User Reviews

In looking for documentaries on Netflix, I came across this series. I've always felt a little light in my knowledge of British castles, so I started watching this series.

This show is not dense with information; however, it also doesn't come across as fluff. There are actors reenacting historical events and people, many of whom are in multiple episodes (because how many kings or queens did Britain have?).

The narrator kind of goes off the rails from time to time trying to make the series more dramatic than it should be. Aside from that, it is a fun watch with some breath-taking views of castles and the surrounding areas.

After the horrendous time we've had the last few years semi imprisoned in our houses, what would be better than a really long holiday at home without the bother of vaccine passports, quarantines, or PCR tests. Where to go? Why not visit Dan Jones's great British castles. He gave me an appetite to visit them all. Steeped in history, mostly violent but not all, I learned a lot about my own heritage. One nice touch was the experts, some of whom were just the right side of eccentric. All very well done. Looking forward to a continuation of the series.

This series is great! The initial description leaves out one of the most famous castles of all time though. Lets NOT forget Edinburgh Castle!! That particular episode is very well done as is each episode aired.

Wasn't sure what to expect As I have not really watched This kind iff tv show before But I like my history the older I get I wasn't interested in school tbh

I read a few reviews and I have only watched the first episode But actually quite impressed with this series If u like history u should enjoy this,

item 1. The curator of the Lancaster Castle artefacts suggested the main reason for inflicting the tongue restriction device was for "Fighting in the street" when in fact the device was specifically designed to punish those accused of slander or malicious gossip.

item 2. Henry V111 never renounced Catholicism, he was born a catholic and died a Catholic. He did renounce the authority of Rome and the Pope, making himself the head of the Catholic Church in England. He was never a champion of Protestism and Catholics were not executed for just being Catholics, they were executed for refusing to acknowledge him as head of the Catholic church in England. When making documentary films that are usually received as fact, it's imperative that published information is impartial and accurate.

Easy to watch and learning something at the same time and the presenter does a good job.

Its not what I would normally watch but Netflix seems to like all those drug crime film .... Watch this you will enjoy it.

I was eager to watch this as I've always been a castle and history enthusiast. And it has introduced me to some interesting castles that I knew little about. But frankly I was left quite disappointed by most of the episodes.

The main problem with the series is the presenter. Dan Jones is probably a perfectly good historian, but he is absolutely laughable as a tv presenter. His presentation style is so awkward and uncharismatic that you often wonder if you're watching an episode of Alan Partridge. It's genuinely quite cringe-inducing to watch him saunter about in this leather jacket he never seems to take off, standing in awkwardly staged poses with endless closeups of his gormless face staring "dramatically" at walls while he tries very hard (and again, awkwardly fails) to deliver his script in an engaging fashion. Needless to say, whatever the quality of the documentary content, this constant distraction subtracts quite a lot.

And sadly, the documenary side of things is quite lacking as well. For a show called Secrets of British Castles, the episodes often say remarkably little about the actual castles themselves. Instead what you mostly get is a very surface-level introduction to a few disconnected kings or nobles that lived in them and a few key events in their history. Nothing wrong with that per se but it just doesn't go far enough to get a real sense of the places.

This show is not about castles. It's about some of the people that lived in them, or had them build. While it goes on and on about these people, it has sweeping views of a castle.

I wish after watching this show I could say I now know about the castles but unfortunately, not.

Too much stories (as I am not historian, I will not judge accuracy), too little technical details... The buildings serve as the background for historical stories .. yes, perhaps related to the castle, but still.. the presenter is going too far on a tangent by my opinion..

Would prefer less emotions, more "dry" technical stuff.

..removing 1 * for the idiotic tattoos of the "historian".. what a childish thing to do ..and forcing us to watch.. ;-)

One of the first lines ends with a sentence about things that happened in castles, like 'even murder'. I mean duh. The whole show is really missing a trick here. Instead of sharing the exciting history of magnificent British castles it's overly trivial and pointing out the obvious. I'm quite disappointed because this could've been a great show. But having been to some of these castles myself I feel like this show is only gently massaging the surface. More pop than rock.

They should call the show "secret of great British atrocities". They briefly talk about the castle, but the go into graphic detail about horrible murders, tortures, massacres, and other atrocities that took place in or around the castle. It gets especially bad in the second season where they got so into it that I was forced to shut it off. I wanted to see nice dry dialogue about castles with a touch of history but focus on the specs, blueprints, and beautiful scenery. Instead I get bad reenactments and gory tellings about brutal horrors committed by men of old. JUST TALK ABOUT THE CASTLES PLEASE!!