Hurst Castle is an artillery fort established by Henry VIII on the Hurst Spit in Hampshire, England, between 1541 and 1544. It formed part of the king's Device Forts coastal protection programme against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, and defended the western entrance to the Solent waterway. The early castle had a central keep and three bastions, and in 1547 was equipped with 26 guns. It was expensive to operate due to its size, but it formed one of the most powerful forts along the coast. During the English Civil War of the 1640s, Hurst was held by Parliament and was used briefly to detain King Charles I before his execution in 1649. It continued in use during the 18th century but fell into disrepair, the spit being frequented by smugglers.
Repairs were made during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars with France, and the castle was modernised to enable it to hold 24-pounder (10.8 kg) guns. Fresh fears of invasion followed in the 1850s, leading to heavier, 32-pounder (14.5 kg) armament being installed and new gun batteries being laid out on both sides of the castle. Technological developments rapidly made these defences obsolete, however, and a fresh phase of work between 1861 and 1874 created sixty-one gun positions in two long, granite-faced batteries alongside the older castle. These held very heavy weapons, including massive 12.5 inch, 38 ton (317 mm, 39,000 kg) rifled muzzle-loading guns. As the century progressed these too became outdated, and lighter, quick-firing guns were installed at the castle to replace them.
The castle formed part of a network of defences around the entrance to the Solent during the First World War, and was re-armed again during the Second World War. The military decommissioned the fort in 1956 and it passed into the control of the Ministry of Works. In the 21st century, it is run jointly by English Heritage and the Friends of Hurst Castle as a tourist attraction, receiving around 40,000 visitors during 2015. Coastal erosion has become a growing problem despite government intervention in protecting the spit. Four lighthouses have been built at Hurst from the 18th century onwards, one of which, a high lighthouse first opened in 1867, remains in active service.
In January 2021, local media reported that the castle was in urgent need of repairs due to coastal erosion, and the wall of the eastern wing partially collapsed on 26 February 2021 as the sea cut into and compromised its foundations. The World Monuments Fund included the castle on their 2022 World Monuments Watch list of most endangered sites.
In September 2022, it was one of six English castles included in a fundraising campaign by English Heritage to mitigate risks of destruction due to worsening coastal erosion. They hope to gather enough funds to repair and strengthen the sea walls around the castle.
History
16th century
Hurst Castle was built as a consequence of international tensions between England, France and the Holy Roman Empire in the final years of the reign of King Henry VIII. Traditionally the Crown had left coastal defences to local lords and communities, only taking a modest role in building and maintaining fortifications, and while France and the Empire remained in conflict, maritime raids were common but an actual invasion of England seemed unlikely.; Modest defences based around simple blockhouses and towers existed in the south-west and along the Sussex coast, with a few more impressive works in the north of England, but in general the fortifications were limited in scale. Worsley's Tower, for example, built opposite the future site of Hurst Castle in the 1520s, was too small to hold powerful artillery and considered by surveyors in 1539 to be "one of the worst devised things" they had seen.;
In 1533, Henry broke with Pope Clement VII over the annulment of his long-standing marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Catherine was the aunt of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, who took the annulment as a personal insult.; This resulted in France and the Empire declaring an alliance against Henry in 1538, and the Pope encouraging the two countries to attack England.; An invasion of England appeared certain.; In response, Henry issued an order, called a "device", in 1539, giving instructions for the "defence of the realm in time of invasion" and the construction of forts along the English coastline.;
Hurst Castle was designed to protect the western entrance to the Solent, a body of water that led from the English Channel to the naval base at Portsmouth and, through Southampton Water, to the important port of Southampton.; The castle was one of four fortifications that William Fitzwilliam, the Lord High Admiral, and William Paulet recommended building to strengthen the defences along the Solent; the others were at East and West Cowes, and Calshot. It was positioned on the Hurst Spit, a strip of shingle sheltering saltmarsh and mud flats, only across the water from the Isle of Wight.; Temporary earthwork fortifications were erected on the site and, after the other three castles had been completed, work then began on Hurst in 1541 under the direction of John Mille, the financial controller, and probably Thomas Bertie, a master mason.; Bertie was appointed as the castle's captain in 1542 and the work was completed by January 1544, at a cost of over £3,200.
