page_title: St Mawes Castle
section_title: Henrician castle
hierarchical_section_title: St Mawes Castle / Architecture / Henrician castle
caption_attribution_description: English: St Mawes diagram; cleaned up and labelled by Hchc2009
context_page_description: St Mawes Castle is an artillery fort constructed by Henry VIII near Falmouth, Cornwall, between 1540 and 1542. It formed part of the King's Device programme to protect against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, and defended the Carrick Roads waterway at the mouth of the River Fal. The castle was built under the direction of Thomas Treffry to a clover leaf design, with a four-storey central tower and three protruding, round bastions that formed gun platforms. It was initially armed with 19 artillery pieces, intended for use against enemy shipping, operating in partnership with its sister castle of Pendennis on the other side of the estuary. During the English Civil War, St Mawes was held by Royalist supporters of King Charles I, but surrendered to a Parliamentary army in 1646 in the final phase of the conflict.
  The castle continued in use as a fort through the 18th and 19th centuries. In the early 1850s, fears of a fresh conflict with France, combined with changes in military technology, led to the redevelopment of the fortification.
context_section_description: The central castle is built from slatestone rubble, with granite features and detailing; it has a clover leaf design with a central, four-storey circular tower, or keep, at its core, and three circular bastions emerging from it. The design allowed for multiple levels of artillery, and may have been influenced by the contemporary work of the Moravian engineer, Stefan von Haschenperg, on some of the other Device Forts constructed during this period. It had little protection to the landward side, and would have depended upon the local militia providing protection against such an attack. The castle has been little altered since its original construction, and the historian Paul Pattison considers it to be "arguably the most perfect survivor of all Henry's forts".
  The castle is extensively decorated with carvings and inscriptions in stone and wood, praising Henry VIII and his lineage, leading the historian A. L. Rowse to describe the castle as the most decorative of all of Henry's building works. These include Latin verses, such as "Henry, thy honour and praises will remain forever", written by the antiquarian John Leland, and "Let fortunate Cornwall rejoice that Edward is now her Duke", referring to Henry's eldest son and heir. Carved sea monsters and gargoyles also feature around the fortification, along with heraldic shields which would originally have been painted and visible from the river.
  The castle is entered through the gatehouse, a polygonal, stone building approximately 25 feet (7.6 m) across. The gatehouse has gunloops, murder holes and slots for a drawbridge, although it is uncertain if one was ever fitted; it would originally have formed a sort of protective barbican. The yard behind it is approximately 20 by 59 feet (6 by 18 m) and dates from before 1735, originally being used a stable. This leads to a stone bridge that crosses a 25 feet (7.5 m) wide moat, cut out of the rock, to the main castle.
  The central tower is 47 feet (14 m) across and 44 feet (13 m) high, with 8 feet (2.4 m) thick walls. The basement was originally a kitchen and storerooms, with the first floor was subdivided and used by the garrison, before being later converted for storing gunpowder. The bridge across the moat leads into the second storey, which originally had four chambers with fireplaces and windows, linked by a central corridor; this area may have been used by the castle's officers, and to house an enlarged garrison in an emergency. The third floor forms a single, large room with gun embrasures, and was probably used by the garrison as living accommodation. Above it, the parapetted gun platform on the fourth floor could support up to seven guns and incorporates a lookout turret, topped by a 17th-century cupola, designed as a daymark to guide passing ships.
  The central tower is linked to the forward bastion, 59 feet (18 m) in diameter, which in turn has steps leading to the side bastions, each 54-foot (16.4 m) across. Each of the bastions forms a gun platform, with embrasures for larger artillery pieces - five in the forward bastion, three on each of the sides - as well as swivel mounts for lighter guns, and parapets for protection. The forward bastion's roof is modern and was added after an archaeological debate in the 1960s as to whether the bastions would originally have been covered. The bastions have various 18th- and 19th-century artillery pieces on display, as well as a bronze saker dating from 1560 called the Albergheti gun, recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Devon.
caption: Plan of the second floor of the Henrician castle. Key: A - moat; B - side bastion; C - central tower; D - side bastion; E - front bastion
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