Cooling Castle
Oct. 30th, 2021 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloCooling Castle was built in the 1380s by the then Lord Cobham- with the stated intention of protecting the Hoo peninsula- which occupies space between the estuary of the Thames and the estuary of the Medway- from the incursions of French pirates. Henry Yvele- the architect of Canterbury Cathedral- may have had a hand in its design. Cobham specified that he wanted loopholes that would accomodate arquebuses rather than bows- making Cooling the earliest example of an English castle being designed with firearms in mind.
The castle used to stand on the banks of the Thames. Since then land reclamation has taken place and the river is now two miles away- leaving the castle sited, unstrategically, among farmers' fields, with a wiggly country road going past the front door.
The Castle saw action in 1534, in the course of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against Mary Tudor. Wyatt, the besieger, had 2000 men plus artillery, Cobham, the defender- who happened to be Wyatt's brother-in-law- no love lost in that family- had his three sons and a handful of retainers- possibly as few as eight- with two or three hand guns to share out between them. The castle's outer walls were breached by Wyatt's cannons and the siege was over within a day.
Thereafter the castle fell into ruin, and its shell got filled up with farm buildings. Charles Dickens- who used the Hoo peninsula as the setting for the rural scenes in Great Expectations (Joe Gargery's forge is somewhere hereabouts)- used to pic-nic in the churchyard next door. It is currently owned by the musician Jools Holland. Jackdaws have colonised the towers and you can see some of them, on the wing, in the picture of the gatehouse.
The castle used to stand on the banks of the Thames. Since then land reclamation has taken place and the river is now two miles away- leaving the castle sited, unstrategically, among farmers' fields, with a wiggly country road going past the front door.
The Castle saw action in 1534, in the course of Sir Thomas Wyatt's rebellion against Mary Tudor. Wyatt, the besieger, had 2000 men plus artillery, Cobham, the defender- who happened to be Wyatt's brother-in-law- no love lost in that family- had his three sons and a handful of retainers- possibly as few as eight- with two or three hand guns to share out between them. The castle's outer walls were breached by Wyatt's cannons and the siege was over within a day.
Thereafter the castle fell into ruin, and its shell got filled up with farm buildings. Charles Dickens- who used the Hoo peninsula as the setting for the rural scenes in Great Expectations (Joe Gargery's forge is somewhere hereabouts)- used to pic-nic in the churchyard next door. It is currently owned by the musician Jools Holland. Jackdaws have colonised the towers and you can see some of them, on the wing, in the picture of the gatehouse.
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Date: 2021-10-30 11:44 am (UTC)