Queenborough Castle, Medieval concentric castle site in Queenborough, Kent.
Queenborough Castle is a medieval castle site in Queenborough, on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England, now known as Castle Green. It was built with a circular plan featuring an inner ring of six towers enclosed by an outer wall and a wide moat.
King Edward III commissioned the construction of the castle in 1361, completing it in just a few years as one of the most ambitious royal building projects of his reign. By the 17th century it had been demolished, with much of its stone repurposed elsewhere.
The castle was named in honor of Queen Philippa of Hainault, the wife of Edward III, making it one of the few English castles directly named after a queen. That royal connection lives on in the name of the surrounding area, Castle Green, which locals still use today.
The site is open to visitors and easy to walk around, with traces of the original layout visible at ground level following past archaeological excavations. Dry weather makes the visit more comfortable, as the ground can become uneven after rain.
Queenborough Castle was the first in England to be built with a fully circular plan, setting it apart from every other medieval fortification in the country. It was also among the very few castles that Edward III built entirely from scratch rather than expanding an older structure.
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