The first fortification on the site was a small, round artillery tower, constructed by Henry between 1512 and 1514, overlooking the Camber anchorage and the entrance to Rye Harbour.

In 1539, increasing tensions with France encouraged Henry to rethink his coastal defence plans, and Camber Castle was rebuilt and extended over the next year under the direction of the Moravian engineer, Stefan von Haschenperg.

The Camber and the surrounding harbours began to silt up, becoming unusable by shipping, and the coastline receded away from the fort, eventually placing it well inland.

Plans to redevelop the castle as a Martello tower or as a clubhouse for a local golf course came to nothing, although the property was used in the Second World War, probably as an early warning site.

[2] The mouth of the Camber had also begun to silt up in the late medieval period, although in this case the process had created an important new anchorage for ships.

[3] There is no surviving evidence, however, to show if a tower was in fact built as Guldeford had promised, and Henry VII did not invest much in his coastal defences during the rest of his reign.

[11] After many letters from Guldeford to the Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, some guns finally arrived around 1536 in the form of wrought iron serpentines.

[12] In 1539 the threat of invasion from France and Spain grew and Henry issued orders for his coastal defences to be improved, creating a sequence of fortifications called the Device Forts across England.

[15] The Moravian engineer Stefan von Haschenperg was responsible for the design of the fort, being paid the substantial salary of £75 a year for his work on this and other similar projects, including Calshot, Hurst, Sandgate and Sandown.

[23] The result was a concentric fortress, which von Haschenperg had hoped would combine the best of Italian military architecture, able to carry heavy guns but with a low profile to protect against any incoming artillery fire.

[26] As a result of the problems with the original design, in summer 1542 work recommenced on the castle, well after the initial invasion scare was over, lasting until August 1543.

[37] The bulk of the stone for the two phases of the project was acquired by demolishing monastic buildings in Winchelsea, and by purchasing it from the nearby Fairlight and Hastings quarries.

[41] Initially the fort was equipped with between 26 and 28 artillery pieces, including brass demi-cannons, culverins, demi-culverins and a falconet, and wrought-iron guns, such as portpieces, bases and slings.

[47] By the end of the century, the reclamation of the surrounding marshes and the dumping of ballast by passing ships had accelerated the natural processes and the anchorage was ruined.

[47] The surrounding region was also less strategically important than it had once been: towns like Winchelsea and Rye were in decline, peace had been made with France in 1558 and military attention shifted towards the Spanish threat to the south-west of England.

[52] Tensions between Spain and England rose, and in 1584 Queen Elizabeth I spent £171 on repairs to the castle amid fresh fears of an invasion.

[53] The number of guns at the castle remained around the same, but the larger, brass culverins and demi-cannon were removed, being replaced with smaller iron demi-culverins, sakers and a minion.

[1] In 1623 it was suggested that the castle should be closed, and King Charles I was briefed on the dilapidated condition of the fortification, which was now reportedly around 2 miles (3.2 km) from the sea.

[57] The local towns campaigned to keep the castle operational but in 1636 Charles issued an instruction to demolish it; the garrison, by now led by Captain Thomas Porter, left the next year, followed by the artillery.

[42] Concerned that it might be seized by Royalist forces, Parliament went on to dismantle the castle over the next year, stripping the lead from the roof, blocking up the gunports and demolishing the living accommodation.

[64] A research team from the Victoria County History project visited the castle in 1935, resulting in the first – albeit cursory – historical analysis and survey of the fortification being published two years later.

[60] In an area just to the north of the castle, the Starfish and Naval decoy sites were created to distract incoming German bombers from the town of Rye itself.

From 1951 onwards the Ministry of Works carried out a long-running research project into the Device Forts, the section on Camber being written by the historian Martin Biddle and finally published in 1982.

[65] These were initially carried out by Biddle and Alan Cook, with support from local school children and from young offenders from the Borstal institution in Dover.

[67] Camber Castle now lies on the Brede Level, a wide, reclaimed area of land between the modern towns of Rye and Winchelsea, about 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) from the sea.

[76] The remains of a raised causeway, which once linked the isolated castle to the mainland, leads away for a short distance to the south-west from the earthwork before petering out.

It is now roofless but still standing up to 18 metres (59.1 ft) tall, and covers 0.73 acres (0.30 ha), almost as big as the largest of the Device Forts at Deal in Kent.

[82] The first floor would have formed a high-status set of chambers for the use of the captain, and included large windows, fireplaces and a private garderobe, but most of this storey has been destroyed.

[88] The first floor windows were added in the final phase of work; they were not intended for use as gunports, but they had bars and shutters, so could have been easily secured in the event of an attack.

[93] The Rampire earthwork built in the early 17th century lies across the south and south-east parts of the defences, where the gunports were blocked up with stone when the earth was piled up along the inside of the castle.