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Title: Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)

Author: George Thomas Clark

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Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEDIÆVAL
MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***

MEDIÆVAL MILITARY
ARCHITECTURE
IN

ENGLAND.
By G E O . T . C L A R K .
VOL. I.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

. . . . . Time
Has moulder’d into beauty many a tower,
Which, when it frown’d with all its battlements,
Was only terrible. . . . . —Mason.

LONDON:
WYMAN & SONS, 74–76, GREAT QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN’S-INN FIELDS, W.C.

1884.

TO

E. A. FREEMAN, Esq.
THE HISTORIAN OF THE NORMAN CONQUEST,

T H ES E PA PER S,

COLLECTED AND PUBLISHED AT HIS SUGGESTION,

IN THEIR PRESENT FORM,

ARE APPROPRIATELY INSCRIBED.

P R E F A C E.

THE articles comprehended in the present volumes were written at very
long intervals of time, some half a century ago, and printed in the
Transactions of various Societies in different and distant counties. Many
also appeared in the Builder newspaper. Each paper was intended to be
complete in itself, and was written with no expectation that they would ever
be collected and reprinted as one work. This I mention to account for, and I
hope in some degree to excuse, the occasioned iteration of certain views
concerning the connexion between the banks and earthworks, the moated
mounds of the ninth century, and the buildings in masonry afterwards
placed upon them,—which the Author was the first to set forth, and which
are explained at length in the Introduction.
The latter and greater part of the work is occupied by minute, and, it is
hoped, generally accurate accounts of most of the principal castles of
England, and of one or two of a typical character in France and Scotland.
The account of Caerphilly was drawn up in 1834. It was, I believe, the first
attempt to treat, in a scientific and accurate manner, the plans and details of
a great mediæval fortress.
My cordial thanks are due to the editors of the various Archæological
Journals in which the original papers appeared, and especially to the late
editor of the Builder, Mr. Godwin. I have also especially to thank an old
friend and school-fellow, Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, for leave to
reprint the paper on the Tower of London, and for the use of the woodcuts
with which he so liberally embellished the original in his “Old London.”
To Mr. Freeman my obligations are of a different and less personal
character. Other historians have visited the scenes of events which they
were about to describe, but no one has shown himself so familiar with the
ancient divisions, civil, ecclesiastical, and military, of English ground, and
with the buildings connected with them. His accomplishments as a

topographer and as a master of mediæval architecture are peculiar to
himself among historians, and materials which in their original form are dry
and uninstructive give, in his hands, weight and substance to some of his
most brilliant sketches. As a collector of some of these materials, I have
often felt surprise and delight at the use to which they have been applied;
and, although my work has been rather that of a quarryman or brickmaker, I
am sometimes led almost to regard myself as sharing in the glory of the
architect.

C O N T E N T S O F V O L. I.

CHAPTER.

I. Introduction
II. Earthworks of the Post-Roman and English Periods
III. Of the Castles of England at the Conquest and under the
Conqueror
IV. Of the Political Value of Castles under the Successors of the
Conqueror
V. The Political Influence of Castles in the Reign of Henry II.
VI. The Castles of England and Wales at the latter part of the
Twelfth Century
VII. The same subject continued
VIII. The same subject concluded
IX. The Rectangular Keep of a Norman Castle
X. Of the Shell Keep
XI. Castles of the early English Period
XII. Of the Edwardian or Concentric Castles

Alnwick Castle, Northumberland
Arques Castle, near Dieppe
Arundel Castle, Sussex
Barnard Castle
Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey
Bedford Castle
Berkhampstead Castle, Herts
Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire
Bodiham Castle, Sussex
Borthwick Tower, Midlothian
Bôves Castle
Bowes Castle
Bramber Castle, Sussex
Bridgenorth, Oldbury, and Quatford, Shropshire
Bronllys Tower, Brecknockshire
Brough and Brougham Castles, Westmoreland
Builth Castle, Brecknockshire
Caernarvon Castle
Caerphilly Castle, Glamorgan
Cardiff Castle, Glamorgan
Carlisle Castle
Castell Coch, Glamorgan
Castle Rising, Norfolk
Château-Gaillard, Normandy
Christchurch Castle, Hants
Clifford Castle, Herefordshire
Clitheroe Keep, Lancashire
Clun Castle, Shropshire
Cockermouth Castle, Cumberland
Colchester Castle
Conisborough Castle

ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.

