Defended Port
This view looks at two representative cannons on the bastion of Calshot Castle. The castle is one of Henry VIII's device forts, built on Calshot Spit near Fawley to guard the entrance to Southampton Water. In the first phase of Henry’s fortification programme, 30 castles or forts were built. A curvilinear form of fortification was developed which consisted of squat artillery towers surrounded by round bastions to provide platforms for artillery. Good examples of these are Walmer Castle and Deal Castle in Kent, Calshot Castle and Hurst Castle in Hampshire and St Mawes Castle in Cornwall.
Also known as a Henrician Castle, Calshot was built as a circular blockhouse with a three-storey central keep in 1540 using stone from Beaulieu Abbey. The outer walls were lowered in 1774 and the gatehouse was rebuilt in order to provide more living space. The south-east battery was added in 1895 but has since been demolished. Due to its strategic location, the castle was kept fully operational and an artillery garrison stationed there right up to the middle of the 20th century. Although deemed an isolated outpost for the garrison’s crew and their families, the surrounding beaches and inlets were an ideal place for smugglers to land their small ships.
Between WWI and WWII, the castle was closely associated with the Schneider Trophy air races, the competing seaplanes taking off and landing in front of it. A famous name that was associated with these races was an Aircraftsman Shaw, who is better-known to many as Colonel T E Lawrence of Arabia.
Defended Port
This view looks at two representative cannons on the bastion of Calshot Castle. The castle is one of Henry VIII's device forts, built on Calshot Spit near Fawley to guard the entrance to Southampton Water. In the first phase of Henry’s fortification programme, 30 castles or forts were built. A curvilinear form of fortification was developed which consisted of squat artillery towers surrounded by round bastions to provide platforms for artillery. Good examples of these are Walmer Castle and Deal Castle in Kent, Calshot Castle and Hurst Castle in Hampshire and St Mawes Castle in Cornwall.
Also known as a Henrician Castle, Calshot was built as a circular blockhouse with a three-storey central keep in 1540 using stone from Beaulieu Abbey. The outer walls were lowered in 1774 and the gatehouse was rebuilt in order to provide more living space. The south-east battery was added in 1895 but has since been demolished. Due to its strategic location, the castle was kept fully operational and an artillery garrison stationed there right up to the middle of the 20th century. Although deemed an isolated outpost for the garrison’s crew and their families, the surrounding beaches and inlets were an ideal place for smugglers to land their small ships.
Between WWI and WWII, the castle was closely associated with the Schneider Trophy air races, the competing seaplanes taking off and landing in front of it. A famous name that was associated with these races was an Aircraftsman Shaw, who is better-known to many as Colonel T E Lawrence of Arabia.