Citadels

Citadels Introduction

   There are many examples of  fortifications  built in the Highlands of Scotland during the time  of the Jacobite Risings. What  are less well known are the chain  of even older forts, built during the occupation of Scotland by Oliver Cromwell's forces in the mid-seventeenth century.
   By the later sixteenth century, castles were becoming indefensible,  their high  stone walls were fairly easily penetrated by cannon  fire. A new type of defence  was invented - the artillery fort.  Where castles had soared above the local  landscape, artillery  forts huddled into it, their thick earth ramparts with an  outer  skin of stone made them much more resistant to cannon fire. The  development of the bastion, which allowed the occupants to sweep  along their  walls with cannon fire, made assault by infantry a  very expensive exercise for  the attacker. During the misnamed  'English Civil War' of the seventeenth  century, castles, fortified  houses and towns could only be made defensible by  building extensive  earth-works around them - in effect turning them into artillery  forts.
   By the end of 1651 Cromwell and his supporters had control  of Scotland as  well as England , Wales and Ireland. To maintain  his hold on Scotland, Cromwell  ordered his commander there, General  George Monck, to build a string of large  forts. The five large  citadels, as they were called, were built at Ayr,  Inverlochy,  Inverness, Leith and Perth, this is the story of these forts.
   The  citadels were garrisoned by English troops until after the restoration  of  the monarchy, Charles II then decided that the citadels were  unnecessary, or  more probably that they were going to be too costly  to maintain.
   As well as the five large forts, a number of smaller  forts and castles were  also garrisoned. The story of these is  told in the Forts section.
   It can be difficult to grasp the massive size  of an artillery fort, the fact  that Ayr citadel covers an area  approximately equivalent to the combined areas  of Edinburgh and  Stirling castles may give an indication. The outline diagram  shows  the relative sizes of Ayr Citadel, Edinburgh Castle, the Tower of  London  and Fort George Ardersier, near Inverness. Fort George,  built a century after  Ayr, is the finest surviving artillery  fort in the United Kingdom and one of the finest in Europe and has remained  almost intact in the last two  hundred and fifty years.
   A glossary of military terms and links  to related websites can be found on  the General Information Page.
All  maps referred to on this site are from the online collection of  the  National Library of Scotland, except the late nineteenth and  early twentieth  century maps of Ayr, Inverness and Leith which  are modern reproductions of the original 1:2500 Ordnance Survey  maps -  see General Information Page.

 

Ayr Citadel

   Ayr Citadel was the largest  of the five forts,  and was built, at the mouth of the River Ayr, using  stone apparently from  Ardrossan Castle. The citadel was six sided  with bastions on all the corners,  the bastions flanking the main  entrance were larger than those on the seaward  facing side. There  were also additional out-works on the landward  side.
     The  citadel enclosed Ayr's Parish Church of St. John and when the  town  protested to Cromwell about the loss of their church they eventually  received compensation from him. It is interesting to compare the  experiences of  Ayr and Perth which seem to have been rather different. Also  enclosed was the mound of the former  castle of Ayr, built by King William the  Lion in the late twelfth century, it is situated near the north eastern bastion  (bastion  2 on the diagram). King William also created the Royal Burgh of  Ayr in 1205.
     After the restoration  the citadel was slighted by demolishing the landward  ramparts,  bastions (partly) and walls, the only surviving part of this area  is  the front gateway. of which only the arched top is visible, the rest is buried several feet below the current  ground level. Part of the wall of the north eastern bastion  (bastion 2) survived into the 20th century and is shown on the 1909 O.S. map. The citadel was gifted to a local nobleman, the Earl of Eglinton, in recognition of his losses.  A brewery was built there in the eighteenth century but survived for only a  short  time.
     In the nineteenth century the self-styled Baron Miller  bought the fort and  built extra accomodation on either side of  St. John's Tower, the rest of the  church having been previously  demolished, and called it 'Fort Castle'. He also  rebuilt a sentry  post on the northenmost bastion (bastion 1), although the  original  loopholes were considerably enlarged. He called it his garden gazebo,  the locals called it 'Miller's Folly'. By the time of his death  in 1910 most of  the land had been sold for housing. The then Marquis of Bute bought the  remaining land and Fort Castle, demolished  the additional buildings and restored  the tower which he presented  to the Burgh of Ayr.
     This is the best preserved of the five  Citadels and approximately half of the  perimeter wall still survives  (although not quite to the original height), with the  earth ramparts  still in place. Houses were built on top of the ramparts, and the fort walls are now acting as retaining walls. A superb view is available on aerial photographs, or on Google Earth & Google Maps.
     Ayr  maps of the  eighteenth and early nineteenth century show the citadel  virtually unchanged,  only in the later part of the nineteenth  century were the outworks on the  landward side demolished to make  way for a new road, the appropriately named  Fort Street. Military  barracks, a shipyard and the gas works obscured the seaward side but  these  were demolished by the late nineteen sixties. Smaller areas of the perimeter wall were demolished  to make  way for access roads . By 1909 the citadel had taken its  modern form, with the  inside mostly filled with housing, as shown on the OS map of that date. A sally port is shown between bastions 1 & 6 on the same map, but no trace of this remains.
     South  Ayrshire Council has erected a sign showing the citadel as originally  built, the sign and a replica cannon of the period are outside the north-west rampart (between bastions 1 & 6). Its predecessor  council, Kyle and Carrick  District Council, placed plaques at St. John's Tower, Miller's Folly and the Main Entrance describing  their history. As well as Fort Street, Ayr has a  Cromwell Road, Citadel Place and Citadel Lane. The pictures below the fort plan show the citadel sign, the sign and replica cannon, bastion 1 and Miller's Folly, bastion 6, Miller's Folly and St. John's tower.

