century and in 1728 it was equipped with 11 culverin guns. The following year, the captain, naval officer Sir John Norris, redeveloped the castle to improve his personal accommodation. Similar work had been carried out at Walmer in 1708 by the Duke of Dorset, Lionel Sackville and there may have been some competition between the two men. The keep was redesigned with medieval-style battlements and wood-panelled accommodation at the rear overlooking the sea; the porter's lodge was also updated. During the Napoleonic Wars, the castle was armed with nine 36-pounder guns, supported by further artillery batteries placed along the beach. To protect Deal, units of infantry and cavalry, called fencibles, were formed in 1794 by William Pitt the Younger—then both the prime minister and the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports—and in 1802 units of bombardiers recruited by Pitt carried out military exercises at the castle. The politician and banker Lord Carrington carried out improvements to the castle in 1802, apparently as a rival project to his friend Pitt's work at Walmer. According to Samuel Wilberforce, Carrington had hoped to charge the cost of the work to the Treasury, but when he attempted to submit the claims, they were rejected by Pitt and he had to pay for the improvements himself. Deal Castle was increasingly resembling a private house, rather than purely a fortification, and this led to arguments in 1829 as to whether it should be subject to local taxation as a private dwelling, or continue to be exempt as a military site. The captaincy had long since become an honorary position, given out as a reward by the Crown. In 1898, the War Office agreed that the Office of Works should be consulted over any external alterations to the historic castle and that the Office of Works would be responsible for paying for any resulting work. The War Office finally concluded in 1904 that the castle no longer had any value either as a defence or as a barracks and transferred it entirely to the Office of Works. When the captain was not in residence it was opened to visitors. During the Second World War, in November 1940, during the Blitz, German bombers destroyed much of the captain's quarters, forcing the incumbent, William Birdwood, to move to Hampton Court Palace. Two 6-inch naval guns were mounted in front of the castle between 1940 and 1944, manned by 337