The Castle and Cluniac Priory were founded by William de Warenne soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Castle Acre itself was once a fortified town and was protected by its own large bank, with a ditch and gateways to guard the entrances. The Priory survived until 1537 when it was surrendered to Henry VIII during the great Dissolution of the Monasteries. The ruins span seven centuries and include a 15thC gatehouse.

Sir Edmund Bedingfeld built Oxburgh Hall during the final quarter of the 15thC, when the Wars of the Roses were at their height. Any large undertaking of this kind required the permission of the king and the official 'licence to crenellate' was granted by Edward IV in 1482. The defences were more for show than real protection. The large central windows in the gatehouse lit up the principal rooms for the lord and lady, but would not have been much use against attack. It was these rooms which became the King's and Queen's rooms in 1487 when the new King Henry VII and his Yorkist wife Elizabeth came to stay.

Many of these pictures were taken of, or around King’s College, Cambridge. Young King Henry VI laid the foundation stone of ‘The King’s College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge’ on Passion Sunday, 1441. The completion of the Chapel was made possible through the patronage of subsequent kings most conspicuously Richard III and Henry VII. The Chapel is the product of three separate periods of construction which were the result of interruptions to the building work during the Wars of the Roses.

The monastery was founded by Edward the Confessor in 1044. In the 12th century, the island was captured by King John’s men disguised as pilgrims. This trick was repeated on 30 September 1473 during the Wars of the Roses when John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford captured the island and held it during a siege of twenty-three weeks against 6,000 of Edward IV's troops. On 15 February 1474, Oxford surrendered and was imprisoned in the fortress of Hammes, near Calais.