Sources for Dunstanburgh Castle

The most recent research on Dunstanburgh Castle is brought together in A Oswald, J Ashbee, K Porteous and J Huntley, Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland: Archaeological Research and Historical Investigations, English Heritage Research Department Report 26/2006 (Swindon, 2006). This contains a full bibliography.

The south west view of Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland’ by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1720. Though inaccurate in many ways, the engraving does show the west curtain wall almost intact, and is probably reliable in this respect
The south west view of Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland’ by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1720. Though inaccurate in many ways, the engraving does show the west curtain wall almost intact, and is probably reliable in this respect

UNPUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES

British Library, London, Cotton MS Caligula B1 [records and papers concerning England and Scotland, temp. Henry VIII (1509–47)], fols 17v and 25r

Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS Yorkshire Rolls, Box 1 no 2 [surveys of 1538 and 1543]    

The National Archives, London

  • Duchy of Lancaster Papers: MSS PRO DL 25/3392; 28/1/13; 29/1/3; 29/361/5971 and 5972 (bound together); 29/361/5975; 29/361/5976; 29/361/5977; 29/361/5978; 29/361/5979; 29/361/5980; 29/361/5981; 29/361/5982; 29/361/5983; 29/361/5984
  • MS PRO 30/26/71/1
  • MS WORK 14/1679. 

PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES

Brie, FWD (ed), The Brut, or The Chronicles of England (London, 1906)

Hutchinson, W, A View of Northumberland with an Excursion to the Abbey of Mailross in Scotland, Anno 1776, vol 2 (Newcastle, 1778) [accessed 13 February 2013]

Lodge, EDC and Somerville, R (eds), John of Gaunt’s Register, 1379–1383, vol 2, Camden Society, 57 (London, 1937)

VISUAL SOURCES

  • Francis Place, sketch of Dunstanburgh Castle, 1876, British Museum
  • Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, The South-West View of Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland, 1720 [particularly schematic and unhelpful]
  • JMW Turner, sketches and paintings of the castle, c 1797–1820, Tate, London
  • JW Robinson, photograph of the great gatehouse, 1884 (see History)

SECONDARY SOURCES

Ashbee, J, ‘Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and the Great Gatehouse of Dunstanburgh Castle’, English Heritage Historical Review, 1 (2006), 28–35 [accessed 3 February 2015]

Bates, CJ, The Border Holds of Northumberland, vol 1 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1891), 167–94 [accessed 21 March 2013]

Bateson, E, A History of Northumberland, vol 2: The Parishes of Embleton, Ellingham, Howick, Long Houghton and Lesbury (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1895), 196–216 [accessed 21 March 2013]

Bryant, J, Turner: Painting the Nation (London, 1996)

Creighton, OH, Designs upon the Land: Elite Landscapes of the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2009)

Hartshorne, CH, Feudal and Military Antiquities of Northumberland and the Scottish Borders (London, 1858) [accessed 13 February 2013]

Hislop, M, ‘John of Gaunt’s building works at Dunstanburgh Castle’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th series, 23 (1995), 139–44

Hunter Blair, CH and Honeyman, HL, Dunstanburgh Castle (London, 1986)

Johnson, M, Behind the Castle Gate (London and New York, 2002)

King, A, ‘Lordship, castles and locality: Thomas of Lancaster, Dunstanburgh Castle and the Lancastrian affinity in Northumberland’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th series, 29 (2001), 223–35

King, A, ‘Bandits, robbers and schavaldours: war and disorder in Northumberland in the reign of Edward II’, in Thirteenth Century England, ed M Prestwich, R Britnell and R Frame (Woodbridge, 2003), 9, 115–29

Maddicott, JR, Thomas of Lancaster, 1307–1322: A Study in the Reign of Edward II (Oxford, 1970)

Oswald, A, Ashbee, J, Porteous, K and Huntley, J, Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland: Archaeological Research and Historical Investigations, English Heritage Research Department Report 26/2006 (Swindon, 2006)

Oswald, A and Ashbee, J, Dunstanburgh Castle (English Heritage guidebook, London, 2007) [buy the guidebook]

Pounds, NJG, The Medieval Castle in England and Wales: A Social and Political History (Cambridge, 1990)

Simpson, WD, ‘Dunstanburgh Castle’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series, 16 (1939), 31–42

Simpson, WD, ‘Further notes on Dunstanburgh Castle’, Archaeologia Aeliana, 4th series, 27 (1949), 1–28

Summerson, H, Dunstanburgh Castle (English Heritage guidebook, London, 1993)

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