St Catherine's Castle

St Catherine’s Castle stands on a rocky headland at Fowey in Cornwall. Built between 1538 and 1540 by Thomas Treffry, it is a small D-shaped stone blockhouse designed to guard the entrance to the River Fowey. The site overlooks St Catherine’s Point and the Fowey estuary, protected by cliffs and a curtain wall. It replaced earlier blockhouses and a boom chain that had defended the harbour in the previous century. John Leland visited in 1542 and recorded that Treffry and the town had funded the work together. The castle was later praised for its dramatic position but criticised for its modest architecture. The fort saw active service during the English Civil War when Royalists held it against Parliament. By 1786 Francis Grose found it still in use, armed with six cannons, though he judged the building unremarkable. In 1855 two new gun positions were added during fears of Crimean invasion, and in the Second World War it became a coastal battery with naval guns and a minefield control post. The 364th and 379th Coast Batteries manned the site until 1943, after which it was decommissioned and restored. Visitors today reach the castle by 19th-century steps cut into the rock. The original blockhouse has thick slate walls and two storeys of gun-ports, one now blocked. A semi-circular curtain wall encloses the site, with musket slits and a small bastion at the rear. Below lies a 19th-century magazine carved from rock and a gun platform marked by circular carriage rails and wartime concrete remains. The headland offers wide views over Fowey Harbour and the open sea, framed by steep cliffs.