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Summary

A single storey building with a shallow pitched lead covered roof is shown on Lord Burghley's map of Falmouth made in 1579. The building straddles the approach to the castle and is clearly meant as a guardhouse.

Protected Status: None recorded

Other Statuses/Codes: none recorded

Monument Type(s):

• GUARDHOUSE (16th Century - 1540 AD to 1600 AD)

Full description

A single storey building with a shallow pitched lead covered roof is shown on Lord Burghley's map of Falmouth made in 1579. The building straddles the approach to the castle and is clearly meant as a guardhouse.

A porch, not shown on Burghley's map, on the face overlooking the parade ground of the Elizabethan fort appears on a plan of 1700.

Lilly's survey of 1715 shows the internal arrangments of the building: it is single storey and contains storerooms described as 'severall lodging rooms', about the entrance passage leading to the castle drawbridge.

In 1791 the Royal Engineers surveyed the castle and gatehouse. The function of the gatehouse's rooms from east to west were described as: doghouse, cowhouse, poultry house and storeroom.

By a survey of 1866 the doghouse was described as 'officers stable No 1' and the cow and poultry house had been converted to the 'Coast Brigade orderly room' and 'Royal Engineers Office'. The latter use had been agreen by the Board of Odnance in 1848 as a temporary measure. The room at the west end continued to be used as a storeroom 'No 1', entered through an outside door. The building was now shown with a basement storey entered from the castle ditch. The stone dressings of the external door of the basement are more reminiscent of the small building over the early C18 gateway in the Elizabethan rampart suggesting the basement is C17 in origin.

In 1867 the Royal Cornwall and Devon Miners Artillery relocated to the castle, taking over the old Royal Engineers' offices in the gatehouse.

In 1902 the gatehouse, by then called the guardroom but in addition almost certainly serving as Militia Offices, was partially demolished and an elaborate new building erected to serve as offices of the Cornwall and Devon Miners Royal Garrison Artillery. The building retained the massing of the earlier structure but was more elaborate internally employing four-centred vaulting in brick on both ground and basement floors. The granite piers flanking the gate of the new building took their cue from the chimney of the Tudor forebuilding, which itself echoed the Henrican stair turret.

In 1921 the castle was desingated as an ancient monument and the army vacated the premises. Within two years the offices were demolished, ignoring the architectural significance of their pastiche treatment. The surviving sections of earlier Tudor wall were left standing and the basement remained virtually intact. The fine granite masonry of the Edwardian building was salvaged and used as a revetment surrounding the east end of the Royal Garrison Artillery barracks to accommodate a change in level created when the old barracks were demolished.

The basement containing a fine kitchen serving the 1902 Militia Offices survives adjacent to one of the storerooms of the older building which later served as an officers stable.

<1> Linzey, R, 2000, Fortress Falmouth. An conservation plan for the historic defences of Falmouth Haven Vol II (2000), Site A2 (Cornwall Event Report). SCO1563.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• ECO455 - Fortress Falmouth

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