Yarmouth Castle

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Yarmouth Castle from the northwest

Yarmouth Castle is an artillery fortress built under Henry VIII of England and completed in 1547 to protect the port of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight from an impending French attack. The nearly square structure at the port entrance with a side length of almost 30 meters originally carried 15 guns and had a crew of 20. On the land side it had an arrow-shaped bastion in the Italian style. It was the first of its kind in England and its construction differed significantly from the semicircular bastions of earlier fortresses built by Heinrich.

The fortress was continuously maintained and expanded during the 16th and 17th centuries; the half facing the lake was heaped up to form a massive gun platform and additional accommodation rooms for the gunners were set up inside. A jump was thrown up on the west side and another battery was placed on the city's quay wall in the east . During the English Civil War the fortress was mostly held by the troops of Parliament ; after the restoration it was re-fortified under Charles II in the 1670s.

The fortifications remained in use during the 18th and 19th centuries, albeit with a smaller crew and fewer cannons, and were not abandoned until 1885. After an interlude as a signal station for the coast guard , it was reactivated during the First and Second World Wars . Today the preservation organization English Heritage operates the fortress as a tourist attraction.

history

16th Century

This plan of the fortress from 1559 shows the original layout of the inner courtyard, the “arrowhead” bastion and the moat on two sides .

The construction of Yarmouth Castle was a result of the international tensions between England, France and the Holy Roman Empire (HRR) in the final years of Henry VIII's reign. Traditionally, the crown did not play a major role in the fortress construction and maintenance; Coastal fortifications were a matter for the local nobility and the cities. As long as France was in constant conflict with the HRR, there were often minor raids from the sea, but an invasion of England seemed unlikely. In the southwest and on the Sussex coast there were only simple fortifications with a permanent house or tower in the center; There were a few more impressive fortifications in the north of England, but generally the fortifications were rather modest.

In 1533 Heinrich broke with Pope Paul III. and renounced the Roman Church in order to dissolve his long-standing marriage with Catherine of Aragon and to be able to remarry. As a result, France and the HRR formed an alliance against England in 1538 and the Pope urged the two countries to attack England. In response, Heinrich ordered the construction of fortresses in the most vulnerable places on the coast in 1539. The immediate threat passed at first but was renewed in 1544 when France, aided by its Scottish allies, threatened to invade the Canal . Heinrich therefore issued a new ordinance in 1544 to further expand the country's defense works, especially along the south coast.

It is possible that a French attack on the city of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight had already occurred in 1543; such an attack would have been an additional impetus to build a fortress as part of the second wave of fortifications. The fortress supplemented the already existing fortress works in the Solent and protected the most important ferry connection between the west side of the island and the mainland. Yarmouth Castle was a square artillery fort built around a central courtyard, the land side of which was protected by a pointed so-called "arrowhead" bastion. It initially had three cannons and field snakes as well as twelve smaller guns that could fire through a series of loopholes on the sea side of the fortress. The small crew consisted of a piece master , a gatekeeper and 17 soldiers under the command of Richard Udall, the first captain of the fortress. Udall lived in the fortress while the soldiers were housed in the city.

The fortress was built by George Mills under the supervision of Richard Worsley, the island captain, on crown land, possibly on the site of a church destroyed in the fighting of 1543. Henry had closed the English monasteries a few years earlier , and stones from the local Quarr Abbey were believed to have been used for construction. It was completed in 1547 when Mills £ 1,000 for his work and to pay the soldiers who guarded the construction site during construction.

Original usage

As a result of the accession to the throne of the Roman Catholic Queen Maria , there were personnel changes. Worsley was dismissed in 1553 in favor of a Catholic candidate and Udall was executed in 1555 for his involvement in the Duke of Northumberland's plot against the Queen. But after the Protestant Elizabeth I ascended the throne in 1558 , peace was concluded with France, and the military threat from Spain came to the fore. Elisabeth reinstated Worsley, who began extensive repairs to the fortress. He had half of the inner courtyard filled in order to gain a massive artillery platform that could carry eight heavy artillery with a clear field of fire to sea. Presumably he also had the master craftsman's house built on the opposite side of the fortress. However, an inspection in 1586 revealed that the fortress was in poor condition. 1587 were works for £ 50 carried out, including the construction of an earth rampart next to the fortress in order to be able to set up additional guns. The following year the Spanish Armada attempted an invasion  ; afterwards further repair work was carried out on the fortress. But as early as 1599, a report to the Crown stated that the fortress, which was still considered an important defensive work for the Solent, needed costly repairs.

