Cooling Castle

Cooling Castle
Cooling, Kent, England
Outer gatehouse of Cooling Castle
Cooling Castle
Coordinates	51°27′20″N 0°31′23″E / 51.455441°N 0.523084°E / 51.455441; 0.523084Coordinates: 51°27′20″N 0°31′23″E / 51.455441°N 0.523084°E / 51.455441; 0.523084
Type	Quadrangular castle
Height	12 metres (39 ft) (gatehouse), up to 9 metres (30 ft) (walls)
Site information
Owner	Private owners
Condition	Ruined
Site history
Built	1380s
Built by	John Cobham
In use	1380s-c.1554
Materials	Kentish ragstone, flint, chalk rubble
Events	Wyatt's rebellion

Cooling Castle is a 14th-century quadrangular castle in the village of Cooling, Kent on the Hoo Peninsula about 6 miles (9.7 km) north of Rochester. It was built in the 1380s by the Cobham family, the local lords of the manor, to guard the area against French raids into the Thames Estuary. The castle has an unusual layout, comprising two walled wards of unequal size next to each other, surrounded by moats and ditches. It was the earliest English castle designed for the use of gunpowder weapons by its defenders.

Despite this distinction, the use of gunpowder weapons against the castle proved devastating. It was captured after only eight hours when Sir Thomas Wyatt besieged it in January 1554 during his unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Mary. His attack wrecked the castle and it was subsequently abandoned. A farmhouse and outbuildings were constructed among the ruins a century later. Today the farmhouse is the home of the musician Jools Holland, while the nearby barn is used as a wedding venue.

The castle was originally built on the south bank of the Thames but the shoreline has since receded as a result of land reclamation; the river is now about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of the castle, separated from it by marshes. It was constructed by John Cobham. His family had acquired the manor of Cooling in the mid-13th century. In 1379, during the second phase of the Hundred Years' War, a French raid devastated towns and villages along the Thames Estuary. Cobham appealed to the Crown for licence to fortify his manor and received permission in February 1380. The building work was completed by 1385.

Surviving records indicate that the prominent gatehouse was built by local labour under several master masons, including Thomas Crompe, William Sharnall and Thomas Wrek, with the king's master mason Henry Yevele taking a supervisory role. The castle is of particular importance as being the earliest English castle designed for the use of gunpowder weapons. Lord Cobham's instructions to his masons include his requirement for "x arket holes [10 holes for arquebuses] de iii peez longour [of 3 feet? length] et tout saunz croys [without cross-slits]."