Rachel Swallow (ex McGuicken)
Thesis Title: Power, Memory and the Anglo-Norman Landscape of Cheshire - Castles of the
Earldom of Chester and their Tenants in Medieval Cheshire, 1066 – 1237.
Professor Howard Williams
Supervisors: Professor Peter Gaunt
Mr Stewart Ainsworth
Rachel’s post graduate study concerns the number, location and distribution of castles
raised in Cheshire in the period of the Earldom of Chester, c.1066 – c. 1237. The research is
multidisciplinary, with documentary, archaeological and topographical sources being used in
order to respond to the following questions:
To what extent:
* Each castle’s martial and strategic role affected its placing and landscape context
* The castle builders’ display of personal power played a part in the choice of locations, as
well as the shaping of their landscapes
* The location of any given castle in the Earldom of Chester was influenced by the builder’s
desire to appropriate pre-Norman power centres and ancient locales in the landscape
* The location of a castle was influenced by the builder’s overall distribution of landed
holdings within and outside the county of Cheshire
*Other patterns of lordship and the distribution of high-status settlement were affected in
the choice of castle site
Since obtaining her MA in 2000, Rachel has been staff visiting lecturer in the History &
Archaeology Department at the University of Chester. She was also a tutor for four years in
Landscape History at Keele University and has led several day and weekend courses in local
landscape history at Burton Manor College on the Wirral, Cheshire.
She has three recent publications, which expand upon ideas put forward in my MA research
dissertation and which are explored further in her current post graduate research:
• R Liddiard & R McGuicken, Beeston Castle (London: English Heritage, 2007)
• R McGuicken, ‘Castle in context: redefining the significance of Beeston Castle, Cheshire’,
Chester Archaeological Society Journal, Vol. 81 (2006), published 2010.
• R McGuicken, ‘Castle in context? An analysis of heritage interpretation and presentation at
Beeston Castle, Cheshire’, Chester Archaeological Society Journal, Vol. 81 (2006), published
2010.