5-star luxury / Michelin Key
West Sussex
Amberley Castle
A 900-year-old castle enclosed by a 60-foot-high curtain wall and portcullis, set beneath the South Downs; privately owned and run as a luxury hotel since the 1980s.
5-star deluxe / Relais & Chateaux
Gloucestershire
Thornbury Castle
A Tudor castle begun in 1511 by Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and later the country retreat of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn; now a Relais & Chateaux hotel on the edge of the Cotswolds.
4-star boutique
Northumberland
Langley Castle
A 14th-century fortified castle with seven-foot-thick walls, one of the few English castles never destroyed by war, set in its own 12-acre wooded estate near Hadrian's Wall.
4-star
Cheshire
Peckforton Castle
A Grade I-listed Victorian Gothic Revival castle built 1844-1850 for landowner John Tollemache, designed by architect Anthony Salvin as a genuine fortified-style stone castle rather than a folly.
4-star
County Durham
Lumley Castle
A 14th-century quadrangular castle built around 1389 by Sir Ralph Lumley, overlooking the River Wear and Durham County Cricket Ground.
boutique
Cumbria
Augill Castle
A Grade II-listed Gothic Revival castle built in 1841 by John Bagot Pearson as a private 'folly castle' retreat, later a school, and now an independently run family-friendly hotel.
4-star
County Durham
Walworth Castle
An original castle dating to the 12th century (estate recorded from 1150), largely rebuilt in Elizabethan times by the Jenison family, who hosted King James I here in 1603 en route to his coronation.
4-star, spa hotel
North Yorkshire
Hazlewood Castle
A castle first recorded in the Domesday Book (1086), fortified and battlemented in the late 13th century by the Vavasour family, later a Carmelite friary before its 1997 restoration as a hotel.
5-star luxury
North Yorkshire
Swinton Park
A Grade II*-listed castellated castle, ancestral home of the Earl of Swinton's family (Cunliffe-Lister) since the 1880s, set within a 20,000-acre estate near the Yorkshire Dales.
4-star
Cumbria
Appleby Castle
A Norman castle with an 11th/12th-century keep in the Eden Valley on the edge of the Lake District, later remodelled by Lady Anne Clifford in the 17th century.
country house
Herefordshire
Eastnor Castle
A Norman-revival castle built 1810-1824 for the 1st Earl Somers, still lived in by the Hervey-Bathurst family, set at the foot of the Malvern Hills.
heritage B&B
Kent
Leeds Castle (Maiden's Tower & Stable Courtyard)
One of England's most famous castles, with a moated site dating to 857 AD and the current stone castle from the 12th century, long a residence of medieval English queens.
luxury B&B / 5-star gold
Kent
Hever Castle Bed & Breakfast
The genuine double-moated 13th-century castle that was childhood home of Anne Boleyn, later restored by the Astor family in the early 1900s.
attraction resort / VIP suites
Warwickshire
Warwick Castle (Tower Suites)
One of England's great medieval castles, built from 1068 and rebuilt in stone in the 12th century, now run as a major visitor attraction by Merlin Entertainments.
boutique / single suite
East Sussex
Herstmonceux Castle (Castle Suite)
A moated brick-built castle dating from 1441, one of the earliest significant brick buildings in England, now home to Bader International Study Centre (Queen's University Canada).
heritage B&B / experiential stays
Cumbria
Muncaster Castle
A castle built around a 14th-century pele tower, continuously owned by the Pennington family for over 800 years, on the edge of the Lake District.