The english redoubt of Sancti Petri or de Lacy: a coastal fortification from the Spanish War of Independence on Camposoto Beach (San Fernando, Cádiz)

Abstract

During the winter period of 2010, traces of structures excavated in the level grounds of mud flats on Camposoto beach (San Fernando, Cádiz) were exposed with the ebb tide and as a result of a heavy storm. It was the archaeologist Antonio Sáez Espligares, deputy director of the Municipal Museum of San Fernando (Cádiz), while walking along the beach, who noticed these traces and connected them with the English redoubt of Sancti-Petri or de Lacy. This fortification had been referenced in textual and cartographic sources, but there was no archaeological evidence of its exact location. This paper relates and describes this finding and establishes a link between the few physical remains that have been preserved to this day and the historical information available. This documentation places this outpost as part of the coastal defence system of the Bay of Cádiz in the context of the Spanish War of Independence which lived through the historical events starring the “One Hundred Thousand Sons of St. Louis” in 1823, during the Royalist War and the Liberal Triennium.