St Catherines Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Fowey.
In the historic county of Cornwall.
Modern Authority of Cornwall.
1974 county of Cornwall.
Medieval County of Cornwall.

OS Map Grid Reference: SX11875093
Latitude 50.32824° Longitude -4.64468°

St Catherines Castle has been described as a certain Artillery Fort.

There are major building remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

St Catherine's Castle was built by Henry VIII between 1538 and 1540 as part of his network of coastal defences constructed due to heightened threats of attack from France and Spain in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation. It is situated on the tip of a rocky headland, St Catherine's Point, at the entrance to the River Fowey estuary on the south coast of Cornwall. The two-storey blockhouse has a D-shaped plan and was built on a prepared platform levelled into the rock with slate rubble stone walls up to 1.35 metres thick. On the ground floor are three almost semi-circular gun ports, a fireplace in the south west wall and a small guard chamber within the entrance. The first floor has five narrow windows with semicircular heads and a winder stair, which originally ascended to a former parapet walk. In 1786 the blockhouse held six canons but in 1815, following the Napoleonic Wars, it had been abandoned. The curtilage of the blockhouse, as defined by its curtain wall, was refurbished in 1855 to form a gun battery during the Crimean War. A levelled platform, just below the blockhouse, accommodated a Crimean War battery. In 1887, this was armed with two 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns manned by Artillery Volunteers and retained as a practice battery. By the end of the 19th century it was obsolete and subsequently abandoned. It was again modified and re-armed in 1940 as an emplacement in a more extensive Second World War gun battery occupying St Catherine's Point. This included a 4.7-inch naval gun, a large concrete protective shelter, an ammunition store and concrete pillbox. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1013664, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 15408
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1218875
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 432263.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 26744.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- English Heritage
  CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk
  Historic Cornwall
  Charles Taylor's ecastles
Books
- Harrington, Peter, 2007, The Castles of Henry VIII (Oxford: Osprey) p. 10 (mention)
  Campbell, Adele (ed), 2004, Heritage Unlocked; Guide to free sites in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (London: English Heritage) p. 42-5
  Duffy, Michael, 1999, 'Coastal Defences and Garrisons 1480-1914' in Kain, R. and Ravenhill, W., Historical Atlas of South-West England (University of Exeter Press) p. 158-60
  Salter, Mike, 1999, The Castles of Devon and Cornwall (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 20
  Saunders, Andrew, 1997, Channel Defences (London; Batsford/English Heritage) p. 117
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 18
  Spreadbury, I. D., 1984, Castles in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (Redruth)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 73
  Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p. 289
  Price, M. and H., 1980, Castles of Cornwall (Bossiney Books) p. 12-6
  Morley, B., 1976, Henry VIII and the Development of Coastal Defence (London; HMSO)
  O'Neil, B.H.St.J., 1960, Castles and Cannon: A Study of Early Artillery Fortifications in England (Oxford: Claredon Press) p. 45
  Braun, Hugh, 1936, The English Castle (Batsford)
  Oman, Charles W.C., 1926, Castles (1978 edn Beetham House: New York) p. 112-3 (King writes most misleading)
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1896, Castles of England; their story and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 2 p. 3 online copy
  Lysons, D. and S., 1814, Magna Britannia Vol. 3 Cornwall online transcription
  Buck, Samuel and Nathaniel, 1774, Buck's Antiquities (London) Vol. 1 p. 23
  Grose, Francis, 1787, Antiquities of England and Wales (London) Vol. 8 p. 15-6 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Kenyon, J.R., 1981 'Early Artillery Fortifications in England and Wales: a Preliminary Survey and Re-appraisal' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 138 p. 219
  Kenyon, J.R., 1977, 'Early Gunports' Fort Vol. 4 p. 83
  Saunders, A.D., 1973, 'The coastal defences of Cornwall' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 130 p. 233
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 76, 77, 86
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 203, 204, 323 online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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