Talk:Goodrich Castle

Incorrect wikilink

William fitzOsbern leads to a man who died in 1071, and thus could not possibly have been the same man who seized the castle in 1144. 81.158.2.171 (talk) 18:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Good point, thanks for highlighting that. I think it's probably William Fitz Osbern (1196), so I've changed the link. Nev1 (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Expansion...

I've gone through and given the article a bit of expansion, including in-line citations. The prose will probably need a bit of tidying up, but it gives a bit more background on the castle. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

This article is on my watchlist and when I noticed a massive rewrite I thought I'd take a look. It left some very good first impressions and I've left some comments below.

• The quotations in the lead could do with citations; I realise they're referenced later in the article and it isn't strictly necessary per WP:LEADCITE, but I think it would help (personal preference).
• "... all built during the 1280s from somewhat darker stonestone": is this meant to be sandstone?
• Ideally, there'd be a little more about the keep: it's dimensions, is its plan square or round, internal layout and general use. However if this was to go to GA I don't think that should stand in the way as although it's useful, it's not essential.
• I like the comparison of architectural features with other castles; this helps put the building in context and in my opinion is a good way of writing.
• Is there a decent public domain plan of the castle? If not, I think it might be worth finding one that can be included under fair use.
• There's some inconsistency in units of measurement. Ideally, either metric or imperial would go first consistently with a conversion in brackets, although deciding which goes first can be tricky as sources may conflict over time.
• "Water for the castle was originally raised from the castle well": this repetition of the word "castle" could be avoided by mentioning where the well was, ie: "Water for the castle was originally raised from the well in the outer bailey/xyz tower".
• "Victorian historians, however, believed the castle to date back further to the pre-Norman conquest days of King Canute,[29] and the site may have been among a small number of Saxon fortifications along the Welsh border": what do later sources say about this?
• Do the sources speculate why the keep was called "Macbeth's Tower"? Sounds interesting and even if based on a later disproven belief it could be mentioned. (I see this is addressed later in the article, but I think the folklore section could be integrated into the rest of the article, although I'll leave that to your discretion; I understand why you separated the folklore from the main history.)
• Now this doesn't need to go into the article but I'm curious exactly what Ashbee says about the cost of building the keep. Any chance of a quote? (If he give figures I think they'd be well worth inclusion.) It may have been cheap relative to other keeps, but building in stone was still an expensive endeavour.
• "As part of the extremely expensive construction work...": do the sources provide figures?
• It might be useful to clarify who the Talbots supported when discussing the Wars of the Roses.
• Is the castle open to the public?
• The castle's a Grade I listed building, this should be mentioned in the article. It's also a Scheduled Monument [1] and this should be mentioned too.
• Is it Pettifer's opinion that Goodrich Castle is the "most splendid in the county, and one the best examples of English military architecture", or is he representing general opinion? The way it's written, it sounds like it's Pettifer's opinion and this should probably be clarified in the article.
• Ideally, the books in the bibliography would have ISBN numbers.
• It looks like around 40 of the article's 121 references are to Ashbee, and as that's the English Heritage publication specifically on the castle that seems like a decent proportion. The articles appears pretty comprehensive.
• As far as external links are concerned, I recommend adding this one as it includes an extensive bibliography a reader might be interested in to complement the one used in the article. I don't really rate castlexplorer.co.uk, but I suppose it's a judgement call about its inclusion, although I don't see what it adds as it's now inferior to Wikipedia's article. Also, I don't think including the unofficial Goodrich Castle website is a good idea.

This is a very good rewrite, have you considered taking the article to WP:GAN? Also, the article was originally 2,719 characters of prose according to Dr PDA's prose script and is now around 22kb. This easily surpasses the 5-fold expansion required for WP:DYK, so I'd recommend choosing an interesting fact and nominating the article (with the current lead image perhaps). There are some great illustrations, which I think is important in an article about a building. I've made some minor copyedits you'll want to check over. Overall a well-writing engaging article. Well done on the hard work that's gone into this. Nev1 (talk) 23:15, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Reference the points above...

• citations in the lead now added.
• "stonestone" - yep, meant that to be "sandstone"! Corrected.
• size of the keep - added on.
• I can't find a public domain plan as yet, possibly because the archaeological work on the castle only occurred from the 1920s onwards, making most of them too recent (?). I may try and draw one myself at the weekend if no-one else has one!
• units of measurement. Agree - will try to sort out later.
• castle well. Changed as you suggested.
• Victorian historians and Canute. It seems to get dropped during the later Victorian period, and then not picked up again by modern historians, in terms of them neither agreeing nor disagreeing with it. It seems plausible enough to me, I'll admit, and fits with some of the revised histories for the period from the 1970s onwards, but I've no other facts to back it up.
• Macbeth's tower. No, irritatingly no details were given in the material I looked at. I'm guessing that "Irish" = "Scottish" at some point to the locals, as least in terms of both speaking Gaelic?
• Ashbee doesn't give a figure for the cost of the keep; he notes that it "would not have cost its builder too much money" - I think he's basing this on the small size of the keep and the ready availability of stone and timber around the castle.
• No precise figure is given for the construction costs, but the authors appear to be basing themselves around the cost of the equivalent work at Chepstow and in North Wales - plus, I suspect, some of the internal work in the Tower of London - which I believe is better accounted for.
• Talbots and factions - added in.
• "Open to the public" sorted out.
• Listed building - added in.
• Pettifer is echoing other writers, albeit some of them perhaps a litte biased (e.g. Ashbee writing for English Heritage!). I can cite him by name - what do you reckon?
• ISBN numbers - I'll sort out.
• External links - changed as proposed.
• NB: Thanks for all the help! Hchc2009 (talk) 17:37, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

• ISBN numbers done. Will do the measurements next. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:49, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
• Measurements done, alt text added for images; added to the Good Article Nomination list. Hchc2009 (talk) 08:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Engraver...

In the recent GA review, the question was asked about Mary Byfield's date of death. She died in 1876, aged 81, apparently. Hchc2009 (talk) 16:59, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added that to the image description. Malleus Fatuorum 17:18, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Cleaned up image

I've cleaned up the scanned image and produced this. I thought I'd check here whether it is thought to be an improvement. I don't think I need to add an extra licence for my changes but, if so, could someone point me in the right direction, please? Cavrdg (talk) 18:41, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I think its an improvement - looks cleaner and neater. I'd have thought that the original copyright is covered by the existing license, so provided the new changes (your contribution) are recorded and released, you'd be ok, but I'll admit I'm no expert. Hchc2009 (talk) 19:36, 29 August 2010 (UTC)