Reasons for Designation
Saxon Shore forts were heavily defended later Roman military installations
located exclusively in south east England. They were all constructed during
the third century AD, probably between c.AD 225 and AD 285. They were built to
provide protection against the sea-borne Saxon raiders who began to threaten
the coast towards the end of the second century AD, and all Saxon Shore forts
are situated on or very close to river estuaries or on the coast, between
the Wash and the Isle of Wight. Saxon Shore forts are also found on the
coasts of France and Belgium.
The most distinctive feature of Saxon Shore forts are their defences which
comprised massive stone walls, normally backed by an inner earth mound, and
wholly or partially surrounded by one or two ditches. Wall walks and parapets
originally crowned all walls, and the straight walls of all sites were
punctuated by corner and interval towers and/or projecting bastions. Unlike
other Roman military sites there is a lack of standardisation among Saxon
Shore forts in respect of size and design of component features, and they vary
in shape from square to polygonal or oval.
Recognition of this class of monument was partially due to the survival of a
fourth century AD Roman manuscript, the Notitia Dignitatum, which is a
handbook of the civil and military organisation of the Roman Empire. This
lists nine forts which were commanded by an officer who bore the title
'Officer of the Saxon Shore of Britain' (COMES LITORIS SAXONICI PER
BRITANNIAM).
Saxon Shore forts are rare nationally with a limited distribution. As one of a
small group of Roman military monuments which are important in representing
army strategy and government policy, Saxon Shore forts are of particular
significance to our understanding of the period and all examples are
considered to be of national importance.
The monument at Pevensey is open to the public and is well known as an
educational resource. The development of its component structures provides
evidence for some of the most significant episodes in English history over a
period of around 2300 years. Anderita was the last Saxon Shore fort to be
built in England and forms one of the best surviving examples, with
substantial standing remains. Partial excavation has demonstrated that
contemporary archaeological remains and environmental evidence will also
survive in buried form within the fort. The reuse and repair of the earlier,
Roman fort during the medieval and Tudor periods and during World War II
illustrates the continuing strategic importance of the site; it is likely that
the Norman defences were amongst the first to be constructed in England. The
later, medieval enclosure castle, one of 126 recorded nationally, also
survives well in standing and buried form and illustrates, in its utilisation
of the walls of the earlier Roman fort and the gradual construction of its
component parts, the importance of improvisation in medieval architecture. The
eventful history of the monument during the medieval period is well documented
by contemporary sources, as is its reuse as a defensive site on a smaller
scale during the 16th century, and the gun emplacement dating to this period
survives well. The concealed World War II pillboxes and machine gun posts also
survive well, although the entrances to some have been blocked. These are of a
particularly unusual, inventive form, carefully tailored to suit their
historic setting.
Details
The monument includes Anderita Saxon Shore fort, traces of later, Norman
defences, an enclosure castle, a 16th century gun emplacement and World War II
defences situated on a low spur of sand and clay which now lies around 2km
north west of the present East Sussex coastline at Pevensey. During the Roman
and medieval periods the spur formed a peninsula projecting into a tidal
lagoon and marshland, but coastal deposition and land reclamation have
gradually built up the ground around it so that it is now completely
land-locked.
The roughly oval, north east-south west aligned Roman fort is the earliest of
the structures which make up the monument and has been dated to the first half
of the fourth century AD. Covering almost 4ha, the fort survives in the form
of substantial ruins and buried remains. It is enclosed by a massive defensive
wall with a flint and sandstone rubble core faced by coursed greensand and
ironstone blocks, interspersed with red tile bonding courses. The whole is up
to 3.7m thick and survives to a height of up to 8.1m. The wall was originally
topped by a wall walk and parapet. Part excavation in 1906-8 showed that
the wall was constructed on footings of rammed chalk and flints underpinned by
oak piles and held together by a framework of wooden beams. Investigation of
the internal face indicated that this was stepped upwards from a wide base so
as to provide extra strength and support. Despite these precautions, a
landslip on the south eastern side of the fort has resulted in the destruction
of a c.180m length of the perimeter walls and, although fragments of the
fallen masonry do survive, most have been removed over the years. Smaller
sections of wall have also collapsed along the north western and eastern
stretches.
