Pevensey Castle

Pevensey Castle is a medieval castle and former Roman fort at Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex. It is located at gbmapping|TQ645047. 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.

axon 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 dry ditch around the west gate. This is beacause they did not have time before the battle to modenise the castle. The ditch would make it harder to get in to the castle if William was attacked whilst inside. 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 did not 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.

References

*cite book | last = Peers | first = Charles | title = Pevensey Castle | publisher = English Heritage | date = 1985 | location = London