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The Cover Picture: FROM IVAN GREEN’S COLLECTION
Ivan has kindly provided us with these explanatory notes. This old print shows the Castle as it was before the anti-Napoleon alterations. These brutal modifications, made to convert the ancient building into an 18th century strong point housing many guns, were part of the extensive campaign to repel threatened invasions by Napoleon’s French armies.
Ancient crenulations were dismantled to permit guns to be mounted on the tops of the towers, the old roof of the Keep was pulled down and the present brick ceiling installed in its place, both to safeguard the interior from stray shots and to permit the top of the Keep to be used by the defenders. Elaborate defences were added to the exterior, especially in, near and under St. John’s Tower and the old North Gate. Extensive earthworks were dug around the exterior of the castle walls and great earthen banks were piled up against the stone walls. It had been proved that the ball ammunition fired from the guns of the time splintered stone, making it fly off on all directions in the form of sharpened flakes, thus providing a lethal form of stone shrapnel. Instead the earthen banks absorbed the ball ammunition, progressively destroying its velocity and bringing it harmlessly to rest, buried deep inside them.
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