Slighting

The shattered remains of a stone building, with two walls of a tower standing higher above the ruins.
Corfe Castle in Dorset was slighted in 1646 during the English Civil War. Parliament slighted or proposed to slight more than 100 buildings, including castles, town walls, abbeys, and houses.[1]

Slighting is the deliberate damage of high-status buildings to reduce their value as military, administrative or social structures. This destruction of property is sometimes extended to the contents of buildings and the surrounding landscape. It is a phenomenon with complex motivations and was often used as a tool of control. Slighting spanned cultures and periods, with especially well-known examples from the English Civil War in the 17th century.

  1. ^ Thompson 1987, pp. 179–185.