County guide · The Castle Rolls

Best castles in Suffolk

5 castles in Suffolk: two with a ticket desk, two that are free to walk into and one that's shut for repairs. Framlingham is the most-reviewed. It's an English Heritage castle with no keep, where the wall-walk runs round a curtain wall set with thirteen towers, and where Mary Tudor gathered her forces in 1553 and was proclaimed queen. Sections of the wall-walk are closed for maintenance at the moment. Orford, also English Heritage, is the polygonal keep built for Henry II, and you climb 91 steps to the top of it. Both run shorter winter opening, so check English Heritage's dates before you set out. The two free ones are Norman mottes. Clare stands in a country park where the Great Eastern Railway dug through the bailey in the 1860s, and Eye carries the ruin of a house built on the mound in 1844, with its gate open daily from Easter to October and at weekends in winter, weather permitting. Bungay is the one to check before you travel: the Bigod family's castle has been closed for repairs since 2023, and until it reopens visitors report that you can see the ruin from outside the site.