17th century

View of the fortress from the sea. To the left of it stood the ski jump, to the right the quay battery.

Yarmouth Castle continued to be an important military facility, both as a fortress and as a supply station and storage facility. The repairs recommended in 1599 were made in the early 17th century, and in 1609 an additional £ 300 was spent on Yarmouth Castle and the nearby Sandown Castle, including two massive buttresses with beveled top on the two outer walls facing the lake.

According to a report by the then fortress captain John Burley from 1623, the garrison consisted of only four gunners in addition to the captain, the buildings were in a "ruinous" condition and the walls in need of repair. Similar lawsuits were filed in 1625 and 1629. Proposals to add a crescent-shaped battery to the fortifications were not pursued, but in 1632 the parapets were raised and additional accommodation and a storage room were built inside the fort. Some of the stones required for this could have come from nearby Sandown Castle, the walls of which the sea had destroyed; Before they were used in Sandown, they were probably built into local monasteries.

1642 broke civil war between the supporters of Parliament and those of King I. Karl made. Initially, Captain Barnaby Burley, a relative of John Burley and an ardent royalist , held the fortress with a small crew for the royal side. He eventually capitulated on the condition that he was initially allowed to remain in the fortress under armed protection, and the fortress remained under the control of Parliament until the end of the war. Not long after the king's execution in 1649, it was decided to increase the garrison of the fortress from 30 to 70 soldiers, fearing a possible attack by the royalists from the island of  Jersey . Most of these soldiers lived outside the actual fortress. The annual expenditure for the garrison was £ 78, and to save costs it was reduced in size again in 1655.

Yarmouth Castle on an engraving from 1794; on the right is a cannon from the quay battery.

When Charles II ascended the throne in 1660 , he demobilized most of the army. The following year, the crew of Yarmouth Castle were given four days to leave the fort. The king announced that the fortress artillery would be relocated to Cowes unless the city of Yarmouth was willing to pay for the running costs of the fortress. The city refused, but Charles I repeated his offer in 1666; this time the city seems to have taken action, because four soldiers have been appointed to occupy it. However, no commanding officer was appointed, and Yarmouth apparently did nothing to restore the now-ruined fortress.

In 1670 the fortress was again taken over by the Crown and Robert Holmes , the new captain of the Isle of Wight, had some cannons brought back into the fortress from Cowes. The place was re-fortified and a new battery was installed on the neighboring quay wall; at the same time the old earth walls were removed and the moat was filled. For himself, Holmes built a mansion next to the fortress, in which he housed the king three times.

In 1688, Karl's brother, Jacob II , faced an extensive uprising and the possibility of an invasion of England by William III. faced by Orange . Holmes was a supporter of Jacob and wanted Yarmouth Castle to be the king, but the people of Yarmouth and the garrison sided with William and prevented him from taking open sides with the king.

18th to 21st century

Ship gun with carriage on rail ring on the platform

Yarmouth Castle continued to be in use, and reports from 1718 and 1760 show that it was equipped with eight six pounders (projectile weight 2.7 kg) on ​​the fortress itself and five nine pounders (projectile weight 4.1 kg) on ​​the quay wall. During this time, the crew presumably consisted of a captain and six gunners supported by the local militia. In the early 18th century, Holmes' mansion was remodeled and given its current appearance. However, by the 18th century, Yarmouth Harbor was gradually silted up and adversely affected by industrial construction, so its importance as an anchorage declined. In addition, the construction of the fortress was no longer in keeping with the times.

During the Napoleonic Wars in 1813 the parapet was given a different shape. The Crimean War sparked new fears of invasion, and in 1855 the English south coast was fortified again. Yarmouth Castle was extensively repaired that year, four ship guns were placed on the platform  on rail wreaths and a regular Landwehr unit was deployed to crew the fortress. A proposal made in 1881 to modernize the entire fortress was rejected, and in 1885 the fortress garrison and guns were withdrawn.

In 1898 the coast guard began using the fortress as a signal station. In 1901 the War Department handed the property over to the Commissioners of Woods and Forests , and in 1912 some parts, including Holmes' former manor, were rented to the Pier Hotel , now the George Hotel , which still stands on the site of the earlier moat stands. The Office of Works led in 1913 repair work on the fortress in First as in the Second World War again served military purposes. It was not until the 1950s that its military use finally ended.