The result was a stone artillery fort with a central keep and three bastions, surrounded by a moat, capable of holding up to 71 guns. In 1547, however, Hurst was equipped with 26 artillery pieces–four made of brass and the remainder iron–comprising a two sakers, a culverin, a demi-cannon, a curtall cannon, two demi-culverins, six portpieces, four slings, two quarter-slings, and seven bases, three of them inoperable.; A 1559 survey commented that Hurst Castle was essential for sending reinforcements from the mainland to the island, and noted that it was equipped with eleven brass and iron guns, with nine further broken guns, along with handguns, bows and arrows, pikes and bills. The survey observed that the castle was vulnerable to attack because it lacked flanking protection and had rounded walls, and that it was expensive to garrison because of its size, requiring a captain, his deputy, twelve gunners, nine soldiers and a porter. The historian John Kenyon notes, however, that its considerable armament made it one of the most powerful forts in the south, even if it was equipped with lighter guns than would have been ideal for its "ship-killing" role.
Meanwhile, the invasion threat from France had passed and a lasting peace was made in 1558; government concerns shifted away from the south coast towards the Spanish threat to the south-west of England. By 1569, when Thomas Carew was serving as Hurst's captain, there were less than ten guns but the same size of garrison to that seven years before.; His son, Sir Thomas Gorges, became captain in turn, and in 1593 he reported that the castle's gun platforms were in serious need of repair.
17th century
In the early 1600s, England was at peace with France and Spain, and the country's coastal defences received little attention.; The Gorges family continued as captains at Hurst, with Sir Edward Gorges taking up the post in 1610, but the castle was neglected.; Gorges was given £79 in 1611 to pay workmen to repair breaches in the spit between the mainland and castle.Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer: Pell Records (London, 1836), p. 141.
In 1628, the castle was unable to prevent Flemish ships from passing along the Solent, as only four or five of the castle's twenty-seven guns were functional, and the fort had no ammunition or powder for them. The government replaced all the brass ordnance in the castle, which were preferred, particularly on ships, as they could fire faster and more safely, with iron guns in 1635.;
At the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642 between the supporters of Charles I and Parliament, the castle was occupied by Captain Richard Swanley, a supporter of Parliament. In December 1648 it was briefly used to detain the King before his trial and execution. During the interregnum, it remained in use under the command of Colonel Thomas Eyre and was reinforced in 1650 to deal with the threat of a Royalist invasion.
After Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, Eyre was dismissed and replaced by Edward Strange. The future of the castle was uncertain; Charles gave orders to demobilise the garrison and briefly considered having the fortress demolished altogether. Instead of maintaining a regular garrison, in 1666 it was decided to staff the castle using soldiers deployed from the Isle of Wight instead, from a unit belonging to Sir Robert Holmes, the island's governor. Hurst had meanwhile fallen into disrepair, delaying the plans to deploy Holmes' men until 1671. Repairs were carried out and, by 1675, a conventional garrison and almost thirty guns were stationed at Hurst.;
18th century
Hurst Castle continued to be used as a military base in the 18th century, but was also used to hold a Franciscan confessor, Father Paul Atkinson. Amid concerns over the moral condition of England and a perceived threat to the established Church, an act for "further preventing the growth of popery" was passed in 1700; Hurst was chosen by the Privy Council to house any priests convicted under this law.; Atkinson was probably the only person detained in this way, and he was held for 29 years from 1700 onwards, before finally dying at the castle.;
There had been reported problems with smuggling around Hurst Castle since the 1670s, and these continued into the 18th century.; In 1729, the Revenue service hired the Hurst, a wide, heavy yacht, to assist in anti-smuggling operations out of Southampton, arming its crew with muskets, pistols and swords. The problems persisted and, later in the century, the site was used as a rendezvous for smugglers led by a notorious criminal called John Streeter.
The castle fell into neglect, and reports from the 1770s through into the early 1790s noted extensive problems, complaining that the fort's guns could no longer be mounted on the dilapidated bastions and that water was seeping through the decaying walls. By 1793, the castle was considered to be "in the worst condition" of all the forts along the coast, and all its guns were unusable.; Repairs were authorised, but little was actually done. The spit around the castle began to be used by civilians, including fishermen and gardeners; a lighthouse, called the Hurst Tower, was built there in 1786, and the Shipwright's Arms inn was established alongside the castle.;
The Revolutionary War with France broke out in 1793, leading to the extensive modernisation of the castle.; Repairs were carried out in 1794 at a cost of £647, followed by a review of the defences the next year by the Master-General of the Ordnance. The 16th-century castle was still strongly fortified by the standards of the time, but it could not support the heavier guns or batteries of artillery required to tackle enemy warships.; Instead, two new gun batteries, each armed with five 36-pounder (16.3 kg) guns, were built alongside the castle in 1795, with a further eighteen 9-pounder (4 kg) guns mounted in the old fort; the guns concerned had all been captured from the French.;
19th century
1800–58