Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2014/January 2015 | Page 33
Picture by Franzfoto
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Yarmouth Castle
Guest writer Mark Fox continues with his new series looking
at different places of historical interest on the Island
This issue he travels to Yarmouth
Y
armouth Castle dominates the
entrance to Yarmouth harbour.
It oversees a thriving mix of
recreational boating and ferry visitors, but
it is an enduring reminder of the long and
important history of the town, the
western end of the island, and the
stretch of the Solent it looks over.
It sits alongside the building that
served as the residence of the
Governor of the island. The castle was
not just for defensive and military
purposes, but also a clear sign of
the power and authority of the King,
his representatives and the political
authorities of the time.
Today the castle is an excellent family
day out and picnic spot. It has displays
of its own, the town’s and the local
sea’s history. It retains an extraordinary
atmosphere of authenticity. Standing on
the battlements it is possible to survey the
surrounding scene and sense what the
look-outs and previous generations would
have scanned the sea for.
It was built by King Henry VIII as part
of a chain of coastal defences and was
regularly manned into the mid-19th
century. Of the defences to be built the
castle was the last to be completed in
1547. As a consequence it was the most
modern and was the first to include
what was then the new-style ‘arrowhead’
artillery bastion built in England.
The castle represented a significant
investment in the town and the wider
area by the King. The fortifications were
the clearest signal of just how vulnerable
England felt to invasion and attack.
Yarmouth and its river were an obvious
point for invasion. It was then, as it still is
today, a key communications and supply
point for that side of the island, and of
course relatively close too to the key
parts of the south coast, so potentially
vulnerable to invasion. For all these
reasons Yarmouth was and remained a
strategically vital area.
As with all such fortifications it
has gone through many phases of
evolution and development. Once it
had a moat, now filled in. It has served
as a barracks, a gubernatorial home, a
strategic defence command post and
now a significant tourist attraction.
The castle’s enduring strategic
importance is demonstrated by the
fact that in both the Great War and
World War II the castle was fully
operational. It is poignant in this Great War
centennial anniversary year to think of
the people moving into the castle, living,
training and preparing to fight if required
to do so. The sense of their presence, of
their service, and of the many soldiers that
preceded them, lives on in every brick and
emplacement in the castle.
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