In the 21st century, Yarmouth Castle is under the management of English Heritage and serves as a tourist attraction, with 9,007 visitors in 2010. It is a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument .

architecture

View over the inner courtyard; on the left the long room with dormer window, in the middle the arcade porch of the master craftsman's house, on the right the staircase to the platform

Yarmouth Castle is an almost square fortress structure with a side length of almost 30 meters and an arrow-shaped bastion to protect the land side. The north and west walls facing the lake are each reinforced by triangular buttresses. The south and east sides were originally protected by a ten-meter-wide moat , which is now filled in. The 16th century redoubt and quay battery that originally stood in the area west of Pier Street and north of Quay Street were also destroyed.

The walls of the fortress are mostly made of ashlar , with some red brickwork on the south side. Only a few loopholes break through the walls of the fortress and the flanks of the bastion, from which the moat could be painted. The interior of the fortress originally formed a crown of buildings around a central courtyard, but as early as the 16th century the southern half of the courtyard was filled in to create a massive cannon platform that could also carry heavy artillery. It was increased to its present level in the late 16th century. The parapet is now covered with lawn, its corners were rounded in the 19th century. The four wreaths for aiming the ship's guns from 1855 are still visible. A small accommodation room at the top of the staircase is no longer preserved.

The arrowhead-shaped floor plan of the bastion reflects new findings in fortress construction that spread from Italy in the 16th century. Earlier fortresses from the time of Henry VIII used semi-circular bastions in the older European style to cover weak points in the masonry; However, an arrow-shaped floor plan offered the defenders a considerably larger field of fire to ward off attackers. Yarmouth was one of the first fortresses in Europe and the first in England to use this novel design.

The accommodation and other rooms are located on the south side of the fortress. On the ground floor, the entrance leads into an inner courtyard, which is adjoined by four barrel-vaulted rooms in the south-west corner, where the crew was housed in the 17th century. Two of these were later converted into magazines; Corresponding devices can still be seen in one of them. In the southeast corner is the master craftsman's house, consisting of a hall, kitchen and living room on the ground floor, bedroom and attic on the upper floors. The hall and living room were originally separated by a partition; the bedroom was also originally divided. On the first floor a small chamber is built on arcades over the inner courtyard, which served as accommodation. The Long Room with its massive, originally preserved roof structure extends over the barrel-vaulted rooms on the first floor .

literature

  • Martin Biddle , Jonathon Hiller, Ian Scott, Anthony Streeten: Henry VIII's coastal artillery fort at Camber Castle, Rye, East Sussex. An archaeological, structural and historical investigation . Oxbow Books, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-904220-23-0 , pp. 40 .
  • Ronald H. Fritze: The Role of Family and Religion in the Local Politics of Early Elizabethan England: The Case of Hampshire in the 1560s. In: The Historical Journal. 25 (2) 1982, pp. 267-287.
  • Renaissance War Studies. Hambledon Press, London 1983, ISBN 0-907628-17-6 .
  • Peter Harrington: The Castles of Henry VIII . Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-1-4728-0380-1 , pp. 29-30 .
  • Dave Hopkins: Extensive Urban Survey - Hampshire and the Isle of Wight . Ed .: English Heritage. London 2004, p. 3 , doi : 10.5284 / 1000227 .
  • David James Cathcart King: The castle in England and Wales. An interpretative history . Routledge, London / New York 1991, ISBN 0-415-00350-4 , pp. 176-177 .
  • BM Morley: Henry VIII and the development of coastal defense . HM Stationery Off, London 1976, ISBN 0-11-670777-1 , pp. 7 .
  • Paul Pattison: Pendennis Castle and St Mawes Castle . English Heritage, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-85074-723-9 , pp. 34-35 .
  • SE Rigold, Great Britain, Ministry of Works: Yarmouth Castle, Isle of Wight . HMSO, London 1958, OCLC 810988359 , pp. 6 .
  • SE Rigold: Yarmouth Castle, Isle of Wight . Ed .: English Heritage. London 2012, ISBN 978-1-85074-049-0 , pp. 12-13 .
  • Andrew Saunders: Fortress Britain. Artillery fortification in the British Isles and Ireland . Beaufort, Liphook, UK: 1989, ISBN 1-85512-000-3 , pp. 55 .
  • MW Thompson: The decline of the castle . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 1987, ISBN 1-85422-608-8 , pp. 111 .