Alnwick Castle, Plan of
Arques, Castle of, Plan of the
Barnard Castle, Plan of
Ditto The Keep
Beaumaris Castle, Ground Plan
Ditto Entrance
Ditto Bird’s-eye View
Berkhampstead Castle, Plan
Berkeley Castle, Plan
Ditto Keep
Borthwick Tower: Section
Ditto Plan of First-floor and Basement
Bowes Castle, Plan of First Floor and Ground Floor
Bramber Castle, Plan and Section
Bridgenorth Castle, Plan of Keep
Brough Castle, Plan
Brougham Castle, Ground Plan
Ditto Ground Plan of Keep
Ditto Keep, Vertical Section
Ditto Keep, from the South-West
Builth Castle, Ground Plan
Caernarvon Castle, Bird’s-eye View
Ditto Battlements, Eagle Tower
Caerphilly Castle
Ditto Ground Plan
Cardiff Castle, Ground Plan
Carlisle Castle, Plan
Castle Rising, Plan of Keep
Ditto Plan of Upper Floor
Château-Gaillard, Plan
Christchurch Castle, Plan

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

THE art of construction in Europe from the fall of the Roman empire to the
dawn of the Reformation, though of late years much and successfully
investigated, has been approached almost exclusively from its ecclesiastical
side. This was, for many reasons, to be expected. The service of the altar
justified, perhaps required, the highest degree of taste in the design of the
temple, and the utmost richness in its ornamentation. Moreover, the greater
number of our ecclesiastical buildings are still in use, and even the remains
of those that are in decay, being chiefly monastic, are interesting from the
intimate connexion of their foundations and endowments with early piety
and learning, and from the evidence supplied by their records of the descent
of landed property and of the ancestry of the older historic families of the
country.
The coëval military structures exhibit, generally, no such splendours of
design or excellence of execution, nor do they awaken such sympathies in
our breasts. The parish church is the common concern of all who worship
within its walls, or whose dead are laid within its sacred precinct; but the
castle, always a dangerous and unpopular neighbour, and often associated
with local tyranny or the disasters of war, was in most instances ruined or
swept away with the general use of gunpowder, and even where preserved,
its narrow dimensions and inconvenient arrangements, particulars more or
less essential to its value as a place of defence, rendered it, except in a few
instances, unfit for a modern residence, and have thus tended to sever it still
more completely from the current sympathies and interests of humanity.
Nevertheless, there is in these structures, obsolete as they are, or because
they are obsolete, much to attract those who care to know of the life and
customs of former generations. Many of these buildings were the work and
residence of persons who have left their mark upon the history of our
country. Some, as York, Lincoln, Norwich, Dover, Rochester, Chester,
Colchester, Wallingford, have been the seats of Saxon thanes or Danish
jarls, succeeding a Roman or perhaps British occupant; others, as

