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Pevensey Castle is a medieval castle and former Roman Saxon Shore fort at Pevensey in the English county of East Sussex. The site is a Scheduled Monument in the care of English Heritage and is open to visitors. Built around 290 AD and known to the Romans as ''Anderitum'', the fort appears to have been the base for a fleet called the ''Classis Anderidaensis''. The reasons for its construction are unclear; long thought to have been part of a Roman defensive system to guard the British and Gallic coasts against Saxon pirates, it has more recently been suggested that ''Anderitum'' and the other Saxon Shore forts were built by a usurper in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to prevent Rome from reimposing its control over Britain. ''Anderitum'' fell into ruin following the end of the Roman occupation but was reoccupied in 1066 by the Normans, for whom it became a key strategic bulwark. A stone keep and fortification was built within the Roman walls and faced several sieges. Although its garrison was twice starved into surrender, it was never successfully stormed. The castle was occupied more or less continuously until the 16th century, apart from a possible break in the early 13th century when it was slighted. It had been abandoned again by the late 16th century and remained a crumbling, partly overgrown ruin until it was acquired by the state in 1925. Pevensey Castle was reoccupied between 1940 and 1945, during the Second World War, when it was garrisoned by units from the Home Guard, the British and Canadian armies and the United States Army Air Corps. Machine-gun posts were built into the Roman and Norman walls to control the flat land around Pevensey and guard against the threat of a German invasion. They were left in place after the war and can still be seen today. ==Location and dimensions== Pevensey Castle was constructed by the Romans on a spur of sand and clay that stands about above sea level. In Roman times this spur was a peninsula that projected into a tidal lagoon and marshes, making it a strong natural defensive position. A harbour is thought to have been situated near the south wall of the castle, sheltered by a long spit of shingle where the village of Pevensey Bay stands now. A small river, Pevensey Haven, runs along the north side of the peninsula and would originally have discharged into the lagoon, but is now largely silted up. Since Roman times, silting and land reclamation in the Pevensey Levels have pushed the coastline out by about , leaving the castle landlocked.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=1013379 – The National Heritage List for England )〕 The intervening landscape between the castle and the sea is now a flat marshland drained by a network of ditches and sewers or field drains. The modern village of Pevensey is situated mostly to the east of the castle, at the end of the ancient peninsula. Castle Road (the B2191) curves around the Roman north wall and connects Pevensey to the nearby village of Westham. A public footpath crosses the interior of the castle, linking the two villages. An area of reclaimed land, formerly part of the Pevensey tidal lagoon but now marshland and fields crossed by the Eastbourne-to-Hastings railway line, is situated immediately to the south of the castle.〔Ordnance Survey – Explorer 123. Publication date 10/02/2012〕 The castle occupies an area of about . It has an oval plan on a north-east/south-west alignment, measuring by . It is not only the largest of the nine Saxon Shore forts but its walls and towers are the largest of any surviving Roman fort of the period.〔 Its shape is unique among Saxon Shore forts and was presumably dictated by the contours of the peninsula on which it stands. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pevensey Castle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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