The Lives Have It: Curating the Medieval Past at English Heritage Castles

Abstract

This paper outlines some of the challenges to the public curation of the medieval past at castles, as experienced in the author’s curatorial capacity at English Heritage. Echoing the work of recent scholarship on the heritage presentation of castles, this paper contends that the breadth of narratives explored on such sites has been limited to a national, male-dominated legacy. This paper outlines key stakeholders in the public curation of castles, as well as the media at the disposal of English Heritage curators, before presenting an approach which centres the historical narrative around people. It argues that, by placing people, past and present, at the centre of the public curation of medieval castles, obstacles and limitations from previous approaches can be overcome. This paper concludes with a critical reflection, outlining some ways in which these challenges have been overcome using this approach at a recent project at Warkworth Castle (Northumberland). The article emphasises the capacity of traditional curatorship interplayed with creative endeavours, to bypass obstacles to telling a compelling but also challenging public history of medieval castles.