Confidence

This confidence key is very much a guide and not a definitive statement. These classifications are not fixed and can and do change. It should also be born in mind that many authors, particularly older authorities like David Cathcart King, held a very military definition of the castle and some sites they rejected may actual fulfil other, less military definitions. This confidence guide is not a statement of how certain it is that a site existed but how certain it is that a site existed as a fortification or as otherwise described. The intent of Gatehouse is to record all sites that have ever been proposed as medieval fortifications including all those that have since been rejected.

• When there is clear archaeological and/or historical evidence for a site being the described type of site it is recorded as certain.
• Where the balance of evidence from the available sources makes it likely that the site is the described type it is recorded as possible.
• Where the balance of evidence from the available sources makes it unlikely that the site is the described type it is recorded as questionable.
• Where a site has been rejected by a credible authority and is not otherwise supported it is recorded as rejected.

It should be noted that David King's 'possible' sites, in Castellarium Anglicanum, tend to be closer to the questionable category in Gatehouse.

Remains

Gatehouse attempts to give some idea of the amount of visible remains. This information is based on second party site descriptions and may well be out of date or otherwise inaccurate. As with the confidence statement the remains statement refers to the proposed medieval fortification, it may be that contempory buildings or earthworks that are not defensive but which relate to fortification do survive.
The remains categories are;

• No visible remains - Nothing can be seen although buried remains may exist.
• Cropmarks/slight earthworks - The site is identifiable only by slight earthworks or cropmarks.
• Earthworks - Earthworks remain from the site. These may be seriously eroded or damaged up to basically intact.
• Masonry footings - The foundations of masonry buildings are visible. Sometimes post medieval building may reuse or overlie the foundations. Masonry here includes brickwork.
• Masonry ruins/remnants - There are masonry and/or brickwork ruins or masonry and/or brickwork remnants incorporated into a later building.
• Major remains - There are substantial masonry and/or brickwork remains with architectural details. This also includes timber framed buildings in good condition.
• Uncertain - I am uncertain as to the amount of visible remains.

Scheduling and listing

Gatehouse attempts to record the legal status of the sites recorded.

Scheduled monuments are those sites scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. These are often called Scheduled Ancient Monuments or SAMs although, since some scheduled sites may be of recent date, the 'Ancient' is omitted by careful users. For England the data in Gatehouse is derived from The National Heritage List for England and has a high degree of reliability. For Wales the data was derived from the CARN database, which is no longer available although the records are reasonable reliable. There is no online scheduled monument report database for Wales, although the available archaeological database records often quote from the scheduling reports.
It should be noted that Gatehouse records the legal status of the given location so the scheduling record may not well not mention the medieval history or remains of the site. (A bastle built with a Roman mile fort on Hadrian's Wall is unlikely to be mentioned in the scheduling record.)

Listed buildings are those building listed under Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 for special planning regulations under the three grades of:

• Grade 1: buildings "of exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important".
• Grade 2*: "particularly important buildings of more than special interest".
• Grade 2: buildings that are "nationally important and of special interest".

Listed building are listed for their historical and architectural importance. Therefore listed building records often include something of the history of a location and because of this Gatehouse records listed buildings standing on the site of medieval building even if they don't have any apparent medieval remains.

For England the data in Gatehouse is derived from The National Heritage List for England and has a high degree of reliability. For Wales the available online record of listed buildings is a non searchable dataset within the RCHAMS website and the data was derived from an html table issued in response to a freedom of information request. As this was a manually done operation there may be omissions or other errors in the links to these records.

NB. Within the site descriptions listed building grades may be recorded in Roman numerical form (i.e. Grade II). For technical reasons the star (*) is not used within the writen description and is replaced with the word 'star'.