Chapter 5 — Station two: the octagon

9:38 Chapter 6 — Forty years of argument

12:05 Chapter 7 — The siege that wasn't

13:12 Chapter 8 — Station three: the courtyard

15:26 Chapter 9 — The crime he didn't commit

17:26 Chapter 10 — If you go

KEY SOURCES

• Calendar of the Close Rolls, Richard II, vol. I (1914), p. 474 — the wound at Bourne, 17 Sep 1380

• M. A. Lower, "Bodiam and its Lords", Sussex Archaeological Collections 9 (1857), and Bodiam and Its Lords (1871) — the licence (his translation) and his retraction of the Waller story

• Drury McPherson Partnership, Bodiam Castle Conservation Management Plan for the National Trust (2016) — incl. the 1483 commission and Curzon (1926)

• D. Spencer, "Edward Dallingridge: Builder of Bodiam Castle", Ex Historia 6 (2014); D. J. Turner (1986); C. Coulson (1992); C. Platt (2007); O. Creighton & R. Liddiard (2008); C. Taylor, P. Everson & R. Wilson-North (1990); C. Whittick (1993)

• C. Cooper, P. Copeland & M. Johnson, "Bodiam Castle: A New Survey of the Interior" (2017)

• Historic England, list entries 1044134 and 1009013 (Open Government Licence)

• Full bibliography in the article linked above.

ABOUT THE SHOW

StoneKeep Atlas tells the real stories of Europe's great castles, palaces and fortresses — the documented history, not the tourist myth. New episodes alongside the documentaries at youtube.com/@StoneKeepAtlas.

Website: https://stonekeepatlas.com

CREDITS

Music: Envato Elements. Narration produced with synthetic voice.