Bamborough, Taunton, Sarum, Tutbury, and Hereford, are associated with
the earliest, most celebrated, or most patriotic of our purely English kings;
others, as the Tower, Windsor, Winchester, Berkeley, Pontefract, Newark,
Carisbrook, were the scene of the splendours of our greatest or the miseries
of our most unfortunate monarchs; some, as Oxford, Northampton, Lewes,
Kenilworth, are connected with great constitutional struggles between
prince and subject; some, as Exeter, Bedford, Rochester, Pembroke,
Chepstow, and Raglan, remind us of bloody combats and sieges from the
times of the Conqueror to those of Charles the First. Some castles, as
Sherborne, the Devizes, Malmesbury, Wolvesley, Newark, Farnham,
Norham, and Durham, were constructed by lordly ecclesiastics who brought
the arm of the soldier to support the brain of the priest and statesman; some
again, as Hedingham, Bungay, Axholm, Alnwick, Raby, Tonbridge,
Warwick, Wigmore, Powderham, Goderich, and Helmsley, are intimately
bound up with the great baronial names of De Vere, Bigot, Mowbray, Percy,
Neville, Clare, Beauchamp, Mortimer, Courtenay, Talbot, and De Ros, those
“ancient stocks that so long withstood the waves and weathers of time.”
Ludlow is identified with the fairest creation of Milton’s genius; Caerleon
and Tintadgel glitter bright in mediæval romance; while Shrewsbury,
Chester, the Welsh castles, Carlisle, Newcastle, Prudhoe, Ford, Hermitage,
Jedburgh, Berwick, and a host of subordinate towers and peels, are
celebrated in Marchman’s warfare or Border Minstrelsy, and played a part
in the politic but unjust aggressions of our earlier Henrys and Edwards.
The histories and remains of these fortresses are full of interest to the
antiquary, whether his branch of study be legal, social, architectural, or
military. Almost all the most important of our English castles date, in some
form or other, from remote antiquity, and their associations were of slow
growth, and deeply rooted in many centuries of the national history. Most
were the centres of estates which had become great in the course of many
generations, and for the protection of which they were established; and the
tenure and services of the tenantry had grown up gradually, so that the
castle, or rather the fortified hall, was closely connected with the
institutions, laws, and customs of the estate, or it might be the shire,
wapentake, rape, or hundred, of which it was the defence. Such castles as
Belvoir, Clitheroe, Gloucester, Totnes, Dunster, Hastings, Bramber, and
Tickhill, were the “capita” or chief seats of ancient sokes, honours, and
baronies, having peculiar privileges within their garths and demesnes, with

manorial dependencies scattered through many counties, and accumulated
in some considerable degree even before the Norman era. Many of the lands
were held, even in Saxon times, by the ancient tenure of military service,
which, reduced into a system under the Norman kings, often took the form
of guarding and keeping in repair some specified part of the lord’s castle, a
tower, gate-house, hall, or wall, to be paid either in person as castle-guard,
or by the commutation known as ward-silver. Something like castle-guard
appears indeed in the history of Norwich castle as early as the seventh
century, and it was common in the tenth. Like the castle of Chester, that of
Durham was the seat of an Earl-Palatine, the subject of the grim humour of
Cœur-de-Lion, who of an aged Bishop made a young Earl, whose
successors, more fortunate than those of their lay brother, preserved their
Earldom and its more than Vice-regal appendages almost unshorn till the
Reformation, and with a splendid remnant of judicial and social power to
our own day; and indeed, even now, though his mitre no longer springs out
of a coronet, nor is his crozier as formerly combined with a sword, and
though the baronial hall has been liberally surrendered for the purposes of
education, the lord of Durham is not altogether wanting in pride of place,
nor reduced, as yet, even to episcopal poverty.
The “Registrum Honoris de Richmond,” a very curious Custumary,
specifies the precise part in that castle that each tenant was to defend. At
Belvoir, Staunton tower, at Berkeley, Thorpe’s tower, are so called because
families of those names were responsible for them, and at Dover, Magminot
and a score of other towers still bear the names of the chief tenants of that
important lordship, and thus preserve the memory of a tenure the substance
of which has long been abolished. The connexion between the military
tenant and his lord was intimate, and much imbued with the ancient
Teutonic equality and independence. The lord held his “aula” for his own
safety and that of his tenants; their mutual support gave power to the one
and security to the others; no man was degraded by such a tenure. The most
powerful barons were almost always also tenants holding fiefs under other
lords, often far their inferiors in rank and power.
It is this ancient history, this connexion with the earliest works of
defence, that gives so great an interest to the older castles. When, in later
days, and under extraordinary circumstances, it suited the king or some
great baron to erect a castle in a new place, the fabric had no root, no

