Bearscove Castle

SX8750 673-1/6/38

DARTMOUTH BAYARDS COVE(West side) Bearscove Castle

(Formerly Listed as: BAYARDS COVE Bearscove Castle (or Bayard's Cove Castle)

14/09/49

GV I Small artillery castle, built to protect the town quay. Possibly 1509-10 on documentary evidence, it was certainly in existence by 1537. Local limestone rubble.

PLAN: A platform cut into the rock enclosed by a thick curving wall projecting into the estuary.

EXTERIOR: Thick rubble wall with a regular series of putlog holes. Doorway on northern side onto the quay (although, according to Freeman, the quay did not extend this far until 1839). It is a plain doorway with an irregular two-centred arch head under a hoodmould. Eleven splayed gunports externally rebated for shutters; they are designed for guns mounted on flat beds. Parapet mostly collapsed but the bottom courses remain, projecting slightly on a row of small corbels.

INTERIOR:Unroofed. Remains of stone steps to wallwalk. Sockets for timbers in cliff to rear from old lean-to structures - the place was apparently used for storage in times of peace.

Bearscove Castle is sited at the end of a fine and picturesque row of listed buildings on the old town quay.

Listing NGR: SX8786550965