16th century
After Henry’s death there was a pause in the conflict with France, during which many of the new fortifications were allowed to deteriorate. There was little money available for repairs and the garrisons were reduced in size. East Cowes was abandoned around 1547 and fell into ruin, while the bulwarks along the Downs were defaced and their guns removed; they were formally removed from service in 1550. In 1552, the Essex fortifications were decommissioned, and several were subsequently pulled down. The expense of maintaining the fortifications in Hull led the Crown to agree a deal with the town authorities to take over management of them. Milton and Higham were demolished between 1557 and 1558. Mersea Fort was temporarily decommissioned, before being brought back into active service.
The strategic importance of south-east England declined after peace was declared with France in 1558. Military attention instead shifted towards the Spanish threat to the increasingly prosperous south-west of the country; tensions grew and war finally broke out in 1569. The new threat led to improvements being made to Pendennis and St Mawes castles in Cornwall, and repairs to Calshot, Camber and Portland along the south coast. In 1588 the Spanish armada sailed for England and the Device Forts were mobilised in response. As part of this work, West Tilbury was brought back into service and supported by a hastily raised army, which was visited by Queen Elizabeth I, and further enlargement followed under the direction of the Italian engineer, Federigo Giambelli. Gravesend was improved and several of the Essex fortifications were temporarily brought back into use; there were discussions about enhancing the defences at Hull and Milford Haven, but no work was actually carried out.
Despite the destruction of the Armada, the Spanish threat continued; the castles in Kent were kept ready for action throughout the rest of Elizabeth’s reign. In 1596 a Spanish invasion fleet carrying reportedly 20,000 soldiers set out for Pendennis, which was then garrisoned with only 500 men. The fleet was forced to turn back due to bad weather, but Elizabeth reviewed the defences and significantly expanded Henry’s original fortifications with more up-to-date bastions, designed by the engineer Paul Ive. By the end of the century, however, most of the Device Forts were typically out of date by European standards.
17th century
James I came to the English throne in 1603, resulting peace with both France and Spain. His government took little interest in the coastal defences and many of the Device Forts were neglected and fell into disrepair, with their garrisons’ wages left unpaid. Castles such as Deal and blockhouses like Gravesend were all assessed as needing extensive repairs, with Sandgate reported to be in such a poor condition that “neither habitable or defensible against any assault, nor any way fit to command the roads”. Lacking ammunition and powder, and with only a handful of its guns in adequate repair, Hurst was unable to prevent Flemish ships from passing along the Solent. Pendennis’s garrison’s pay was two years in arrears, reportedly forcing them to gather limpets from the shoreline for food. Some of the forts fell out of use; Camber Castle, whose original function of protecting the local anchorage had by now been made redundant by the changing shoreline, was decommissioned by King Charles I in 1637, while Sharpenrode Bulwark lay in ruins by the 1620s.
First English Civil War
Civil war broke out across England in 1642 between the supporters of King Charles I and Parliament. Fortifications and artillery played an important role in the conflict, and most of the Device Forts saw service.The south and east of England were soon largely controlled by Parliament. The blockhouses at Gravesend and Tilbury were garrisoned by Parliament and used to control access to London. The castles along the Sussex and Kentish coastline were seized by Parliament in the opening phase of the war, Camber Castle then being decommissioned to prevent it being used by the enemy, the remainder continuing to be garrisoned. The royal fleet, which had been positioned in the Downs anchorage, sided with Parliament.
The Device Forts along the Solent also fell into Parliamentary hands early in the conflict. Calshot was garrisoned throughout, as was Brownsea, which was strengthened and equipped with additional guns. West Cowes was rapidly taken after firing on a nearby Parliamentary ship, and the Royalist commander at Yarmouth quickly negotiated a surrender of his tiny garrison. The heavily outnumbered garrison at Southsea Castle was stormed by Parliamentary forces in a night attack. Like Camber, St Andrew’s and Netley were rapidly occupied and then decommissioned by Parliament. In the north-east, Hull also sided with Parliament, and its castle and blockhouses were used as part of the town’s defences during multiple sieges.
