Launceston Castle - Launceston, Cornwall (EH)
Launceston was once the county town of Cornwall, and this strategic site on high ground controlled the area between Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor and guarded the ford at Polson, which was the main crossing point from Devon. The first documentary mention of a castle on this site was in the Domesday survey of 1086. There, it is referred to as 'the count's castle at Dunhevet', Dunhevet being Launceston's former name, and the count being Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother to William the Conqueror. Robert consolidated his strength in Cornwall by placing his administrative centre at Dunhevet, and this is where Cornwall's assizes and main jail remained until 1842, when Bodmin became the county town.
Over the centuries, Launceston Castle was improved and altered, with the construction of the first mound and ditches, substantial wooden buildings inside the bailey and the gatehouses built into the stone perimeter wall to the north and south. The main builder was Richard of Cornwall, Henry III's brother and one of the richest and most powerful men in England during the thirteenth century. Richard, at one time a contender for the post of Holy Roman Emperor no less, beefed up the defences in the mid-thirteenth century, with further walls flanking the mound, renewed gatehouses with the latest drum towers, and the free-standing tower within the existing mid-twelfth century shell keep. This provided not only higher fighting platforms for defence, but also more luxurious accommodation and when the space between the shell keep and the new tower was roofed over, formed a concentric framework of defendable platforms which pre-figured the much later castles of Henry VIII (see Pendennis and Deal). The tower is built of darker stone than the curtain wall and leans about a metre out of the vertical. It consisted of two rooms, the upper having a large window with window-seats and an impressive fireplace.
Within the bailey, a new and spacious Great Hall was built, and it remained in use as the Assize Hall until the early 1600's. The modern bridge over the ditch to the mound rests on the remains of the most recent of the stone bridges that once spanned the gap, and the climb from the modern street level outside the South Gatehouse through the bailey, over the bridge and up the mound is quite considerable.
The view over Launceston and the surrounding countryside is well worth the effort, and gives a fair idea of the whole layout of the castle site. The town grew around the castle, and Launceston became the only walled town in Cornwall. As with other castle towns however, its importance declined, and despite still holding the Assizes and the jail, by the Civil War the castle defences were not considered dangerous enough to be damaged by the Parliamentarian army when they eventually gained permanent control over the castle from the supporters of Charles I.
During the nineteenth century, considerable landscaping of the bailey area for re-use as a park meant that a lot of the archaeological evidence has been obscured or damaged. During the Second World War, there were even hospital huts built here for the US army. Launceston Castle has been in the care of English Heritage since 1984, but is still owned by the Duchy of Cornwall.