West Cowes Castle

Cowes Castle was born of the war scare of Henry VIII's last years. Facing a French and Imperial alliance declared against him in 1538, the king issued the order of 1539, called a device, instructing the "defence of the realm in time of invasion" and the building of forts along the English coast. The Solent, which gave access to Southampton and Portsmouth, was reckoned vulnerable, and two castles were put up on the west and east banks of the River Medina, the entrance to the island's principal harbour, to fire on enemy ships that came near.

The western work, constructed in 1539, had a D-shaped bastion at the front, a round two-storey keep at the rear and two low buildings on either side, all of them mounting artillery. Its limestone ashlar may have been recycled from the demolition of nearby Beaulieu Abbey, pulled down in Henry's dissolution of the monasteries.

Inspections in 1547 counted 17 iron and brass artillery pieces at the fort, nine of them inoperable. It stayed in use after the invasion scare passed, staffed in Elizabeth I's reign by a captain, a porter and three gunners. East Cowes Castle was rapidly abandoned and ultimately destroyed by coastal erosion; as a result the western fort is today often referred to simply as Cowes Castle.

When the Civil War broke out in 1642 the castle was held for Charles I by its captain, Humphrey Turney, who on 12 August personally fired one of its guns at the Parliamentary naval vessel Lion. An unidentified Scottish naval captain came ashore on 16 August, captured Turney, landed more men and took the castle for Parliament, which held it for the rest of the war.

The castle housed important visitors to the island and also served as a prison, a use that continued through the Interregnum. Charles I could not be lodged there in 1647 on his way to imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle because it was full, and he stayed at a local alehouse instead. The Royalist Sir William Davenant, imprisoned at Cowes in 1650, wrote his poem Gondibert there.

Coastal erosion troubled the fortification as it had East Cowes. An inspection in 1692 reported the walls cracked and at risk of collapse, and in 1785 the antiquarian Francis Grose found the castle "strongly fenced with piles and planks" against the sea.

In 1795 the writer Richard Warner recorded a garrison of the captain, a porter, two soldiers, a master gunner and five regular gunners, their wages coming to £103 a year. Warner also complained that the castle was "utterly useless" in military terms, and a guidebook of 1824 echoed the judgement, calling Cowes "useless as a place of defence". The castle remained in service through the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1825 was equipped with eleven 9-pound (4.1 kg) guns.

Lord Anglesey became captain of Cowes Castle in 1826, the post by then a sinecure, and spent part of each year there making lavish improvements to the interiors. He was also a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, founded in 1815. When Anglesey died in 1854 the government decommissioned the castle and leased it first to his son-in-law Lord Conyngham, then to the Squadron in 1855.

The Squadron employed Anthony Salvin to remodel the building between 1856 and 1858. He enlarged the house, altered its profile and added a new tower, gatehouse, ballroom and members' accommodation, at a cost of around £6,000. The building was formally reopened in 1858 to mixed reviews, one local paper likening the result to "a discipline establishment". After William IV's miniature frigate Royal Adelaide was destroyed in 1877, the Prince of Wales gave her 21 brass cannons to the castle.

The Royal Yacht Squadron bought Cowes Castle outright from the Crown in 1917. By October 1942 the castle was occupied by the British Admiralty as the senior officer's headquarters of the HQ Naval Commander Force "J" landing craft base, known as HMS Vectis; the force's vessels docked in the Solent and took part in the D-Day landings. The castle was damaged in the German bombing raids on the island.

Between 1962 and 1968 the architect A. G. Biggs made substantial additions, using stone taken from the second East Cowes Castle, demolished the year before. Excavations in the winter of 2010-11 rediscovered the old castle wall and ditch and lifted more than 400 artefacts for storage at the Isle of Wight County Museum. The castle is protected as a Grade II* listed building, listed on 17 August 1951, and remains the Royal Yacht Squadron's clubhouse, a landmark of yachting and powerboat events at the start and finish of local races.