Saltwood Castle
Encyclopedia
Saltwood
Saltwood is a village and civil parish in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Within the parish are two other settlements: Pedlinge and Sandling; both being small hamlets.-Geography:...
village—which derives its name from the castle—1 mile (2 km) north of Hythe, Kent
Hythe, Kent
Hythe , is a small coastal market town on the edge of Romney Marsh, in the District of Shepway on the south coast of Kent. The word Hythe or Hithe is an Old English word meaning Haven or Landing Place....
, England.
The castle is known as the site where the plot was hatched to assassinate Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170. He is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion...
(1118–1170). More recently, it became the home of the art historian Lord Clark of Saltwood
Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...
(1903–1983), then his son Alan Clark
Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
(1928–1999), a minister in Margaret Thatcher's
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
government.
Origins
The castle was probably erected on a RomanRoman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
site, though Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
implements and copper ingots discovered in Hayne's Wood, 1874, show the site had already long been inhabited.
The castle's website traces its history back to 488 CE, when Aesc, the son of Hengist and the King of Kent, built a castle on the site. It first appears, however, on a charter of King Egbert in 833. The manor of Saltwood was granted to the priory of Christ Church in Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
by a deed dated 1026. Under William the Conqueror, Saltwood, held by the Archbishop of Canterbury and let, under knights’ service, to Hugo de Montfort, formed part of the string of large fiefs granted from Hithe to the New Forest, along the south coast of England. The structure was replaced by a twelfth century Norman
Norman architecture
About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...
structure, with work extending over the next two centuries. It became home for a period to Henry d' Essex, constable of England.
Becket
Thomas Becket had asked Henry IIHenry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
on behalf of the Church for the restoration of the castle as an ecclesiastical palace. Henry instead gave it to one of his loyal barons named Ranulf de Broc.
This leads to the implication that some complicity was possible in the murder of Becket by the baron Ranulf de Broc. It was during this time at Saltwood, on December 28, 1170, that four knights are presumed to have plotted the death of Becket, which took place the following day at Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....
, about 15 miles (24 km) away. Hugh de Moreville
Hugh de Morville, Lord of Westmorland
Sir Hugh de Morville was an Anglo-Norman knight who served King Henry II of England in the late 12th century. He is chiefly famous as one of the assassins of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1170...
was one of the four knights that committed the assassination, along with Reginald Fitzurse
Reginald Fitzurse
Sir Reginald FitzUrse was one of the four knights who murdered Thomas Becket in 1170.His name is derived from Fitz which is a contracted form of the Norman-French fils de, meaning "son of" and Urse from the Latin ursus, meaning a bear, probable nom de guerre of his ancestor...
, William de Tracey, and Richard le Breton
Richard le Breton
Sir Richard le Breton was one of the four knights who murdered Saint Thomas Becket.He was the son of Simon le Bret or Simon Brito of Sampford Brett in Somerset and a near neighbour of the FitzUrses of Williton...
.
After Becket's assassination, the castle was returned to the control of the archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
. Gun-ports in the gatehouse that date to the period 1385-94 are attributed to Henry Yevele
Henry Yevele
Henry Yevele was the most prolific and successful master mason active in late medieval England. The first document relating to him is dated 3 December 1353, when he purchased the freedom of London...
(fl.
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
1353-1400), called the "English father of the science of artillery fortification" by B.H. St John O'Neil. A fourteenth-century chip-carved chest with arcading and rosettes along the front, with a later panelled top, formerly in the parish church, was reputed to have come originally from Saltwood Castle. The Wycliffite William Thorpe's account of his interrogation at Saltwood in 1407 is a familiar document because it was published by sixteenth-century Reformers.
Recent history
Saltwood remained a church property until the reign of Henry VIIIHenry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
when Hythe and Saltwood were seized by the Crown. It became uninhabitable as the result of the earthquake of 6 April 1580
Dover Straits earthquake of 1580
Though severe earthquakes in the north of France and Britain are rare, the Dover Straits earthquake of 6 April 1580 appears to have been one of the largest in the recorded history of England, Flanders or northern France...
, but was restored in the nineteenth century, as a residence once again of the Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
. The gatehouse has been used as a residence ever since.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Nazi Hermann Goering ordered the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
to not bomb Hythe, as he had designated Saltwood as his post-invasion home. The castle was the childhood home of Bill Deedes
Bill Deedes
William Francis Deedes, Baron Deedes, KBE, MC, PC, DL was a British Conservative Party politician, army officer and journalist; he is to date the only person in Britain to have been both a member of the Cabinet and the editor of a major daily newspaper, The Daily Telegraph.-Early life and...
and was purchased in 1955 by Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...
, whose son Alan Clark
Alan Clark
Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark was a British Conservative MP and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, Trade, and Defence, and became a privy counsellor in 1991...
subsequently lived there. After Alan Clark's death he was buried in the castle grounds, which remains in the Clark family today.