Southsea Castle
| Southsea Castle | ||
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 View from the east |
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| Creation time : | 1543-1544 | |
| Conservation status: | receive | |
| Geographical location | 50 ° 46 ′ 41 ″ N , 1 ° 5 ′ 20 ″ W | |
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Southsea Castle is a former coastal fortification in the county of Hampshire in Great Britain . The fortress is located in the district of the same name in the south of the city of Portsmouth .
history
The fortress is one of a series of coastal fortifications that Henry VIII had built from 1538 after his break with the Roman Church in order to protect his empire from a feared invasion of the Catholic powers France and Spain. Southsea Castle was built in just six months from 1543 to 1544 and was designed to protect the access to Portsmouth Harbor. Indeed, on July 18, 1545, a French invasion fleet appeared off Portsmouth. Henry VIII looked from Southsea Castle as his flagship, the Mary Rose , sank without touching the enemy on July 19, 1545.
The fortress served military purposes for the next 400 years. In 1627 the central tower burned down. During the English Civil War , the fortress was conquered by parliamentary troops in 1642 without any loss of life. In 1759 the complex was so badly damaged by an explosion that it was considered whether the fortress should be demolished. However, during the Napoleonic Wars, the complex was reconstructed from 1813 to 1814. The fortress served as a military prison between 1844 and 1850, and new coastal guns were installed in the fortress in 1899 . In 1960 the city of Portsmouth bought the old fortress and since 1967 it has been open to the public as a museum.
investment
In contrast to the coastal fortifications built according to plans by Stephan von Haschenperg, such as Deal Castle with round towers and bastions, Southsea Castle was built according to the model of the Italian fortress architecture of the time with right-angled bastions. The fortress consists of a central, square tower, which is surrounded by a moat that is also square but offset diagonally to the tower. The southern and northern outer walls thus form angular bastions. On the east and west sides of the tower there are rectangular cannon platforms on which the heaviest guns could be placed. The whole complex is surrounded by a dry moat.
literature
- Peter Harrington: The Castles of Henry VIII. Oxford, Osprey, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84603-130-4
