Welcome to the Castle Guy website

Simon Forder is a historian, author, and castle “buff” and has travelled all over Great Britain, in mainland Europe and in Scandinavia visiting fortified sites. For the past fifteen years he has been researching the much-neglected history of castles in his local area of Moray, visiting every site as well as ploughing the depths of local libraries and web-based research to bring the stories of these castles to light. His sister website (thecastleguide.co.uk) contains an interactive map showing over a thousand Scottish castles, and nearly four hundred in Wales, with hundreds of English sites to come. Detailed histories of many of these are available for supporters of his work. His book about the Romans in Scotland is available on Amazon (other retailers are available…)

“Castles are part of our cultural heritage, and in their ruins can be found very personal stories as well as high political drama. In bringing these buildings to life, we can find keys to understanding how and why our society developed as it has.”