Place

Sally Port

After crossing the drawbridge, the first part of the Castillo de San Marcos that people enter is the Sally Port space.  This vaulted space is about 20 feet wide by 30 feet long, with an arched ceiling, about 17 feet high. The thick walls are made of blocks of shell stone. Shells are visible within the stone, but please do not touch the walls. On the upper parts of the wall and ceiling, the blocks and mortar are mostly covered with a smoother white plaster. The floor surface is smooth concrete, but slightly uneven.  The description as you enter the room, going from left to right:  The entrance to the Museum Store is at 9 o’clock. A wooden door frame is recessed into the wall 12 inches. The white door is built of thick wooden planks, with rounded dark metal bolts sticking out in a grid pattern.  Directly across from the entrance at 12 o’clock is a 10 by 10 foot opening to the courtyard of the Castillo. On the right side of the opening is a four-foot-tall donation box with a cement base and a Plexiglas case with a hole on top.  To the right of the courtyard opening, at 18 inches high, is a 15 inch deep ledge that runs the length of the wall.  At 2 o’clock there is an information desk. The information desk is “Lâ€, shaped with the base of the “Lâ€, facing you. The first part of the desk is about 3 feet wide. On the left, the upright part of the “Lâ€, continues straight ahead for about another four feet. The desk has a Plexiglas top with maps and information underneath.  At 3 o’clock there are two benches along the wall, side by side. They are about 3 feet long with slatted seats and backs.  At 5 o’clock is a thick arched opening, about four feet wide, an accessible ramp leads you into the Spanish Guard Room.  At 6 o’clock, when the Castillo is open, a large sliding wooden gate, called a portcullis is positioned to the right. It slides on rollers at the top in an overhead wooden beam and rollers on the floor. The white gate is a thick wooden frame grid, that creates a lattice with square openings about 5 by 5 inches. Hanging in the center of the door, at a 6 foot height is a 20 inch wide by 30 inch tall painting of the Castillo’s drawbridge being lifted above the moat. A dark metal rod and locking mechanism is mounted to the door just below and to the left of the painting.

Quick Facts

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Information

This was the only way in or out of the Castillo. Here you can see the large drawbridge and the portcullis, the heavy sliding door. Between these two wooden barriers, the strength of the Castillo is apparent. The thickness of the outer walls varies from 14 to 19 feet thick at the base and tapers to 9 feet towards the top. Note the blocks of coquina stone that make up these walls and how they were set together. There are over 400,000 blocks of stone in the Castillo, all of it cut and set by hand.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument

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Last updated: February 11, 2021