Crusader Castles Spotter’s Field Guide

A field guide to Crusader castles for adult history fans and travellers: how to read a Crusader castle, three kinds of site, the way in, building and rebuilding and the military orders, then 12 places from Crac des Chevaliers, Acre and Rhodes to Valletta, Kolossi and the Temple Church in London, a timeline and the open questions.

What’s inside:

- How to use the guide (no travel advice is given)

- Recognise it: a Crusader castle and three kinds of site (our own drawings)

- The way in: gates, turns and a bent ramp

- Building and rebuilding

- The military orders: Hospitallers and Templars

- 12 places, from Crac des Chevaliers, Acre and Rhodes to Valletta, Kolossi and the Temple Church in London, each with facts from named sources and notes space

- Timeline

- Open questions: questions without one answer

- Checklist of the 12 places

- Credits, licence and sources

Pages: 18 (including cover and credits). Sizes: A4 (210 × 297 mm) and US Letter (8.5 × 11 in), both PDFs included in one zip.

Printing: Print at 100% / actual size on A4 or US Letter. Inside pages use light backgrounds and print well in black and white; covers are dark, so start from page 2 to save ink.

Every fact is checked against named source pages from UNESCO, ICOMOS (for UNESCO), the Old Akko website, Heritage Malta, the Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Tourism, the Cyprus Department of Antiquities, the Jordan Tourism Board, English Heritage, the Temple Church and the Museum of the Order of St John (checked 3 Nov 2026), and the sources are listed on the pack’s credits page. Where the evidence gives no single answer, what each source says is shown with its source.

There are no photos in this pack: all drawings, puzzles and layouts are REALLYBYTE’s own work. Drawings are simplified impressions: not photographs, not reconstructions of any real castle, not to scale, and not copied from any site plan, map, guidebook, print, photo or book. Not affiliated with UNESCO, ICOMOS, Heritage Malta, the Deputy Ministry of Tourism of Cyprus, the Jordan Tourism Board, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, the Old Akko & Nazareth Development Company, English Heritage, the Temple Church, the Museum of the Order of St John, St John Ambulance, any government, the UK government or any museum. Their names, and the names of the places they look after, are used only to identify the places and sources we quote.

Licence: personal use. Print as many copies as you need for yourself and your household. Please don’t resell, re-upload or share it publicly. For club, school or commercial use, please email info@reallybyte.com.

Made by REALLYBYTE, the team behind crusader.forts.im. Questions: info@reallybyte.com

This is a digital download: no physical item will be shipped.