Sandgate Castle
Encyclopedia
Sandgate, Kent
Sandgate is a village in the Folkestone and Hythe Urban Area in the Shepway district of Kent, England. In 2004, the village re-acquired civil parish status....
near Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
in Kent. It was originally built as an artillery castle in 1539-1540 by Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
as part of his chain of coastal defences in response to the threat of invasion. As these forts were devised by Henry VIII, they are known as Device Forts
Device Forts
The Device Forts, also known as Henrician Castles, are a series of artillery fortifications built to defend the southern coast of England by Henry VIII. After his divorce of Catherine of Aragon England was left politically isolated, and the peace of Nice between France and Spain in 1538 aroused...
. It was built to defend a vulnerable stretch of coastline and due to its proximity to the French coast the site has been constantly defended and refortified.
Construction 1539-1540
The original castle, started in 1539, is one of the most comprehensively documented of its time and the record still exists in the British LibraryBritish Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
. The total cost of the build was some £5,584.7s.2d. The construction took 18 months and the accounts were closed on 2 October 1540. The comptroller for the build period, Thomas Cocks, was paid the grand sum of £50 and the build employed around 500 people using 147,000 bricks, 44,000 tiles at 4s per thousand, a thousand cartloads of oak, 9.5 tons of lead and 4.5 tons of iron. 16d per day was paid for carts to haul stone and materials. Richard Lynsted was master mason. Sandgate's construction was supervised by Stefan von Haschenperg
Stefan von Haschenperg
Stefan von Haschenperg was a Czech military engineer employed by Henry VIII of England in the 1540s.-Career:Very little is known of Stefan's career, however he was mentioned as a gentleman of Moravia, and subject of Bohemia, in a letter from the Regent of the Netherlands to Henry VIII in 1544. He...
, who signed the accounts, though he was not often present. Haschenperg disagreed with other officials over the roofing materials. He preferred tar and pitch rather than less flammable lead, and this was a feature of his other building at Camber Castle
Camber Castle
Camber Castle is one of Henry VIII's Device Forts, also known as Henrician Castles, built to protect the huge Rye anchorage .It is approximately 2 km south of Rye and 2 km northeast of Winchelsea....
.
The original castle comprised a large, three-storey central keep surrounded by two concentric curtain walls. The inner curtain wall had three smaller, round towers and the outer curtain wall had a three-storey gatehouse to the north (still in almost its original form) and a rectangular building or barbican connecting it to the central keep. All of the buildings were originally roofed and the castle was designed so that it rose progressively from the outside in to provide up to four tiers of heavy guns. These were positioned behind 65 embrasures or gun ports and there were also gun loops in the lower levels of the towers and buildings to provide flanking fire.
Sandgate’s sister castles were Sandown Castle, Kent
Sandown Castle, Kent
Sandown Castle was one of Henry VIII's Device Forts or Henrician Castles built at Sandown, North Deal, Kent as part of Henry VIII's chain of coastal fortifications to defend England against the threat of foreign invasion. It made up a line of defences with Walmer Castle and Deal Castle to protect...
, Walmer Castle
Walmer Castle
Walmer Castle was built by Henry VIII in 1539–1540 as an artillery fortress to counter the threat of invasion from Catholic France and Spain. It was part of his programme to create a chain of coastal defences along England's coast known as the Device Forts or as Henrician Castles...
and Camber Castle, in Kent and Sussex respectively. Sandown no longer exists, it was taken by the sea some years ago and Camber Castle is derelict. Walmer Castle
Walmer Castle
Walmer Castle was built by Henry VIII in 1539–1540 as an artillery fortress to counter the threat of invasion from Catholic France and Spain. It was part of his programme to create a chain of coastal defences along England's coast known as the Device Forts or as Henrician Castles...
, however, remains in the ownership of English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
and is the home of the Warden of the Cinque Ports.
Subsequent history
During the castle’s long history Henry VIII visited in 1542, Elizabeth I in 1572 and 1588 and Queen Victoria and Prince AlbertPrince Albert
Prince Albert was the husband and consort of Queen Victoria.Prince Albert may also refer to:-Royalty:*Prince Albert Edward or Edward VII of the United Kingdom , son of Albert and Victoria...
in the late 1800s. In 1715-1716 the keep was re-roofed and the seaward battery rebuilt following damage by the spring tides. In 1805-1806, during the Napoleonic wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, a major series of alterations were carried out on the castle to convert it into a gun fort/castle. The tops of the original defensive towers were removed and the central tower converted into a Martello
Martello
Martello can refer these people:* Cesar Martello, politician in Ontario* Alfonse Martello D'Amato, New York politician* Charles Martel d'Anjou, 13th century titular king of Hungary* Leo Martello, paganMartello can also refer to:...
-style tower mounting a coastal battery.
In the late 1850s a new magazine was built and alterations made to the existing gun emplacements. Pillboxes were constructed at the castle during the 2nd World War. Bizarrely by today’s heritage standards, the castle was sold by the government due to defence cutbacks in 1889. From the late 1890s the castle has gone through a number of non military reincarnations and uses. It became a private house in the late 1890s, but was again requisitioned for defence in both the 1st and 2nd World Wars. The South Eastern Railway Company applied to have the castle demolished in 1911 to provide a rail link along the coastline from Hythe to Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
In 1960 another application for demolition and replacement with a block of flats was rejected by the planning authority.
The great storm of 1950 took around a third of the front portion of the castle and most of the outer wall on the south side was destroyed by coastal erosion. New sea defences were built shortly thereafter to protect it for the future. Consequently the castle title deeds still contain ownership below the low water mark where the castle originally stood.
For a period it became a museum, then a banqueting facility/restaurant and was finally converted into a permanent private dwelling in the late 1990s under the strict supervision of the Department of Environment and English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
. By then, the castle’s appearance had changed radically, with most of it re-faced during Napoleonic times, although there is evidence in the curtain walling of the original Tudor stonework, including French stone from Caen
Caen
Caen is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the Calvados department and the capital of the Basse-Normandie region. It is located inland from the English Channel....
brought from the local monasteries of St Radegund
Radegund
Radegund was a 6th century Frankish princess, who founded the monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers. Canonized in the 9th century, she is the patron saint of several English churches and of Jesus College, Cambridge.-Life history:Radegund was born about 520 to Bertachar, one of the three kings...
near Dover and Christchurch, Canterbury
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....
, demolished during the dissolution.
The castle is now in good heart as a private dwelling and the main keep is topped with a distinctive stainless steel cap.
Further reading
- Colvin, H.M. (ed) (1982). The History of the King's Works, Vol. IV, 1485–1600, Part II.
- Harrington, Peter (2007). The castles of Henry VIII. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 9781846031304
- Harris, E.C., "Archaeological investigations at Sandgate Castle, Kent, 1976-7," Post-Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 14, 1980, pp. 53–88.
- Morley, B. M. (1976). Henry VIII and the development of coastal defence. London: H.M. Stationery Office. ISBN 0116707771
- Rutton, W. L., 'Sandgate Castle, 1530-40', Archaeologia Cantiana, vol. 20, (1893), pp. 228-257, includes analysis of the building account.
- Rutton, W. L., 'Sandgate Castle', Archaeolgia Cantiana, vol. 21, (1895), pp. 228-257, subsequent history to 19th-century.