Much of the south-west sided with the King; Device Forts such as St Catherine’s were held by the Royalists from the beginning of the conflict. The Royalists invaded Parliamentary-controlled Dorset in 1643, taking Portland and Sandsfoot. The flow of the war turned against the King, and the Dorset forts were besieged in 1644 and 1645, with Sandsfoot falling to Parliament. By March 1646, Thomas Fairfax had entered Cornwall with a substantial army. The captain of the castle was invited to retreat to the stronger fortress of Pendennis, but instead he surrendered immediately without putting up resistance. Pendennis was bombarded from the land and blockaded by a flotilla of ships. The captain, Sir John Arundell, agreed to an honourable surrender on 15 August, and around 900 survivors left the fort, some terminally ill from malnutrition. Pendennis was the penultimate Royalist fortification to hold out in the war, followed by Portland Castle which finally surrendered in April 1646.
Second English Civil War
After a few years of unsteady peace, in 1648 the Second English Civil War broke out, this time with Charles’ Royalist supporters joined by Scottish forces. The Parliamentary navy was based in the Downs, protected by the nearby Henrician castles, but by May a Royalist insurrection was underway across Kent. Sandown Castle declared for the King, and the soldier and former naval captain Major Keme then convinced the garrisons at Deal and Walmer to surrender. Sandgate Castle probably joined the Royalists as well. With both the coastal fortresses and the navy now under Royalist control, Parliament feared that foreign forces might be landed along the coast, or military aid sent to the Scots.
Essex also rose in rebellion in June and the town of Colchester was taken by the Royalists. Sir Thomas Fairfax placed it under siege, and Mersea Fort was taken by Parliamentary forces and used to cut off any assistance reaching the town by river. Meanwhile, Parliament defeated the Kentish insurgency at the Battle of Maidstone at the start of June and then sent a force under the command of Colonel Rich to deal with the castles of the Downs.
Walmer Castle was the first to be besieged and surrendered on 12 July. An earthwork fort was then built between Sandown and Deal, who each may have been defended by around 150 men each. Deal, which had been resupplied by the Royalists from the sea, was besieged in July. A Royalist fleet bombarded the Parliamentary positions and temporarily landed a force 1,500 Flemish mercenaries in support of the revolt, but a shortage of money forced their return to the Continent. The fleet, under the command of Prince Charles, later King Charles II, attempted to landed a fresh force in August, but despite three attempts the operation failed and suffered heavy losses. Deal surrendered on 25 August, followed by Sandown on 5 September.
Interregnum and the Restoration
Unlike many castles, the Device Forts avoided being slighted – deliberately damaged or destroyed – by Parliament during the years of the Interregnum. Many of the forts remained garrisoned with substantial numbers of men due to fears of a Royalist invasion, overseen by newly appointed governors; Netley was brought back into service due to the threat. Some were used to hold prisoners of war or political detainees, including Hull, Mersea, Portland, Southsea and West Cowes. During the First Anglo-Dutch War between 1652 and 1654, castles such as Deal were reinforced with earthworks and soldiers. Portland saw action during a three-day long naval battle between English and Dutch forces in the Portland Roads. Some sites fell out of use: Little Dennis Blockhouse – part of the complex of defences at Pendennis – and Mersea were decommissioned between 1654 and 1655, and Brownsea Castle was sold off into private hands.
Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 and reduced both the size and the wages of the garrisons across the kingdom. The Device Forts initially remained at the heart of the defences along the south coast, but their design was by now badly antiquated. Deal continued to play an important role in defending the Downs during the Second and Third Dutch Wars, supported by local trained bands, and castles such as Hurst, Portland and Sandgate remained garrisoned. Others, however, were decommissioned with Sandsfoot closing in 1665 following a dispute over the control of the defences, and Netley being abandoned to fall into ruin.
Concerns about the Dutch threat were intensified after an unexpected naval raid along the Thames in 1667, during which Gravesend and Tilbury prevented the attack reaching the capital itself. In response, Charles made extensive improvements to his coastal defences. As part of this investments were made to Pendennis, Southsea and Yarmouth, while Tilbury was hugely expanded with an updated system of ramparts, bastions and moats at considerable cost. In the final phases of Charles’s work, the castle and southern blockhouse at Hull were incorporated into a massive new fortification called the Citadel during the 1680s.
Some of the Device Forts played a role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 against Charles’ brother, King James II. The townsfolk of Deal seized their local castle in support of William of Orange, and took steps to defend the Downs against a feared Irish invasion which never materialised. Southsea Castle was held by the King’s illegitimate son, James FitzJames, the Duke of Berwick, who was pressurised into surrendering as his father’s cause collapsed. Yarmouth was controlled by Robert Holmes, a supporter of James, but was prevented from actively supporting the loyalist cause by the local inhabitants and his garrison, who sided with William.
