Dartmouth Castle was built to fit the shape of the rock on a promontory overlooking the picturesque Dart estuary. Local Merchants built the castle in 1481 to protect their warehouses and cargos It was the earliest castle in England specifically designed to carry artillery. King Henry VIII utilized what was already existing there as part of his coastal fortifications.

The castle has an innovative blockhouse with round and square towers sitting right on the water’s edge. Behind is a high-curtained wall of the fourteenth century. At left is the mid-nineteenth-century battery. In the Victorian era it was equipped with a Palmerston Gun Battery. During WWII a brick gun shelter was built at the castle for use against a possible German invasion.

Royalists besieged and captured the castle during the civil war and held it for three years. They surrendered the castle the day after Sir Thomas Fairfax attacked and took the town.

The steep wooded hillsides on both sides of the River Dart, the lovely village of Dartmouth and the brilliantly positioned defensive castle with the water lapping at its feet are well worth a visit to this part of the southwest coast of England.