page_title: Queenborough Castle
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Queenborough Castle / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: "Plan of Queenborough Castle, Kent... from the Hatfield MSS" published in 1915.
context_page_description: Queenborough Castle, also known as Sheppey Castle, is a 14th-century castle, the remnants of which are in the town of Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent in England. The castle and the associated planned town were built on the orders of King Edward III from 1361 and named in honour his wife, Queen Philippa. It was the first concentric castle to be built in England, and the only royal castle to be new-built in England during the Late Middle Ages. Overlooking the Swale, then an important waterway approaching the River Medway, Queenborough Castle formed part of the country's coastal defences until 1650 when it was declared to be unfit for use and was almost completely demolished shortly afterwards. The site is now a public park and the only visible remains are some low earthworks.
context_section_description: Our knowledge of the appearance of Queenborough Castle comes from a plan in an Elizabethan manuscript preserved at Hatfield House, also from a view by Wenceslaus Hollar (1607-1677) which is now lost but is known from some 18th-century copies and impressions. There are also written descriptions, the most detailed being the 1650 report of the Parliamentary Commissioners.
  The circular rotunda enclosed a central paved courtyard with a "great well" in the middle. The exterior wall of the rotunda had six circular towers regularly spaced, apart from the two which protected the main, eastern entrance. The Commissioners reported that the rotunda contained twelve rooms "downstairs" and "about forty rooms from the first story upwards". About 30 yards (27 metres) out from the rotunda was a plain circular curtain wall enclosing a bailey our outer court. The curtain had only two towers which formed a gatehouse for the main entrance at the western side, meaning that any attackers who forced this gate would have had to make their way around to the other side of the bailey to find the rotunda entrance. The curtain wall was surrounded by a large circular moat. Opposite the rotunda entrance was a postern, a small secondary gate for pedestrians. The postern and the main gate were linked to the rotunda by walled passages which divided the bailey. It is known from the castle records that two stone buildings were built in the bailey from 1369 to 1377, although their form and function are unknown. Records also suggest that the castle had a fish pond and a garden. The whole building was estimated by the Commissioners to "upwards of three acres of land".
caption: "Plan of Queenborough Castle, Kent... from the Hatfield MSS", published in 1915.
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