The original castle, started in 1539, is one of the most comprehensively documented of its time and the record still exists in the British Library. The total cost of the build was some £5,584.7s.2d. The construction took 18 months and the accounts were closed on 2 October 1540. The comptroller for the build period, Thomas Cocks, was paid the grand sum of £50 and the build employed around 500 people using 147,000 bricks, 44,000 tiles at 4s per thousand, a thousand cartloads of oak, 9.5 tons of lead and 4.5 tons of iron. 16d per day was paid for carts to haul stone and materials. Richard Lynsted was master mason. Sandgate's construction was supervised by Stefan von Haschenperg, who signed the accounts, though he was not often present. Haschenperg disagreed with other officials over the roofi