The defensive strength provided by the perimeter wall was enhanced by
irregularly-spaced, externally projecting semicircular bastions with
diameters of around 5m. There were originally at least 15 of these, of which
10 survive today.
The fort was entered from its south western, landward approach by way of the
main gateway. In front of this a protective ditch 5.5m wide was dug, and,
although this became infilled over the years, a 40m stretch located towards
its south eastern end has been recut and exposed. The ditch would have been
spanned originally by a wooden bridge, although this no longer survives. The
main gateway takes the form of a rectangular gatehouse set back between two
solid semicircular bastions 8m apart. The 2.7m wide, originally arched
entrance is flanked by two oblong guardrooms and the whole gateway structure
projects beyond the inner face of the perimeter wall into the fort and is
thought to have been originally two or even three storeys high. On the eastern
side of the fort is a more simply designed subsidiary gateway, originally a 3m
wide archway entrance, giving access to part of the adjacent Roman harbour,
now overlain by Pevensey village. The extant archway is a modern
reconstruction of the Norman rebuilding of the original entrance. Traces of a
wooden causeway which led from it into the fort have been found during partial
excavation. Midway along the north western stretch of perimeter wall is a now
ruined postern c.2m wide, approached by a curved passage set within the wall.
Part excavation between 1906-1908 indicated that the internal buildings
which housed the garrison of up to 1,000 men, along with their livestock and
supplies, were constructed of timber infilled with wattle and daub. A c.1m sq
timber-lined Roman well was found in the south western sector of the fort, at
the bottom of which were the remains of the wooden bucket with rope still
attached. The well was found to have been filled with rubbish in Roman times
and the presence of the bones of cattle, sheep, red deer, wild boar, wild
birds, domestic dogs and cats, along with sea shells, gives some indication of
the diet and lifestyle of the fort's original inhabitants.
Anderita is thought to have been abandoned by its garrison by the latter half
of the 4th century AD, and although little is known of its subsequent history
until the 11th century, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records a massacre of
Britons by the invading Saxons at the fort in AD 491.
The Bayeux Tapestry states that William the Conquerer landed at Pevensey in
1066, and the Norman army are believed to have made use of the Roman fort as
one of their first armed camps. The defences at Pevensey and the surrounding
land were granted to King William's half-brother Robert, Count of Mortain. The
medieval defences then went through at least 300 years of development,
culminating in the construction of a stone built enclosure castle within the
largely intact walls of the earlier Roman fort. It is thought that the first
Norman defences took the form of a wooden palisade surrounded by a bank and
ditch, and a c.40m length of partially infilled ditch up to 9m wide which
survives across the north eastern sector of the earlier fort may indicate
their original extent. Limited excavations in 1993-94 showed that the ground
surface in the south eastern sector of the fort, in the vicinity of the later
stone-built keep, was artificially raised some time before 1200, suggesting
that a motte may also have been constructed. The original Roman gateways were
rebuilt and a new ditch dug in front of the south western gate. Most of the
Norman defences and interior wooden buildings will now survive in buried form
beneath the later medieval castle, although herringbone-pattern repairs to the
Roman masonry, by then serving as the outer bailey of the medieval defences,
also date from this time.
Around 1100 the defences were strengthened and the accommodation improved by
the addition of a masonry keep in the south eastern sector of the earlier
fort. The subject of a complex history of alteration, collapse and repair, the
keep utilises part of the earlier, Roman perimeter wall and bastions. It takes
the form of a rectangular block measuring c.16.8m by c.9m internally,
reinforced by apsidal projections on all sides. Now surviving in ruined form
up to first floor level, the keep originally took the form of a tall tower
with an entrance on the first floor. A rectangular building measuring 7.6m by
6m was later constructed in the south eastern angle between the keep and the
Roman wall.
At around 1200 work began on the construction of a smaller, stone-built inner
bailey in the south eastern sector of the earlier fort. An L-shaped ditch
around 20m wide was dug to define the new enclosure, and this retains water in
its northern arm. The material excavated from the ditch and from the
destruction of the earlier bank was spread over much of the outer bailey to a
depth of up to 1.5m. The ditch was recut during extensive renovations carried
out during the early 20th century. The first structure to be built in this
phase was the gatehouse to the south west which has an arched entrance between
twin, semicircular external towers, now ruined. The basement chambers beneath
each tower have ashlar-faced walls and barrel-vaulted ceilings, the southern
chamber being entered by way of a newel staircase, the northern by a trapdoor.
