Castle in Hampshire

Highclere Castle in Hampshire is the Victorian Gothic country house familiar to millions around the world as Downton Abbey, the fictional Yorkshire estate of the television drama created by Julian Fellowes that ran from 2010 to 2015 and achieved remarkable international success. The castle's association with the programme has brought visitors from Japan, the United States, Australia and across Europe who wish to see the exterior and interiors used in the filming, and the resulting surge in visitor numbers has made Highclere one of the most visited country houses in the south of England. The castle was transformed into its present form between 1842 and 1878 by Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the Houses of Parliament, for the third Earl of Carnarvon. Barry's design in the High Victorian Gothic style replaced an earlier eighteenth-century mansion with the current elaborate confection of towers, turrets and pinnacles in a warm yellow Bath stone that creates an imposing and photogenic silhouette above its parkland setting. The interior contains a sequence of Victorian state rooms of considerable splendour, furnished with an impressive collection of paintings, tapestries and decorative objects accumulated by successive Carnarvon generations. The castle has a second remarkable claim to historical interest entirely independent of its television fame. The fifth Earl of Carnarvon was the principal financial backer of Howard Carter's Egyptian archaeological excavations that in November 1922 discovered the intact tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, the most spectacular archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. The castle holds a collection of Egyptian antiquities brought back by the fifth Earl, displayed in a dedicated Egyptian exhibition, and the story of the discovery and the deaths that followed provides the castle with a genuine historical drama to set alongside its television associations.

Hurst Castle stands at the tip of one of England's most dramatic geographical features: a long shingle spit that juts nearly two miles into the Solent from the Hampshire coast near Keyhaven. This extraordinary position, commanding the narrowest point of the western Solent between the mainland and the Isle of Wight, is the very reason the castle exists and the reason it continues to captivate visitors centuries after its construction. On a clear day the views are extraordinary in every direction — across to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight barely three-quarters of a mile away, back along the spit to the salt marshes of Keyhaven, and out to the open Solent where ferries, yachts and container ships pass in constant procession. It is a place where the relationship between military engineering and natural landscape is uniquely intimate, and where the sense of isolation despite proximity to the mainland gives the whole site an atmosphere unlike almost any other fortification in England. The castle was built on the orders of Henry VIII between 1541 and 1544 as part of his chain of Device Forts constructed to defend the English coast against the threat of French and Spanish invasion following his break with Rome. The original structure was a compact, squat artillery tower with a twelve-sided plan, built low to the ground specifically to mount heavy cannon at sea level. Unlike some of the grander Device Forts, Hurst was from the beginning a purely functional military post rather than an architectural showpiece. The original Tudor keep still survives at the heart of the complex, though the castle was significantly expanded and remodelled in the nineteenth century when two massive flanking wings were added to house larger artillery capable of defending against the new threat posed by steam-powered ironclad warships. These Victorian additions, with their long brick and granite gun galleries, give the castle much of its present bulky appearance and transform what was once a relatively modest Tudor fortlet into an imposing fortress of considerable scale. The castle's most famous historical moment came in December 1648, when King Charles I was held as a prisoner here for approximately three weeks during the final phase of the English Civil War. The king had been brought from Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight and was kept at Hurst before being transported to Windsor and ultimately to London, where he was tried and executed in January 1649. The castle's then-governor, Colonel Robert Hammond, had initially held the king at Carisbrooke, but following political developments in the Civil War, Charles was transferred to the mainland. Accounts from the time describe the castle as cold, damp and gloomy, the wind howling off the Solent, the accommodation barely adequate even for a man of ordinary station. The king reportedly found the place deeply oppressive, which lends a particular poignancy to the preserved rooms and displays inside. In person, Hurst Castle is a place of tremendous atmospheric power. The approach along the shingle spit on foot sets the tone entirely. The spit is narrow, the sea visible on both sides, and the wind — even on relatively calm days — is a constant presence, pressing against you with a salty persistence that seems entirely appropriate to a military post that has spent five centuries guarding this exposed channel. The shingle crunches underfoot and the sound of waves washing both shores creates a kind of stereo waterscape. As you approach, the castle gradually resolves from a dark mass on the horizon into a structure of real complexity: the squat central tower, the long low Victorian wings extending to either side, the lighthouse that once stood adjacent. The interior rooms preserve a remarkable atmosphere, with the Tudor keep feeling genuinely ancient — low ceilings, thick stone walls, deep window embrasures trained on the channel — while the Victorian gun galleries have their own industrial grandeur, long vaulted corridors of Purbeck limestone and Fareham brick punctuated by enormous iron gun ports. The surrounding landscape is among the most distinctive in southern England. The shingle spit itself is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, home to rare plant communities adapted to the harsh shingle environment, including sea kale, yellow horned-poppy and several species of specialist invertebrate. Behind the spit to the north lie the Keyhaven and Pennington Marshes, a nationally important wetland reserve managed by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. These marshes attract enormous numbers of wading birds and wildfowl throughout the year, and the combination of the spit, the marshes, and the Solent makes this one of the finest birdwatching areas in the south of England. The nearby village of Milford-on-Sea lies a short distance to the east, offering accommodation, cafés and pubs, while Lymington is the nearest town of any size, about four miles to the north and accessible by road. Getting to Hurst Castle requires either a walk or a short ferry ride. The most atmospheric approach is on foot along the shingle spit from Milford-on-Sea or the car park at Keyhaven — a walk of around one and a half to two miles depending on the starting point, with the sea on both sides for much of the route. This walk is beautiful in good weather but exposed and demanding in wind and rain; sensible footwear is essential as shingle walking is tiring. From spring through autumn, a small passenger ferry operates from Keyhaven harbour to the castle jetty, taking only a few minutes and providing a convenient alternative for those who prefer not to walk. The castle itself is managed by English Heritage and charges an entry fee for the interior. Opening hours are seasonal, so checking ahead is advisable, particularly outside the main summer months. There is no road access to the castle, which contributes significantly to its sense of remoteness and to the quality of the experience. One of the more unusual features of Hurst Castle's story is its continued active military use well into the twentieth century. The fortress was garrisoned during both World Wars, with anti-aircraft guns and searchlights installed during the Second World War. The Solent remained a strategically vital waterway, and Hurst's position controlling the western approach ensured it retained military relevance for far longer than most of its contemporaries. The lighthouse that stands nearby — technically two lighthouses, as both a high and low light once operated here — added a further dimension to the site's character, and the combination of castle, lighthouse and remote spit gives the place a layered quality, as though several different histories have accumulated on this narrow strip of shingle without any of them quite displacing the others. Visitors with an interest in military history, natural history, or simply unusual landscapes will find Hurst Castle one of the most rewarding and genuinely transporting places anywhere on the south coast of England.

