Camber Castle

-1486

The first fortification at Camber Castle may have been built around this time by Sir Richard Guldeford, the Master of the Ordnance. King Henry VII gave him the manor of Higham in exchange for Sir Richard promising to construct a tower fort to protect the anchorage. 

However, there’s no surviving documentation or evidence indicating a tower was actually built at this time. 

-1512-1514

The construction of the castle’s first artillery tower was started and completed during this time, under order by King Henry VIII, who became king in 1509. Camber Castle is built between the ports of Rye and Winchelsea, overlooking the south coast of England. 

The castle was fortified for heavy gun defence due to Henry VIII’s more aggressive policy toward neighbour France than his father, the previous king. 

-1539-1540

By 1539, due to the threat of invasion from France and Spain, Henry VIII ordered increased defensive structures be built to improve England’s coastal defence. 

As a result, additions to Castle Camber to convert it into a more substantial keep with gates and towers, including a more comprehensive concentric design, were completed. 

Camber became a part of a collection of forts across England called the Device Forts. 

-1542-1544

Redevelopments were employed upon the castle due to the problems with the initial design. 

Tower heights and floors were raised, walls were strengthened, and four new bastions were added. 

Construction was completed in phases over these years, the stone provided from demolished monastic buildings in Winchelsea and the nearby Fairlight and Hastings quarries. 

-1545

The castle has a garrison of 28 men, a captain, and between 26 and 28 artillery pieces, including cannons, culverins, and other wrought-iron guns. In July 1545, a French raid was carried out at nearby Seaford, and the castle was believed to have engaged in military action as a result. 

-1573

Due to silting starting to block the entrance to the Camber body of water on which the castle sat and was designed to protect, authorities in Rye expressed fears to the English Parliament at this time that the Camber “was damaged beyond repair.” 

Initial complaints of the Camber’s silting process ruining its anchorage and thus declining the castle’s strategic value were issued to Parliament as early as 1548. 

-1584

Due to fresh threats of war between England and Spain, Queen Elizabeth I invested £171 on repairs to the castle as a defensive measure. 

-1588

War between England and Spain broke out in 1585. In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, a Jesuit priest named Father Darbysher and Roger Walton, a Spanish spy, engaged in a conspiracy to hand over the castle to an invading force of French and Spanish soldiers. 

However, the plot never came to fruition. 

-1593

Due to a new crisis with Spain, the English navy rounded up brass guns for the conflict from numerous forts along the south coast, including Camber Castle.

-1636

Though by this time almost entirely ineffective as an artillery fortification due to the Camber’s silting and lack of range from its cannons at the new anchorage along the coast, the local towns campaigned through the 17th century to keep the fort operational. 

However, in 1636 King Charles I issued an instruction to demolish the castle. The garrison and artillery assets left the fort the following year. The castle wasn’t fully demolished.

-1642

During the English Civil War (1642-1651), Camber was used as a munitions store by the citizens of Rye, who sided with Parliament. 

During the conflict, Parliament agreed to have the munitions removed and stored in Rye; the following year, due to fears of a future occupation by Royalist forces, Parliament ordered the castle’s roofs, gunports, and living accommodations dismantled. 

As a result, Camber wasn’t used as a Device Fort during the Second English Civil War in 1648. 

-1660

A royal survey by Charles II, after the Restoration, finds the castle to be ruined.  

-1785

The antiquarian Francis Grose wrote about Camber Castle’s decline, attributing its degradation and lack of military value over the course of its history due to the superiority of the British Navy’s ability to protect the coasts. 

-1804

Lieutenant Colonel John Brown surveyed the castle to examine its functionality in response to the threat of Napoleon and his armies building in France. 

Thought to turn the castle’s primary tower into a Martello tower, a popular circular gun at the time was considered but never moved forward with. 

-1805-1807

The painter J. M. W. Turner visited the castle during these years and later depicted the castle in landscape paintings and sketches of the area. 

-1931

The ruins were now privately owned and opened to visitors, and a proposal was made to turn the castle area into a golf course. The project wasn’t moved forward, and the facility was instead built at the nearby Castle Farm.  

-1940-1945

The British Army used the castle during World War II, potentially as an early warning site outfitted with anti-aircraft searchlights. 

Trenches were dug in the north bastion, and military training was conducted around the castle.  

-1951-1962

After WWII, archaeological surveys and excavations by the English Ministry of Works were completed, and the ruins were temporarily closed to the public.  

-1967

The English state took over guardianship of the castle. The process of restoring the castle’s structure was undertaken with the eventual prospect of reopening the castle to the public. 

-1977

The Department of National Heritage bought the castle. Then, in 1984, the government agency English Heritage took control of the castle and put forward plans to reopen the castle property to visitors in 1993. 

Final archaeological assessments were made, and the castle was opened in 1994. The site is currently protected under U.K. law as a Grade I listed building.