32 SANDSFOOT AND PORTLAND CASTLES. 



towards the west with a like wall 30 feet high, four and a half rods long 

 (which makes nine rods of wall), 10ft. thick at the bottom and wrought 

 with Portland stone, at 30 18s. Od. a rod. This wall will prevent the 

 undermining of this corner of the battery and " it were needful that it 

 were looked unto in time " because the water daily undermines and eats 

 away the ground. By estimation the cost of the wall is 278 2s. Od. 



There is round about this fort a rampier with two points, bullwarks, 

 enclosed with a dry overgrown moat. To make the moat deeper and 

 proportion the rampier with a parapet upon the same, as formerly 

 intended, which parapet is in length 47 rods at 42s. the rod, with cleans- 

 ing the moat ; and a single parapet without the rampier towards the 

 water is about 15 rods at 13s. Total 108 9s. Od. 



The coming in of the fort wants a palisado ; the porch of brick is 

 ruined and uncovered, it must be arched and the main body of the 

 same vaulted, so that one may go over the vault from one rampier to the 

 other ; and in the same a portcullis should be placed, with a roof on 

 the top which may be used for an outward court of guard, together 

 with three sentinel houses about the walls. 57. 



The whole charge by an estimate of the engineers will amount to 

 459 Is. (Harleian MSS. 1326.) 



We may assume that the renewals and additions mentioned 

 in this survey of 1623 were duly caried into effect, because 

 the castle proved itself to be a defensible fortress at the time 

 of the Civil War, when it was held for the King from August, 

 1643, to June, 1644. I believe that during this latter period 

 a Royalist mint was in operation within the walls of Sandsfoot 

 (Numismatic Chronicle 4 S., Vol. XIII., p. 119). 



Until after the restoration of the Monarchy there is little 

 to be recorded, though the structure doubtless received many 

 hard knocks in the course of the protracted warfare. The 

 Domestic State Papers of Charles II. show that there was a 

 close association between the parishioners of Wyke Regis and 

 the neighbouring castle on the edge of the cliff, an association 

 which had existed at all events during the reign of Charles I. 

 and probably at an earlier date. 



In 1661 (?) I find an order to the Sheriff of Dorset that the 

 soldiers kept for the garrison of Sandsfoot should be dis- 

 banded within four days and the arms taken in charge. 

 This was followed, in 1664, by a protest from the inhabitants 