Both were used to house prisoners. Many subsequent alterations included the
replacement, during the 15th century, of the wooden bridge over the outer
ditch by a stone causeway.
The originally embattled curtain wall enclosing the inner bailey was built
within the ditch and inner berm around 1250. This survives almost to its full
original height and is faced with coursed Greensand ashlar. Three
semicircular external towers provided flanking cover from the narrow
embrasures which pierce their walls. Each has a narrow staircase to a
basement, a branch staircase off it into the ditch and a room and garderobe,
or latrine, at ground floor level. Upper rooms were entered by way of the wall
walk and were heated by fireplaces. The basement of the northernmost tower has
two rib-vaulted bays, the keeled ribs resting on stiff-leaf corbels.
The interior castle buildings continued to be built mainly of wood and these
will survive in buried form, although the stone foundations of a chapel were
exposed during partial excavation of the northern sector of the inner bailey.
Around 20m south east of the chapel is a large stone-lined well at least 15.5m
deep, and near this is a pile of medieval stone missile-balls, a selection of
those recovered from the ditch. These were thrown from trebuchets during the
four sieges of the castle.
William, Count of Mortain forfeited Pevensey after an unsuccessful rebellion
against Henry I in 1101 and the castle, which remained in the royal gift until
the later Middle Ages, passed into the hands of the de Aquila family. The most
famous siege took place in 1264-65 when the supporters of Henry III, fleeing
from their defeat by the Barons at Lewes, took refuge in the castle. In 1372
the castle was given to John of Gaunt, and during his period of office was
used to imprison James I, King of Scotland, who had been seized in 1406, and
Joan, Queen of Navarre, accused of witchcraft by her stepson, Henry V.
By 1300, the sea had gradually begun to recede from around the castle and its
military importance declined as a result. Contemporary records show that the
castle walls were constantly in need of expensive repair and by the end of the
14th century were not being properly maintained, although the roof leads were
kept intact until the middle of the 15th century. By 1500 the castle had
ceased to be inhabited and fell rapidly into decay. The threat of the Spanish
Armada led to some renewed interest in the defensive value of the site, and a
survey of 1587 records that the castle housed two demi-culverins, or heavy
guns. These were sited on the contemporary, south east orientated, M-shaped
earthen gun emplacement situated in the outer bailey around 90m north east of
the main Roman gateway. This takes the form of a raised level platform c.20m
long bounded on the seaward side by a slight bank c.0.4m high and around 3m
wide. One of the cast iron guns, manufactured in the East Sussex Weald, is now
housed within the inner bailey on a modern replica carriage.
From the 17th century the castle passed through the hands of various private
owners. Valued as a picturesque ruin during the 18th and 19th centuries, it
features in many contemporary engravings and illustrations. In 1925 the Duke
of Devonshire presented the monument to the state, and extensive repairs began
with a view to opening the monument to the public. These were interrupted by
the outbreak of World War II, when the castle resumed its original military
purpose of protecting the south coast. The castle was refortified in May 1940
as an observation and command post. It was continuously occupied by regular
troops, including Canadian forces and the United States Army Air Corps, who
used it as a radio direction centre, and by the Home Guard until 1944. The
World War II defences include two pillboxes and three machine gun posts of
concrete faced with rubble and flints, carefully concealed and camouflaged
within the earlier Roman and medieval fabric. An internal tower was built just
to the south of the Roman east gateway and a blockhouse housing anti-tank
weapons was built in front of the main Roman gateway. The blockhouse no longer
survives. Modifications carried out to the medieval mural towers included
lining the interiors with brick and inserting wooden floors.
In 1945 the monument was returned to peaceful use and is now in the
guardianship of the Secretary of State and open to the public.
Excluded from the scheduling are Castle Cottage Restaurant, the toilet blocks
and outhouses within its grounds and the modern wall which encloses them, the
modern surfaces of all roads, tracks, paths and steps, the modern wooden
bridge over the medieval ditch, all modern fences, gates, railings, signs,
grilles, fixtures and fittings and the modern ticket office, although the
ground beneath all these features is included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