associations. The grand characteristic of an old castle, the mighty
earthwork, was wanting, and its place was ill supplied by masses of
masonry and a ditch of moderate dimensions. No tenants clustered round
the place, to it no manors were attached, no dependents held lands by the
tenure of its defence. Thus Bere, Beaumaris, Caernarvon, Diganwy,
Conway, Harlech, and Caerphilly, grand structures as were most of them,
were mere intrusions upon the soil, and when the need that produced them
ceased, as they represented no private estate, and were the residence of no
great baron, they were left to fall into decay. Not the less are they of great
architectural interest. They are mostly of one date, laid out and constructed
upon one plan. Though intended for military purposes, within the palace
shares with the fortress. The accommodation afforded is ample, the main
apartments are spacious, the ornamentation rich. The inner court,
gatehouses, and hall of Caerphilly are grander than anything of the sort in
Britain.
The castles of a still later period, when built on new sites, were scarcely
Castles in the military sense of the term. They were not posted for the
defence of a March or a threatened district, but for the residence, more or
less secure, of the lord, usually of a newly-acquired estate, very often
purchased with the ransoms of prisoners taken in the French wars. Even
where the castle most predominated, as at Bodiham, built, as Arundel was
largely repaired, with the spoils of war, or at Tattershal, they were rather
palace-castles than castle-palaces, and this was especially the case with
Bolton, Wressil, and Sheriff-Hutton, works of the latter part of the
fourteenth century. In such works the salient towers, loops, embattled
parapets, and bold machicolations, are introduced partly for their
appearance, partly from custom, but scarcely for any military purpose.
To the student of military architecture, or of the art of the defence of
strong places before the introduction of gunpowder, the ground-plans of
defensive works and the details of castellated architecture of every period
are interesting; sometimes they are to be admired for the grandeur of their
earthworks or the enormous strength of their walls; sometimes for their
happily-selected site and the skilful disposition of their arrangements for a
flanking defence; or, as at Arques, Dover, Sarum, and Windsor, for their
subterranean outlets and countermines. Some, as Clitheroe and Peak, were
structures purely military, intended to contain only a captain and a small

garrison, and provided with scanty accommodation, and quite destitute of
ornament; in others, as Ludlow, Caerphilly, and Beaumaris, the interior
arrangements were on a scale and of a character to accommodate a Royal
Court. Even where the walls are destroyed, there often remain, in the
earthworks, traces of a much earlier people than the Normans, a people
who, as at Old Sarum, Castle-acre, Marlborough, Clare, Tonbridge, and the
Devizes, occupied the ground with bank, ditch, and palisade, long before
native skill had attained to the construction of wall or tower. Finally,
although the stern necessities of war did not admit of the banded shafts,
lofty vault, or woven window-tracery of Tintern, or Fountains, or many a
less distinguished church, the ornamentation of the richer castles, as Dover,
Rochester, Hedingham, Newcastle, Knaresborough, Castle Rising, and
Coningsborough, is marked by a chastened fitness peculiar to such works;
and of the ruder and less ornate castles, the ruins of very many present a
savage grandeur which few who have visited Caerphilly, Harlech, or
Scarborough, can fail to appreciate; any more than that union of strength
with beauty so conspicuous in Chepstow, Raglan, and Ludlow, which,
enhanced by an illustrious history, attains its highest perfection in Warwick.
The history of such castles as are connected with public events is seldom
difficult to trace. They are mentioned by the ancient chroniclers, and their
repairs and various particulars concerning them are often entered on the
Pipe rolls, and in other of the records of the realm. About a score, such as
Arundel, Bamborough, Taunton, Wigmore, and Hereford, are named in the
Saxon annals, and in charters of the eighth and following centuries; and
others, though unnamed in these authorities, may from their general
similarity safely be attributed to the same people and period. The castles on
the Welsh Marches, as Ludlow, Montgomery, Chester, Rhuddlan, Cardiff,
Chepstow, and Pembroke, had their special jurisdictions; their courts of law
and of record; their chancellor, chancery, and official seal; the lord’s
“Vicecomes” exercised powers of pit and gallows, and his court passed
fines and recoveries, and other early instruments for the conveyance of
land. In the northern Marches such castles as Norham, Prudhoe,
Cockermouth, Alnwick, Naworth, Caerlaverock, and Home, constructed for
the defence of an exposed frontier or a debatable district, the home of those
who lived by “snaffle, spur, and spear,” are commemorated in the records of
either country. Others were originally royal castles, as Dover, Canterbury,
Winchester, London, Nottingham, and York; or, as Kenilworth, Bridgenorth,

