Portchester Castle | 10 Places That Made England with Dan Snow

There are many places in England with long histories but few can rival this site which has been at the heart of the English story for over one and a half thousand years. Welcome to Portchester Castle. Like many things in British history this began with the Romans or rather with a problem the Romans had and that was seaborne invaders. At the end of the third century the Roman province of Britannia came under attack by men in ships largely from the area today in northern Germany sailing across the North Sea into the Channel and attacking coastal settlements. The answer was the Empire would strike back. The Romans commissioned a gigantic series of forts right along the coast of Britain and a fleet to go with them and these walls are still largely the original Roman walls. In medieval times they were repaired and heightened but you can see down here classic Roman building techniques this red brick the use of flint very hard flint and then limestone blocks as well and you get these d-shaped towers classic d-shaped towers built into these walls so that sentries could see in all different directions. This is just one of the huge fortresses built by Rome to try and hold on to this outlying province. But as well as being an amazing Roman fortress one of the things that makes fortresses so interesting is what happened after the Roman Empire lost its grip on Britain in the 5th century. The site seems to have been used by warlords or anglo-saxon settlers this church here in the southeast corner is still a church that was founded 900 years ago but the fort really comes into its own rise to national prominence after the Norman conquest in 1066 because the Normans under William the Conqueror built a series of gigantic castles to protect their new realm. The medieval castle was also developed into a fortified palace. Initially it was Norman lords magnates who owned and developed this site they built the first fortifications but from Henry ii onwards this castle was in royal hands it became a grand royal residence not just a place for defending the realm against invasion but a place for them to enjoy with their courts and that's why we think it's got two portcullises very unusual here's one and then there's another one up here and the reason for that apparently because Richard ii who really made the place even more glamorous than it had been before wanted this area here to be a private royal garden just for the king so he kept the people out with the portcullis there another one here through the gates into the inner bailey through the gatehouse and here we see dominating the inner bailey the magnificent square keep it was about two stories shorter when it was first built at the beginning of the 12th century and added on by subsequent generations but now it's one of the impressive square keeps anywhere in the country as Richard ii was building this beautiful palace he needed to make sure that servants could access it but without being seen naturally and so this is great fun because within these big walls you can see these little corridors almost tunnels which the servants were able to beetle around the palace but remain unnoticed right at the top of the spiral staircase you get to the roof and this is one of my favourite views in England just look at this stretching out before you one of the great natural harbours Portsmouth harbour and you can see why this is such a potent site dominates the harbour out towards the open sea there past the isle of wight and you can also see why this fortress is not just perfect for defence but for attack as well this was a staging post on the kings for the kings of England as they sought to project power across the other side of the channel it was here in 1346 that Edward iii planned his campaign that would end at the battle of Cressy it was here in 1415 a few generations later that Henry V launched his operations that would end at the battle of Agincourt this is pretty much the closest place in Britain to Normandy so it's the ideal place to launch an attack and that is why what's so extraordinary is the modern naval base of Portsmouth is just there you can just see the rigging of HMS warrior HMS victory and modern aircraft carriers so in many ways this place this harbour is still at the heart of our national defence there's almost nowhere else in England where you get a sense of the layers of our history like you do here at Portchester castle some remarkable graffiti on this spiral staircase the ones they're playing a time because they carved into the stone in a way that's lasted for centuries look at this beautiful one here from the 1790s and this gentleman here Bottrell perhaps from 1797 a man down here from La Rochelle amazing these carved French sounding names reveal Portchester's role in the wars between Britain and France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries perhaps surprisingly given it was once a royal residence in the 18th century it became a prison a series of gigantic wars between Britain and France meant that lots and lots of prisoners arrived here on British shores and they had to be put somewhere where better than huge old buildings that the royal family no longer wished to live in so 8,000 prisoners were kept in Portchester castle many of them in the keep but there were so many of them they built temporary dwellings out there in the bailey in the outer bailey and they left their mark on these buildings previous visit to Portchester castle I never noticed these strange outlines in the grass here there's a clear rectangle that you can see and it turns out that that's due to the hot summer of 2022 the grass got parched in the boiling weather it died back and it revealed the outlines of the foundations of old buildings now demolished now lost this one here apparently used to be a Tudor warehouse or some kind of Tudor building so it's wonderful that every time you come here there's more and more history and archaeology being discovered so many great buildings owe their prominence to their geographical location and Portchester castle sitting as it does on the shores of this brilliant natural harbour have ensured that it has always been at the very heart of our history