Canterbury Castle

Canterbury was one of three original royal castles of Kent, raised alongside Rochester and Dover soon after the Battle of Hastings, probably to guard the Roman road from Dover to London — the route William the Conqueror had taken inland in October 1066. The first castle here was a timber motte-and-bailey, thrown up in 1066 itself. Its motte may survive as the mound still standing in the Dane John gardens near the stone castle, a name thought to derive from donjon; that mound may, in turn, have begun as a Roman burial mound.

The timber castle gave way to a massive stone keep, built largely in the reign of Henry I and substantially complete by 1135. Built of flint and sandstone rubble, it measured about 98 by 85 feet at the base and probably rose to at least 80 feet originally. A new gate was added in 1380.

From the late 13th century the castle served as the county jail. During the First Barons' War it was surrendered to the invading French. Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent, was governor from 1216 to 1232, also holding Dover and Rochester; he was followed by Stephen de Segrave, Nicholas de Moels and Robert Walerand, each of whom likewise governed Rochester, and finally by William de Eschetesford from 1272. Governors kept Canterbury until it passed into private hands at the end of the reign of James VI and I, in 1625.

By the 19th century the ruin had been taken over by a gas company and used as a storage depot for gas, and its top floor was destroyed during this period. The castle has been owned by the local authority since 1928, has been a scheduled monument since 1915, and was Grade I listed in 1949. It was closed to visitors in 2018 because of falling masonry. In 2023 Canterbury council secured £19.9 million in Levelling Up funding for the restoration of the city's historic sites, including the castle; the works, delayed by a bat roosting on site, were scheduled to begin in 2025 and run for a year.