and Rochester, fell by escheat or forfeiture into the hands of the crown, and
so were maintained at the public expense, and the cost of their repairs
charged in the sheriffs’ accounts of each county.
However complete, and it is usually much the reverse, may be the history
of a castle, any knowledge we may desire as to its particulars greatly
depends upon what may remain of the structure, either in masonry or
earthworks, and to understand these the first thing necessary is a plan, and
this is just what is wanting in most guides or handbooks of castles. With a
good plan not only the age and much of the details of any castle can be
ascertained, but sometimes the work recorded in the Pipe or Fabric rolls
may be recognised. Original plans indeed there are none; no doubt the
military architects, like their ecclesiastical brethren, drew and worked from
designs and plans, but these have not been preserved. No such thing is
known to exist as an original design or a working drawing of a Norman or
even an Edwardian castle. In ecclesiastical researches, from the known
uniformity of the arrangements, this want is scarcely felt, but the plan and
details of a castle vary with the disposition of the ground or the caprice of
the builder, and although a hall, a kitchen, a chapel, a well, and a barrack
are indispensable features in a castle, these parts have nothing of the
regularity of position of a nave or choir, a cloister, a chapter-house, or a
refectory. Nevertheless, great as is the variety in both the plans and details
of castles even of the same age, their architects and engineers worked by
certain rules, so that if these be studied a clue will be obtained to the age of
the work executed. The dimensions, plan, and profile of the earthworks, the
presence, absence, or figure of the keep, the thickness of the walls, the plan,
figure, proportion and position of the mural towers, the character of the
entrance, the material employed, and the particulars of the masonry, all, if
carefully observed, afford a clue to the date of the building or of some of its
parts, so that as a general proposition, a Norman castle may be known from
one of the early English period, or from those of the first or second Edward,
and still more readily from those built in the reign of Richard the Second.
What these rules are, in what these differences consist, will appear further
on.
Mediæval architecture has only been scientifically studied during the last
forty or fifty years, and military architecture for a still shorter period.
Rickman, who first taught us to read the date of a building in its details, was

