Castle in Isle of Wight

Carisbrooke Castle is located in the village of Carisbrooke, near Newport on the Isle of Wight. The castle enclosure has a number of buildings, some of them in ruins. The rooms used as the official residence of Princess Beatrice when she was the Governor of the Isle of Wight are in good repair. You can climb the steps to the top of the keep. The Great Hall, Great Chamber, and several smaller rooms are open to the public. Most rooms are partly furnished and feature original fireplaces. There is a chapel next to the main gate. In 1904 the chapel of St Nicholas in the castle was reopened and re-consecrated, having been rebuilt as a national memorial of Charles I. There is a 200 foot deep well within the walls, and another well in the centre of the keep that is said to have been even deeper. One of the attractions is the 16th century well-house with a working donkey wheel that is still operated by donkeys. The Constable's Chamber was the bedroom of Charles I when he was imprisoned in the castle, and it was used by Princess Beatrice as a dining room. It is now the education center. The castle is surrounded by earthworks completed in the 1590s, and the outer gate is dated 1598. There is a holiday apartment inside of the castle, in converted staff quarters. The site was an Anglo-Saxon stronghold as early as the 8th century. A wall was built around the structure around 1000 to defend it against Viking raids. After the Norman invasion, William Fitz Osbern built a motte-and-bailey castle within the existing defences. In 1100 Carisbrooke was granted to Richard de Redvers. The keep was added to the castle in the 13th century. The castle was sold by the Richard de Redvers family to Edward I in 1293. The castle held out against an unsuccessful attack by the French in 1377. The castle defences were further reinforced in the 16th century by the addition of a pentagonal fortification. Charles I was imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle for fourteen months before his execution in 1649. Princess Beatrice, daughter of Queen Victoria, lived in the castle between 1896-1944 as the governor of the Isle of Wight. It is now under control of English Heritage. The Arts The well in Carisbrooke Castle is the hiding place of the Mohune diamond, in the 1898 adventure novel Moonfleet, by J. Meade Falkner.

Yarmouth Castle on the Isle of Wight is the last castle built by Henry VIII as part of his coastal defence programme of the 1540s and represents an interesting evolutionary step in English defensive architecture, being the first English castle to be built with a square rather than round plan as a direct response to the increasing dominance of artillery in siege warfare. The castle was completed in 1547 and its squat, low-profile design reflected the understanding that tall medieval towers were vulnerable to cannon fire and that a lower, more compact fortification could resist bombardment more effectively. The castle occupies a small site on the western edge of the harbour at Yarmouth, a picturesque small town on the northwestern tip of the Isle of Wight that is the terminus of the Lymington to Yarmouth ferry crossing. The castle's position beside the harbour entrance was intended to command the approaches to the Solent and the Channel beyond, and in combination with Hurst Castle on the Hampshire mainland opposite it formed a pair of defensive works guarding the western approaches to the Solent in the same way that Southsea Castle and Calshot Castle guarded the eastern channels. The castle is managed by English Heritage and the interior provides a good picture of how a small Tudor coastal fort was organised and used. The gun platform and the remains of the domestic accommodation within the small ward give a sense of the garrison life at a minor royal fortification. The views from the castle over the Solent, the Lymington river estuary and the Hampshire coast are excellent. The town of Yarmouth itself is one of the most charming on the Isle of Wight, its small square, the remains of the medieval pier and the George Hotel providing an attractive backdrop to the castle visit, and the ferry crossing from Lymington provides one of the most pleasant ways of reaching the island.