18th–19th centuries
1700–91
The military significance of the Device Forts declined during the 18th century. Some of the fortifications were redesigned to provide more comfortable housing for their occupants. Cowes Castle was partially rebuilt in 1716 to modernise its accommodation, demolishing much of the keep and adding residential wings and gardens over the landward defences, and Brownsea Castle began to be converted into a country house from the 1720s onwards. Walmer became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Lionel Sackville, the Duke of Dorset, carried out extensive work there after 1708. There was probably some rivalry between Sackville and the naval officer Sir John Norris, who redeveloped nearby Deal Castle during the same period, creating comfortable wood-panelled quarters for himself there overlooking the sea.
Criticisms were levelled at the defences of the Device Forts, which often had minimal garrisons and had been left to fall into disrepair. Southsea Castle, for example, was only garrisoned by “an old sergeant and three or four men who sell cakes and ale” according to one contemporary account, and proposals were put forward to abandon the site altogether. Portland suffered badly from coastal erosion and, protected only by a caretaker garrison, was reportedly not repaired for many years, and a 1714 survey found the long-neglected Pendennis Castle to be “in a very ruinous condition”. The French military dismissed Deal, Walmer and Sandown as being highly vulnerable to any potential attack, describing them in 1767 as “very old and little more than gun platforms”. Mersea Fort and East Tilbury fell into ruin and were abandoned, the latter being submerged by the Thames. Some limited investments were made in the fortifications, however, with the defences of Pendennis Castle being modernised in the 1730s, and those of Calshot in the 1770s.
1792–1849
The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries led to some of the castles being re-garrisoned and improved, as part of the development of a range of gun batteries around key locations. Some of the fortifications such as Sandgate, Southsea, Hurst and Pendennis, protected strategic locations and these were extensively modernised. Hurst, for example, was redesigned with batteries of heavier 36-pounder (16.3 kg) weapons, and Pendennis was equipped with up to 48 guns. Sandgate’s keep was rebuilt to form a Martello tower as part of a wider programme of work along the south coast. New gun batteries were constructed at Deal, Sandown in Kent and Tilbury, while Fort Mersea was brought back into service complete with a new battery as well. Calshot Castle was renovated, Southsea’s defences were extensively modernised, as were those in Hull, with the castle and the south blockhouse being refitted.
Some of the Device Forts worked in conjunction with the volunteer units raised during the wars to counter the threat of a French invasion. Walmer Castle was used by its captain William Pitt the Younger – then both the Prime Minister and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports – as the base for volunteer cavalry unit and a fleet of 35 armed fishing boats called luggers. Nearby Deal also had units of infantry and cavalry, called fencibles and in 1802 units of bombardiers recruited by Pitt carried out military exercises at the castle. Calshot was used to store munitions for nearby Sea Fencibles. Pendennis held a new volunteer artillery unit, which was used to train other garrisons across Cornwall.
The government coastguard used some of the fortifications as bases to combat smuggling. Calshot was a good location for interception vessels to lie in wait and, by the middle of the century, two officers and forty-two men were stationed there; Sandown Castle in Kent was also used by the coastguard for anti-smuggling operations. In the coming decades some forts were declared obsolete and put to new uses; Portland was disarmed after the war and converted into a private house. Gravesend was superseded by the New Tavern Fort and demolished in 1844. Meanwhile, the ruins of Netley Castle were transformed into a Gothic-styled house from 1826 onwards.
Bibliography
Attribution
The text of this page was adapted from “Device Forts” on the English language website Wikipedia, as the version dated 30 July 2018, and accordingly this page is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Principle editors have included Hchc2009, 157.203.42.132 and Nev1, and the contributions of all editors can be found on the history tab of the Wikipedia article.
Photographs on this page are drawn from the Wikimedia website, as of 22 July 2018, and attributed and licensed as follows: “Hurst Castle, near Milford on Sea, Hampshire, England-2Oct2010 trimmmed“, author Ian Stannard, released under CC BY-SA 2.0; “Gun at Half Moon Battery Pendennis Castle“, author Chris Holifield, released under CC BY-SA 2.0; “Sandgate Castle September 2013 ED04“, author Edgepedia, released under CC BY-SA 3.0.