induced to turn his attention to architecture by the advice of Mr. Blore, who
died but the other day.
But Rickman, a member of the Society of Friends, scarcely notices
castles, and they have by no means shared in the flood of light directed by
Willis upon our cathedrals. Rickman’s rules, however, apply as much to one
class of buildings as to the other. What has been done, and what has to be
done, towards a history of the architecture of castles, though aided by
contemporary records and especially by sheriffs’ accounts and Fabric rolls,
has been mainly attained by attention to the internal evidence afforded by
the buildings themselves and their earthworks. Even where the castle is a
ruin, where the ashlar casing has been stripped off, and little left but the
rubble and concrete of the interior of the walls, as at Bramber, Saffron-
Walden, and Thurnham, and the disintegrating effect of the weather has had
full play, it is not impossible, nor very often difficult, to detect the general
age of the several parts of the building by the thickness of the walls and the
character of the materials and workmanship, as well as by the outline of the
works. The absence of ornament and the general removal of window-
dressings and door-cases often, it is true, render the absolute date difficult to
discover, but even then, the general figure of the openings, the rough
contour of the arches, the position and proportion of the buttresses may be
detected, and a tolerably safe conclusion formed. Perhaps, on the whole, the
greatest difficulties the military antiquary has to contend with are those
where, as at Norwich, Lancaster, York, Oxford, Caermarthen, or
Haverfordwest, the building is converted into a gaol, or where, as at
Appleby and Chilham, it is part of or attached to a modern residence.
Warwick, so remarkable on many accounts, is especially so for the skilful
manner in which it has been made suitable for modern habitation without
materially obscuring its ancient parts, and this merit may be claimed for
Tamworth, and perhaps for Raby.
Our county historians are often diffuse upon the descent of a castelry, and
the particulars of its area and tenures, but their descriptions of the buildings
are seldom intelligible. Even Surtees, so distinguished for the wealth and
lucidity of his style, whose history of Durham contains, entombed in folio,
chapters that in a more accessible form would have met with far more than
antiquarian attention, never attempts scientific description. Hunter, whose
histories of Hallamshire and of the Deanery of Doncaster are perfect as

records of the descent of families and property, is not at home in
architectural detail; and even Whitaker, who, with Hunter, was quite aware
of the interest which attaches to earthworks, gives plans of but few of them,
and says very little about the details of the castles. To come down to the
latest period, even Raine, Hodgson, and Eyton, in their histories of Durham,
Northumberland, and Salop, so copious and so accurate in all matters of
record, pass by with but short notice the various earthworks and castles in
which those counties are so rich, and the details of which would be so
valuable. We look in vain in the pages of these writers for any general
conclusions as to the age, style, and points of resemblance or difference
between these works, points which certainly fall within the province of the
topographer.
The great work of King, the “Munimenta Antiqua,” three-quarters of a
century or more older than most of the above, and full of absurd theories,
misplaced learning, and fanciful and incorrect descriptions, recognises the
importance of plans and details, and although those given with great show
of accuracy are often very incorrect, they are worth a good deal, and with
all its absurdities the book is on the whole valuable.
The “Vetusta Monumenta,” a work of the same school and period,
includes a few castles, and gives plans and sections of two, the Tower and
Hedingham, correctly, and in great detail. Unfortunately, these large and
needlessly expensive plates are accompanied by no proper descriptions. The
voluminous works of the industrious Britton include very few castles, but
what there are, as Rochester, Kenilworth, and Castle Rising, are drawn and
planned with extreme accuracy. The drawings of Grose and the brothers
Buck serve to show the condition of many English castles a century ago,
though the descriptions of Grose are poor, and his drawings are by no
means clear. Buck’s perspective is very incorrect, but this allows of the
bringing into view more of a building than can really be seen at once, which
has its advantages.
Since the rise, during the last twenty years, of numerous county
archæological societies, castles have received more attention; but no
distinct work has appeared upon English castles, though many of the most
remarkable are noticed by Mr. Parker in his excellent works on domestic
architecture. More recently has appeared the book of the late Mr. Wykeham
Martin upon his ancestral castle of Ledes, a work not only well illustrated