Web links

Commons : Yarmouth Castle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ MW Thompson: The decline of the castle . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK 1987, ISBN 1-85422-608-8 , pp. 111 . ; JR Hale: Renaissance was studies . Hambledon Press, London 1983, ISBN 0-907628-02-8 , pp. 63 .
  2. ^ David James Cathcart King: The castle in England and Wales. An interpretative history . Routledge, London / New York 1991, ISBN 0-415-00350-4 , pp. 176-177 .
  3. ^ A b B. M. Morley: Henry VIII and the development of coastal defense . HM Stationery Off, London 1976, ISBN 0-11-670777-1 , pp. 7 .
  4. ↑ Hale 1983: pp. 63-64.
  5. ^ Hale 1983: 80.
  6. ^ Peter Harrington: The Castles of Henry VIII . Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-1-4728-0380-1 , pp. 29-30 .
  7. ^ A b Dave Hopkins: Extensive Urban Survey - Hampshire and the Isle of Wight . Ed .: English Heritage. London 2004, p. 3 , doi : 10.5284 / 1000227 .
  8. ↑ SE Rigold: Yarmouth Castle, Isle of Wight . Ed .: English Heritage. London 2012, ISBN 978-1-85074-049-0 , pp. 12-13 .
  9. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: pp. 11, 13.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa William Page (1912): The Borough of Yarmouth on British History, accessed June 14, 2015.
  11. ↑ a b c d Rigold 2012: p. 14.
  12. ↑ a b c d e f Yarmouth Castle on Historic England, accessed June 14, 2015.
  13. ↑ a b c d Rigold 2012: p. 13.
  14. ↑ Ronald H. Fritze: The Role of Family and Religion in the Local Politics of Early Elizabethan England: The Case of Hampshire in the 1560s. In: The Historical Journal. 25 (2) 1985, pp. 267-287, here pp. 274-275.
  15. ↑ Martin Biddle, Jonathon Hiller, Ian Scott, Anthony Streeten: Henry VIII's coastal artillery fort at Camber Castle, Rye, East Sussex. An archaeological, structural and historical investigation . Oxbow Books, Oxford 2001, ISBN 0-904220-23-0 , pp. 40 .
  16. ^ Paul Pattison: Pendennis Castle and St Mawes Castle . English Heritage, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-85074-723-9 , pp. 34-35 .
  17. ↑ Rigold 2012: pp. 11, 13-14.
  18. ↑ a b c d e Hopkins 2004: p. 7.
  19. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: pp. 14–15.
  20. ↑ a b c d e f Rigold 2012: p. 15.
  21. ↑ a b c d e Rigold 2012: p. 16.
  22. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: p. 18.
  23. ↑ Rigold 2012: pp. 18-19.
  24. ^ History of St Catherine's Castle. on English Heritage, accessed June 14, 2015.
  25. ↑ a b c d Rigold 2012: p. 19.
  26. ↑ SE Rigold, Great Britain, Ministry of Works: Yarmouth Castle, Isle of Wight . HMSO, London 1958, OCLC 810988359 , pp. 6 .
  27. ^ Yarmouth Castle on English Heritage, accessed June 14, 2015.
  28. ↑ BDRC Continental (2011): Visitor Attractions, Trends in England, 2010 ( Memento from September 19, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), Visit England, p. 65, September 19, 2015.
  29. ^ Yarmouth Castle, Yarmouth , British Listed Buildings, accessed June 14, 2015.
  30. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: p. 3.
  31. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: p. 4.
  32. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: p. 5.
  33. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: p. 11.
  34. ↑ Andrew Saunders: Fortress Britain. Artillery fortification in the British Isles and Ireland . Beaufort, Liphook, UK: 1989, ISBN 1-85512-000-3 , pp. 55 .
  35. ↑ Saunders 1989: pp. 50-55.
  36. ↑ Rigold 2012: pp. 7–8.
  37. ↑ a b Rigold 2012: pp. 6-7.
  38. ↑ Rigold 2012: pp. 8–9.
  39. ↑ Rigold 2012: p. 9.
  40. ↑ Rigold 2012: p. 10.
  41. ↑ Rigold 2012: pp. 10-11.

Coordinates: 50 ° 42 ′ 24 "  N , 1 ° 30 ′ 1"  W