Aerial view of Deal Castle
Deal Castle is an artillery fort constructed by Henry VIII in Deal, Kent, between 1539 and 1540. It formed part of the King's Device programme to protect against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire and defended the strategically important Downs anchorage off the English coast. Comprising a keep with six inner and outer bastions, the moated stone castle covered acres ( ha) and had sixty-six firing positions for artillery. It cost the Crown a total of £27,092 to build the three castles of Deal, Sandown and Walmer, which lay adjacent to one another along the coast and were connected by earthwork defences.[a] The original invasion threat passed but, during the Second English Civil War of 1648–49, Deal was seized by pro-Royalist insurgents and was only retaken by Parliamentary forces after several months' fighting. Deal Castle is entered through the gatehouse, which originally overlooked a walled garden, since largely destroyed. The dry, stone-lined moat, 20 metres (66 ft) wide and 5 metres (16 ft) deep, would originally have been crossed over a stone causeway and a drawbridge, the latter now replaced by a modern wooden gatehouse still has its original iron-studded doors — the historian Jonathan Coad considers them "among the best preserved for their date" – and five murder-holes to enable the garrison to defend the internal passageway with missiles or handguns; it would originally have also been protected by a portcullis at the outer bastions were filled with earth in the 1570s, and have 18th-century ramparts; the superstructure around the eastern bastion was rebuilt after the Second World War. A passageway called "the Rounds" runs along the outside of the outer bastions, linking the handgun positions covering the base of the keep has a central newel staircase, linking the basement, ground and first floors. When first built, the garrison would have lived on the ground floor of the keep.
Size: 5464px × 3070px
Location: Deal Beach, Deal, Kent, UK
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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