Deal Castle Kent |
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Deal Castle is among the earliest and most elaborate of a chain of coastal forts, which also includes Calshot, Camber, Walmer and Pendennis Castles. Most were built at great speed between 1539 and 1542 by order of King Henry VIII, who feared an invasion by the Catholic powers of Europe. Its squat, rounded turrets were designed to deflect incoming cannon balls, and acted as platforms from which to fire barrages from increasingly sophisticated artillery pieces. The fort guarded the sheltered anchorage of ‘the Downs’ – the stretch of water between the shore and the hazardous Goodwin Sands, a graveyard of ships. At the centre of Deal Castle is a round tower, strongly constructed to carry guns on its roof. Around its base are six small semi-circular bastions that overlook the outer wall. This has six more massive rounded bastions, one of which forms the gatehouse. These outer bastions originally had space for four guns on their flat roofs and a further three guns in rooms below. The design of Deal castle meant that a total of 66 guns could be mounted, and a further 53 handguns could be fired through firing-loops at basement level. Around 1570 the six outer bastions were filled with earth, probably to strengthen the gun mounts on the roof. The defences were never put to the test during the Tudor period and it wasn't until 1648, during the Civil War, that the castle finally came under siege. Deal castle ceased to have a defensive role by the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, but it remained the home of the Captain of the Castle until the Second World War. |
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