Calshot Castle is a compact artillery fort perched at the very tip of Calshot Spit, a narrow shingle promontory that juts into the mouth of Southampton Water where it meets the Solent. Built by Henry VIII in the 1530s as part of his ambitious coastal defence programme, it stands as one of the best-preserved examples of Tudor military architecture in England. English Heritage manages the site today, and it draws visitors not only for its military history but for its commanding position — a place that genuinely feels like the edge of the world, with water on almost every side and the Isle of Wight visible across the shimmering Solent. Few places so elegantly condense centuries of English maritime history into such a small and unassuming structure. The castle was constructed between 1539 and 1540, a period when Henry VIII feared invasion from Catholic Europe following his break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries. The king responded to this threat by commissioning a chain of artillery forts along the southern coastline — Device Forts, as they were known — stretching from Cornwall to Kent. Calshot was one of the westernmost of these, positioned to protect the approaches to Southampton, then as now one of England's most important ports. The design is characteristic of the Henrician style: a squat, rounded keep or gun tower set within a low, curved bastioned platform, all built to withstand and to deliver cannon fire. The fort was constructed largely from stone salvaged from the dissolved Beaulieu Abbey, which lends the walls a certain layered historical resonance — ecclesiastical stone repurposed for secular and military ends. The castle has seen continuous use across the centuries in ways that distinguish it from many similar forts that fell quickly into obsolescence. It remained garrisoned during the Civil War in the seventeenth century and was updated and rearmed at various points to meet new threats. During the nineteenth century, as ironclad warships rendered many older fortifications redundant, Calshot was given a new lease of life as barracks and later as a coastguard station. Its most dramatic modern chapter came in the early twentieth century when the spit became a Royal Naval Air Station — RNAS Calshot — during the First World War, used for seaplane and flying boat operations. The famous Schneider Trophy air races of 1929 and 1931 were associated with this stretch of water, and the Supermarine S.6B seaplane that won the 1931 race — directly contributing to the development of the Spitfire — was tested here. That connection alone gives Calshot a quietly thrilling place in aviation history. Standing at the castle in person is a genuinely atmospheric experience. The building is low and heavy, its circular keep rising only a few storeys, its walls thick enough to absorb a cannon ball and still feel impervious today. The stone is weathered to a silvery-grey, rough-textured and salt-scoured, and up close you can see where different phases of construction and repair have left their marks. Inside, the rooms are cool and dim, with the smell of old stone and damp air, and the original Tudor vaulting and cannon embrasures survive in recognisable form. The views from the upper levels and the surrounding platform are extraordinary — a full panorama of the Solent, busy with container ships, ferries crossing to the Isle of Wight, yachts, and occasionally naval vessels. The wind off the water is almost constant and can be sharp even in summer, and the sound of the sea and the cry of seagulls are ever-present companions. The landscape immediately surrounding the castle is defined by Calshot Spit itself, a long, low finger of shingle and sand that extends southward from the Hampshire shore. The spit is largely flat and exposed, with views stretching in every direction, and it has a raw, elemental quality that feels quite different from the manicured heritage sites of the English interior. The New Forest meets the coastline nearby, and the village of Calshot itself is a small, quiet community. The Calshot Activity Centre, housed in the large hangars built during the seaplane era, occupies much of the spit and offers watersports and outdoor activities, which means the area attracts a mix of heritage visitors and active sports enthusiasts. Fawley, with its large oil refinery, is visible to the north and provides an incongruous industrial backdrop to what is otherwise a scene of great natural and historical beauty. Southampton is roughly ten miles to the north. Visiting Calshot Castle requires a short journey down the spit road from Calshot village, and the castle sits right at the southern tip beside the activity centre. There is limited parking in the area. English Heritage members enter free, and there is a modest admission charge for non-members. The site is open seasonally — generally from late spring through to early autumn — and it is worth checking the English Heritage website for current opening days and hours, as they can vary. The interior is relatively small and can be explored in an hour or so, though many visitors spend considerably longer simply absorbing the views and the atmosphere. The exposed position means weather can change quickly and wind is almost always a factor, so a warm layer is advisable even in summer. The shingle and uneven surfaces around the fortification mean that access for visitors with mobility difficulties may be limited in parts. One of the more unusual details of Calshot's story is how thoroughly it has served as a lens through which to view English history in miniature — from the anxious foreign policy of a schismatic Tudor king, through the age of sail, the industrial revolution glimpsed in Southampton's docks, and into the dawn of aviation. The seaplane connection is perhaps the least celebrated aspect to casual visitors, but it is remarkable: the same stretch of water where Tudor gunners once scanned the horizon for French warships later echoed with the sound of racing floatplanes pushing the boundaries of speed and engineering. A small exhibition inside the castle touches on these various histories, and the English Heritage interpretation is thoughtful and well-pitched. Calshot is not a grand or imposing castle in the medieval sense, but it rewards curiosity and repays the effort of getting there with a sense of place that is wholly its own.

