Portsmouth Round Tower (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Portsmouth.
In the historic county of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Modern Authority of Portsmouth; City of.
1974 county of Hampshire.
Medieval County of Hampshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SZ62919937
Latitude 50.79054° Longitude -1.10888°

Portsmouth Round Tower has been described as a certain Artillery Fort, and also as a certain Chain Tower.

There are major building remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Between 1416 and 1422, £1069.9s.8 1/2 was spent on building a tower 'for the safe keeping of the King's ships', and constructing a wharf at 'Childrode' (Gosport) as a foundation for a second tower. The intention was to use a raisable chain to close the mouth of the harbour against enemy shipping. The Round Tower had to be protected from the sea by rocks secured by wooden piling. During Elizabeth's reign, every vessel plying between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight was required to bring one boat-load of stones per annum and 'boye them within the pyles of the Round Tower' or pay a 2s fine (HKW).
Between 1492 and 1494, £2099.16s.4d was spent on refurbishing the towers and adding a beaked projection to the South of the Round Tower, 'the murder-house', to provide raking gunfire along the Tower's Southern approach (HKW) (PastScape)

The Square Tower, King's Stairs, Sally Port, Eighteen Gun Battery, Round Tower, Flanking battery, Walls. The Square Tower stands at the south-west end of the High Street, part of the sea defences first constructed 1494, but repaired and reconstructed since. Once residence of the Governor of Portsmouth, then a powder magazine. Plain massive square ashlar tower. Ashlar wall to north-west connects tower to King's Stairs, and the Sally Port. From the Sally Port the Eighteen Gun Battery extends northwards to the Round Tower with a return section at right angles known as the Flanking Battery. The Round Tower is probably the earliest of the stone built defences, circa 1415. It is cylindrical with string courses dividing the three storeys. The ground floor circa 1538-40 gun ports of this period mostly blocked. Upper storeys probably part of Sir Bernard de Gomme's reconstruction, but largely rebuilt in early C.19, when the interior was recast with massive brickwork vaulting, casements behind the gun ports. Top reconstruction circa 1847-50 and adapted as gun platform. Eighteen Gun battery and Flanking battery are part of the last phase of De Gomme's scheme, reconstructed 1847-50, when casements deepened and upper tier added to the flanking battery. The seaward walls were all refaced in ashlar at this time. (Hampshire Treasures)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1001870, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number po261
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1386901
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 859258.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 6508.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Portsmouth Museums and Records
  Wikipedia entry and Wikipedia entry
  CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk
  Fortified Places
  Portsmouth-guide
  Charles Taylor's ecastles
Books
- Osborne, Mike, 2011, Defending Hampshire: The Military Landscape from Prehistory to the Present (Stroud: The History Press) p. 47, 244, 245
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of Wessex (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 50
  Saunders, Andrew, 1997, Channel Defences (London; Batsford/English Heritage) p. 42, 43, 57, 119
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 88-9
  Barron, W.G., 1985, The Castles of Hampshire and Isle of Wight (Paul Cave) p. 41
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 192
  Lloyd, D.W., 1974, Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs (Portsmouth)
  Pevsner, N. and Lloyd D., 1967, Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (Harmondsworth) p. 422
  Corney, A., 1965, Fortifications in Old Portsmouth (Portsmouth) p. 30-32
  Colvin, H.M., Brown, R.Allen and Taylor, A.J., 1963, The history of the King's Works Vol. 1: the Middle Ages p. 495-7
  Colvin, H.M., Brown, R.Allen and Taylor, A.J., 1963, The history of the King's Works Vol. 2: the Middle Ages (London: HMSO) p. 792-3
  Lilley, 1923, Early Portsmouth Defences (Portsmouth) p. 2, 8-9, 28-9
  Page, Wm (ed), 1908, VCH Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Vol. 3 p. 187 (history only) online transcription
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. 214
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Gairdner, J. and Brodie, R.H. (eds), 1896, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII Vol. 15 p. 131 no. 323 online copy
  c. 1548, The Encampment of the English forces near Portsmouth, Together with a view of the English and French fleets at commencement of the action between them on the XIXth July MDXLV (Cowdray picture) For a discussion of this picture see Dominic Fontana, The Cowdray engravings and the loss of the Mary Rose
  B.M. Harleian MS. 1326 (Survey of 1623) British Library collection information
  SP12/186/27 (Survey of 1586) The National Archives reference
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. 208, 209
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 282-3 online copy
  Celia Fiennes, 1888, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary (London: Field and Tuer, The Leadenhall Press) Vision of Britain online transcription
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dave Hopkins, 2004, Extensive Urban Survey - Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (English Heritage) Download copy

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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.

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*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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