Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington after "half a lifetime together, they had come to understand each other at the end". He had found consolation for his unhappy marriage in his warm friendship with the diarist Harriet Arbuthnot, wife of his colleague Charles Arbuthnot. Harriet's death in the cholera epidemic of 1834 was almost as great a blow to Wellington as it was to her husband. The two widowers spent their last years together at Apsley House. Wellington died at Walmer Castle in Deal on 14 September 1852. This was his residence as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Walmer Castle was said to have been
Device Forts demolishing much of the keep and adding residential wings and gardens over the landward defences, and Brownsea Castle began to be converted into a country house from the 1720s onwards. Walmer became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Lionel Sackville, the Duke of Dorset, carried out extensive work there after 1708. There was probably some rivalry between Sackville and the naval officer Sir John Norris, who redeveloped nearby Deal Castle during the same period, creating comfortable wood-panelled quarters for himself there overlooking the sea. Criticisms were levelled at the defences of the Device Forts,