forming a triangular inner and outer ward. Covered stone passageways, three storeys high, linked the towers, the keep and the gatehouse. The outer ward was grassed over, with a stone cesspool by the side of the north-east tower, linked by sewers to the inside of the castle. The castle was entered through a doorway in the rear of the gatehouse, originally called the "Half Moon", linked by a stairway in the covered passageway to the keep. There were four tiers of guns in the finished castle, from the ground level up to the roof of the keep, and a total of 142 firing points for cannon and handguns; their design closely resembling those at nearby Walmer and Deal castles. Sandgate was completed by the autumn of 1540; Henry may have come to the castle when he was visiting Folkestone in May 1542. Elizabeth I visited the fortification in 1573, and also used it to imprison the courtier Thomas Keyes for a period, after he married Lady Mary Grey against the Queen's wishes. In 1593, the castle was reported to be equipped with seven artillery pieces - one culverin, two demi-culverins, three sakers and one minion - along with muskets, bows and arrows. 17th–18th centuries In 1609, the garrison comprised a captain and his lieutenant, five soldiers, two porters and ten gunners. The mortar used in the castle was particularly poor, and had begun to seriously decay by 1616. A survey that year showed the castle to be substantially dilapidated, with the cost of the proposed repairs estimated at £260, and noted that a gun platform for ten weapons had been built along the southern walls to replace the original southern battery. A 1623 report echoed the same problems, noting that the sea had caused a third of the southern wall to collapse; the necessary repairs, including strengthening the walls, were projected at £560. Four years later, amid fears of war with France and Spain, the castle's captain, Richard Chalcroft, reported that the fortification was in such a poor condition that "neither habitable or defensible against any assault, nor any way fit to command the roads". An inspection team observed that it was straightforward to climb over the castle's ruined walls and rotten timbers, and that as a result its artillery had been dismounted and placed along the beach instead. The castle was probably not repaired, however, until after 1638. Sandgate