Dartmouth Castle Dartmouth, around the beautiful estuary from the River Dart, would be a thriving port in the twelfth century. Once the Hundred Year War made legitimate buying and selling difficult, the occupants switched to piracy to enhance their profits. Their unfortunate targets were the ports over the Funnel. In 1404, the Bretons land in pressure and tried to sack the city in revenge, however the occupants drove them served by great loss privately. Based on French sources another attempt was more effective. Dartmouth Castle is really miles southeast from the town, in a point in which the estuary narrows. A fortification first rose here about 1388 in reaction towards the threat of invasion from France. It had been built in the instigation from the mayor, John Hawley, and it is interesting because the earliest illustration of a fort built with a municipal authority instead of the non-public castle of the individual. It had been an easy affair, composed of the curtain with circular cities reducing the landward method of the headland. A tall bit of curtain and something shattered tower is visible around the high ground looking over the protection. Cellular the primitive artillery during the day it is not easy to determine how this fortification might have interfered with any ships. It had been also overlooked by much greater ground. Possibly therefore it soon fell into disuse. The tower, which now forms the focus from the castle crowns the rocks around the fringe of the headland. It appears as though two connected towers, one square and something oblong. Actually, the initial design was for any free standing oblong tower and also the most prominent square portion is definitely an afterthought, but there's no internal division between your two. The splayed gun ports provided a diploma of versatility for cannon fire, that was formerly unknown. They lie within the rock-cut basement.