Odiham Castle near Greywell in Hampshire is a ruined royal castle of the early thirteenth century, built by King John between 1207 and 1212 and notable as the base from which John set out for Runnymede to sign Magna Carta in 1215. The castle was later the prison of King David II of Scotland following his capture at the Battle of Neville's Cross in 1346. The unusual octagonal keep, of which the lower courses survive, is one of only a handful of examples of this plan type in England. The castle is managed by Hampshire County Council and is accessible from a pleasant walk along the Basingstoke Canal towpath through the attractive Hampshire countryside. The canal setting, with narrowboats passing the medieval ruins, creates one of the more distinctive heritage experiences in southern England.

Six miles north west of the city of Portsmouth and the harbor's northern shore, Portchester Castle sits overlooking the English Channel. The castle buildings include a 12th century tower keep, gatehouse, palace, inner and outer bailey with gates and a moat, and the church of St. Mary's. The extremely well preserved ten acre site not only house the Norman castle but the six meter high walls and towers of the previous building on the site, a Roman Fort. Facilities The castle is open from 10am until 6pm daily from April to September and between 10am and 4pm October to March. Included in the admission to the castle is an audio tour outlining what life was like at the castle though the eyes of those that worked and were imprisoned there over the centuries. The keep also houses an exhibition with archeological finds from the site as well as detailed history information. The first fortification on the site was a Roman Fort dating back to 285 AD. A small single storey Norman keep was added in 1090 along with wooden defenses on two sides with the Roman Walls becoming the outer bailey. In the 1100's a priory and other domestic buildings were added and the wooden defenses were replaced by stone walls. The keep; the only building never to have been significantly rebuilt, was also constructed across the Roman walls. The 14th century saw major rebuilding work carried out prior to it being used by Edward III to assemble his army of 15,000 soldiers before leaving for France. Portchester Castle was then transformed into a magnificent palace for Richard II and was host to Henry VII before he too set off in battle against the French in the Battle of Agincourt. On his return the castle lost much of its importance when he founded a Royal Dockyard at Portsmouth. The castle was used during the Napoleonic Wars to house French prisoners and from the mid 1600's it was owned by the Thistlethwaite family who only ever lost control over it for a short time when it was seized by the army for use as a prison. The family owned the castle until 1984 when it was handed over to English Heritage.