Like most castles in the South of England, all of the changes at Portchester Castle took place because people were worried about being attacked from abroad. Discuss.

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Ellie Wilmshurst 10NC        miss Lang

Porchester Castle

Porchester Castle Coursework

In this piece of course work I am going to justify the hypothesis: “Like most castles in the South of England, all of the changes at Portchester Castle took place because people were worried about being attacked from abroad.”. I will prove whether this hypothesis is right or wrong by using detailed facts and evidence from sources; I will also use pictures and maps of the castle from each time period so that I can create a visual comparison.

        Portchester Castle (known in Latin as Portus Adurni - 'port at the hill') is a Roman fort at the northern end of Portsmouth harbour. It was originally a square enclosure with each corner having a bastion. On each of the four sides between the corner bastions, there are another four evenly-spaced bastions. In the centre of the west wall, there is a main gate, and on the east side again in the centre is a smaller water gate. Both gates are exactly opposite each other. As for the internal layout, it was probably similar to Bird Oswald fort on Hadrian's wall.

Today it is an almost complete Roman fort. Almost all of the walls are intact apart from the loss of six of its original 'D'-shaped bastions. The keep in the north-west corner has taken some of the wall and one corner bastion from the northern side. Also missing are two bastions from the western side, and two bastions from the eastern seaward side, and lastly the bastion on the south-west corner is missing. It has, however, been stripped of some of the more useful limestone.

 

(Birds eye view of Porchester castle)

It was not long ago that I took an educational trip to see look at Porchester, I was given a tour of the castle and I was very intrigued to see a lot of the castle still in tact. When I say this I do not just mean the walls, but there were amazing sights aside this factor, specifically on the interior such as there was a wall that had been beautifully painted and decorated and it is still clearly visible today. Another example is the staircases, the were very worn down because of how many people had ofcourse used them but they were still strong enough to hold many people.

The Romans 270-300 AD

        The Romans Invaded Britain in 43AD. They came to Britain to take advantage of all the materials they could use for farming and trading. The Romans brought a new style of leadership to Britain. They built an effective road structure, towns, and homes and made Britain into one of the wealthiest and most valuable provinces in the Roman Empire. A Roman named Carausius was in charge of the construction of Portchester Fort. The Romans had been present in Britain since 43AD and they stayed for nearly 400 years. They eventually left Britain, then part of their Empire, when their homeland of Rome was, itself, being attacked.When Porchester was first built, it was known as a fort and was not as we see it today. They had created a huge perimeter wall with a ditch surrounding for defence. On the big surrounding wall, there were huge towers. The castle also had gate houses. During this time period, the Romans used Porchester Castle for storage.

Porchester Castle was built by the Romans to protect Roman Britain from the Saxon Invaders. This was an example of a Saxon Shore Fort. These were a series of stone-built forts along the southeast coast of England. The forts were created in response to repeated raids by Saxon enemies.

At the same time people were progressing on Porchester, Pevensy fort was going thought the Same processors for the same reasons.

 (this source claims to be a vision of what was Porchester Fort.)

I believe that reason the Romans built the Fort agrees with the hypothesis. I feel this way because The Romans were the first to build the castle and when Porchester was built, the Romans had intentions of using it as protection from the Saxons. Porchester was also part of the Saxon Shore Forts; telling us that it was built as a small part of a big group to protect the shores of Britain, to protect the country from being attacked from foreign ships.

Saxons 600-1000 AD

Between 410AD and 900AD, the site was probably occupied by settlers. people have uncovered evidence of this along with a small Saxon cemetery. No evidence or remains of their buildings have been found because they would have been constructed from wood.

Around 904AD, Portchester became a defended burgh. A burgh is a walled and fortified town. Very few other changes were made at Portchester at this time, the main ones were the construction of a stone tower and the rebuilding of the Watergate.

These changes were all made by Edward the Elder of Wessex. He had acquired Portchester by exchanging it for Bishops Waltham. The Saxons took control of Britain between 410AD (the time the Romans left) and 1066AD (the Battle of Hastings). At first Portchester was not manned and only provided a safe place for settlers, but then, around 600-700AD, several post built houses were constructed. During the 10th century England was under threat from Danish invaders so other alterations were needed.

The alterations occurred mainly because Edward the Elder wished to defend Wessex from these Danish invasions. Other castles were also used for this purpose.

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 This source is what people believe Porchester Castle looked like when the Saxons took over.

 

I feel that the Saxons were partly to do with the hypothesis because during this period, Porchester castle was used to defend Britain from Danish invasions. However, to begin with the Saxons used Portchester Castle as a burgh, this tells us that people lived there and although the king may of lived there for safety precautions, during the Saxon period Portchester Castle was a home to some people.

Therefore I ...

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