 

Inverlochy Citadel

   Inverlochy Citadel was built  at the  junction of the River Nevis and Loch Linnhe, the site of  the present day town of  Fort William.  Unlike the other citadels it had no outer stone walls and was an earth rampart only. Inverlochy was slighted  in 1660 like the other forts, but unlike  them it had a second  life. In 1690 it was rebuilt, this time with a stone outer wall, and regarrisoned by troops of  King  William of Orange on the foundations of the earlier citadel. The  fort was  rechristened Fort William after the king and the town  which sprang up beside it  was caIled Maryburgh after his Queen.
   I cannot find a map showing Inverlochy Citadel but several  maps from the  early to mid eighteenth century survive showing  Fort William, one from 1736  shows the fort and town. It is interesting  to see how improvements are being  made to the fort, extra outworks  appear and the ravelin alters shape on each  successive map. The  ravelin and glacis were probably added at the 1690 rebuilt,  as  none of the citadels had them, only an outer ditch and relatively  primitive  outworks. Military science had made progress in the  intervening years.
   The fort survived the Jacobite Rebellions  of 1715 and 1745/6. In the latter  engagement it was under siege  for a considerable time, during which the town of  Maryburgh was  destroyed, to prevent occupation by the rebels. After the  rebellion  was suppressed the town was rebuilt but took the name of the fort  rather than revert to the original name. Fort William remained  manned until the  mid ninteenth century when it was abandoned.  It was demolished in 1894 to allow  the West Highland Railway access  to the town. The walls were torn down and  today, 117 years later  almost no trace is left. A few scattered fragments of the  lochside  bastion are all that remain of the fort.

 

Inverness Citadel

   Inverness has had a series of fortifications, castles dating from the eleventh century, the seventeenth century citadel, the early eighteenth century Fort George Inverness built on the castle site and the mid eighteenth century Fort George Ardersier which was built to the east of Inverness near the town of Ardersier.  The present day Inverness Castle was built in the nineteenth century.

   Inverness Citadel was built using  stone from various sources, some came from  Aberdeen  and some from Avoch castle  and Fortrose Cathedral in the Black Isle. Like all of the  citadels it was built at enormous cost, in  excess of £500,000  which was a lot of money in the 1650's. Also like most of the other citadels it gradually disappeared over the years.

   It was  still  mostly intact in 1716 as is clearly seen on an excellent map showing the town of Inverness, Fort  George Inverness (half way up the  right side) and on the left  hand side, beside the river Ness, Inverness Citadel.  It was this  map that started me off on my quest to find out more about  Cromwell's  Citadels, the map is available on the NLS website (Military maps, Fort George Inverness, Inverness in North Britain) - see General Information Page.

   By 1821 the outline is becoming blurred , probably  due to the stonework being robbed for building. On the 1903 O.S.  map the two  bastions beside the river and their associated ramparts  are gone, the earthworks  of the three remaining bastions and their  connecting ramparts still remain, but  their outline is becoming  even more indistinct. Today the remains lie in the  middle of an  industrial estate with Cromwell Road running through it. 

Leith Citadel

   Leith Citadel, like Inverness, was built to a pentagonal plan with corner bastions. Again the stone for the  walls was mostly taken from  other buildings. In this case the nearby Wardie  Castle.  A  map of 1735 shows the citadel still intact, but by 1786 the profile  is broken up and no detail can be seen. By 1822 work on the docks  seems to have  obliterated most traces, there is a triangular area  below Commercial Street  marked 'Citadel Green' and below it there  are possible remains of earthworks.  The building marked Leith  Fort, on maps from this date, does not refer to the  citadel but  is a gun battery and associated barracks built from 1780.
   By  1837 Cromwell Street runs through the area of the former citadel.  Crossing  Cromwell Street is Citadel Street which runs into Citadel  Green. The 1896 OS map  shows the area re-developed, with the former  Citadel Green built up. Leith  Citadel Station fills the centre  of the former Cromwell Street, and is now  flanked by East & West Cromwell Streets. Citadel Street still exists, running as before.
Today the area has again been the focus of development,  most of the older  docks have been filled in and used for office development. East and West  Cromwell Streets and Citadel Street  are gone, as is the station, but there is a  Citadel Place, which  may be a remnant of the former Citadel Street. There is no  map  with a scale to allow determination of the fort's size, but it was  possibly  of a similar size to Inverness Citadel.
   The fort probably  straddled Commercial Street and extended from Prince Regent  Street  in the west to Dock Street in the east. The sole surviving piece  of  structure is an arched tunnel of one of the entrances, this  can be found in Dock  Street.

 

Perth Citadel

   Perth Citadel  was square with  corner bastions, the size is uncertain; scaled  from the old military maps on the  NLS website, it was 240 yards  across the bastions. Another website gives the  size as 266 yards,  I presume this was measured during the excations (see below),  so  I have used this size in my illustration.
Perth suffered badly  during the construction of the citadel, the town itself  was used  as a quarry. A hospital, houses, churchyard walls, an old bridge  and  even gravestones were all used as sources of stone. After  the restoration  Charles II presented the fort to the town, in  compensation for its losses.  However when he discovered that the  town was making good money from the sale of  guns and masonry,  he changed his mind and demanded that the town pay him the  value  of the fort and then refused to listen to the town's complaints.
   Maps  of 1715 and 1745 show the fort still reasonably intact, except for  the  area slighted in 1660. By 1783 however only a vague outline  is left all the  stonework having been extracted. From 1823 onwards  all trace of the fort is  gone, only the foundations are left under  the South Inch, where they were found  during excavations in the  1990s.