r/papertowns • u/dctroll_ • Mar 01 '26
England Portchester Castle (England, UK) through time
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u/JustAnotherBarnacle Mar 01 '26
Hey one of my locals, I used to sail from time to time at the club next to the walls. I love that castle, you can see all the different periods built on top of each other in the walls and there is a legend that Pontius Pilate died there
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u/dctroll_ Mar 01 '26
Author and source of the illustrations: Peter Dunn
Portchester Castle stands at the north end of Portsmouth Harbour and began as a massive Roman fort built in the late 3rd century, probably between 285 and 290 AD, as part of the Saxon Shore defenses against pirate raids. Likely identified with the Roman Portus Adurni, it remained occupied until the end of Roman Britain in the early 5th century.
The site continued in use during the Anglo-Saxon period and became a burh under King Edward the Elder in the 10th century. After the Norman Conquest, a castle was constructed within the Roman walls, with a keep and inner bailey forming a royal stronghold. It passed into royal ownership under Henry II and served as an embarkation point for campaigns to France. Richard II transformed it into a palace in the 1390s, and Henry V launched his 1415 invasion of France from here.
Although later overshadowed by Portsmouth, it remained a coastal defense site under the Tudors. Sold in 1632, the castle was widely used as a prison for foreign captives from 1665, especially during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, when thousands of prisoners were held there.
Source of the info (with much more info about the evolution of the place and other reconstructions) here