Everything about Pevensey Castle totally explained
Pevensey Castle is a
medieval castle and former
Roman fort at
Pevensey in the
English county of
East Sussex. It is located at . The site is owned by
English Heritage and is open to visitors.
Roman fort
The fort of
Anderitum was built during the
3rd century to protect the southern coastline of
Roman Britain from
Saxon raiders.
Saxon fort and Norman camp
Evidence for some form of permanent occupancy next appears in
1042, when the
Anglo-Saxon Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson (later King
Harold II) established a strong point there, improving fortifications by digging ditches within the walls of the Roman fort. The English army remained at the fort during the summer of
1066 before abandoning it to invade further south. When the
Duke William the Bastard of
Normandy invaded Sussex, landing at Pevensey Bay in September 1066, there were no defences at Pevensey or anywhere else on the south coast. Upon landing, the invading Normans created a temporary fortification within the Roman walls. In 1066 at the ensuing
Battle of Hastings on Senlac Hill, Duke William defeated the combined English armies led by King Harold II.
Medieval castle
Robert, Count of Mortain (half-brother to William the Conqueror) was granted Pevensey shortly after the
Norman Conquest. Mortain used the existing fort as the basis for building a castle around
1100, carrying out only minor repairs to the walls to form an outer bailey, and building a new wooden palisaded irregular rectangular-shaped inner bailey against the Roman wall. Shortly afterwards, a rectangular stone
keep was erected, incorporating part of the east curtain wall and a Roman bastion. The original main entrance to the south-west and the east gateway were both repaired.
The castle was besieged by
William Rufus in the
Rebellion of 1088 and during a period of
civil war by the forces loyal to King
Stephen (1135-1141). A stone circuit wall was erected around the inner bailey by
Peter of Savoy around
1250, with three D-shaped towers and an imposing entrance gate. A third siege occurred in
1264, when
Henry III's supporters took refuge at the castle following the
Battle of Lewes and were besieged by
Simon de Montfort.
Post medieval times
During later times the ancient castle nearly didn't survive.
Queen Elizabeth I ordered the castle to be demolished but this was ignored. In fact the castle boasts Elizabethan 'gun emplacements', earthworks and an Elizabethan cannon mounted on a replica carriage. During the period of interegnum under
Oliver Cromwell efforts were again made to destroy it but luckily only a few stones were removed. During
World War II the castle was used by the home guard and as a military camp for anti-aircraft troops. As late as
1942 small additions were made to the castle for the defence of Britain when it became a look-out over the channel for invading German warplanes and a
pillbox during
World War II.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Pevensey Castle'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://pevensey_castle.totallyexplained.com">Pevensey Castle Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