and furnished with an excellent ground-plan, but in which the architecture
and arrangements of the fortress are treated in a scientific manner, and his
conclusions supported, in many instances, by original documents.
England contains many curious and some grand examples of military
architecture; but that insular position and those industrious habits which
have given her internal peace have not been favourable to the erection of
fortresses of the larger class: for these we must pass to the Continent, and
especially to France. In France not only were the works of imperial Rome
of a grand and substantial character, but they were adopted and employed
by the people after the fall of the empire, and both Franks and Visigoths,
unlike our English Saxons, practised the arts of attack and defence upon
Roman principles, and remodelled the older works to meet the later
circumstances of the period. In the southern provinces, especially, are still
to be found castles and fortified towns such as Tholouse, Narbonne,
Beziers, and Carcassonne, where the old Roman circumvallation has been
preserved, and may still be recognised amidst the additions and alterations
of succeeding ages.
Like the Romans, their successors made use of earthworks and of timber
both for attack and defence, and for permanent works employed masonry of
a very Roman character. Such accounts as have descended to us of the great
sieges of the Middle Ages show that the machines and methods in use were
those handed down by tradition from Rome, many of them being such as
Cæsar employed, while others were the same as those sculptured on the
column of Trajan or described by Vegetius. Mines and countermines,
battering-rams, balistæ, catapults, the cat, the mouse, the sow, and a large
family of devices for reaching under cover the wall to be undermined, were
all derived from Roman warfare, and were employed, if not with the skill
and discipline of Rome, with a degree of vigour and boldness that was
scarcely less effective.
Moreover, the political circumstances of France were eminently
favourable to the construction of great military works. The great duchies
and scarcely subordinate kingdoms which afterwards composed the French
monarchy were, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, independent states,
each with an open frontier needing defences, and with a brave and wealthy
baronage very able and very willing to supply them. Hence France contains
within its present borders not only cities of Roman origin and celebrated

under the immediate successors of the Romans, but the remains of the
castle-palaces of the dukes and barons of Normandy and Brittany; of
Burgundy, Provence, Navarre, Flanders, Anjou, and many a lesser province;
and he is but little qualified to judge of castles or of fortified mediæval
cities who is unacquainted with Arques, or Falaise, or Loches; Coucy or
Château-Gaillard, or Etampes; Carcassonne, Avignon, Villeneuve, or
Beaucaire, or the splendid restoration of Pierrefonds.
The possession of these great works has drawn forth, though tardily, a
few writers capable of comprehending and describing them. Those in
Normandy are the subject of the well-known lectures of M. de Caumont,
delivered at Caen in 1830 and published in 1835. They contain a very
interesting section on military works, with plans and elevations which,
though roughly executed and on a small scale, are valuable; his descriptions
are clear, and his conclusions generally sound. Others, before M. de
Caumont, have described particular structures, but he seems to have been
the first to attempt a general classification based upon a critical examination
of the examples in his own province.
Of detached writings, monographs, may be mentioned those of M.
Deville upon Château-Gaillard, Tancarville, and Arques, published in 1828,
1834, and 1839. The first is particularly strong in its history of the castle
and of its famous siege, and the last excellent both in history and
description; and all three are accompanied by clear ground-plans.
The great work of Viollet-le-Duc, though not confined to military
architecture, contains by much the most comprehensive, as well as the most
detailed, account of French castles yet given to the world; and as, besides
the general resemblance between all European castles, those of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries in Normandy are almost counterparts of those of the
same period, and often built by the same nobles or their sons, in England, it
has deservedly become our chief authority. Also the castles of France, being
on a larger scale and often more perfect than our own, M. Le-Duc has been
able to explain more satisfactorily than could have been done here, certain
details, such, for example, as those of the gateway, drawbridge, and
portcullis, and especially of the timber superstructures for vertical defence,
known as “hourdes” and “bretasches,” terms represented with us by the
“hoard” of a London builder, and the “brattice” of the mining engineer. M.
Le-Duc’s work has given occasion and matter for a small volume from the

press of Mr. Parker. There is besides a work in German, “Geschichte der
Militär-Architectur des fruhern Mittelalters,” by M. G. H. Krieg von
Hochfelden, which contains much of great interest concerning German
castles, as well as a general notice of those in France and England.
Although military architecture in England, setting aside the works of the
Romans, begins with the age, and probably with the actual period, of the
Norman Conquest, the country contains numerous examples of military
works of an earlier, and in many instances no doubt of a very remote, time.
These works, executed in earth, or at least of which no parts but banks,
mounds, and ditches remain, are sometimes of great size, but usually of
extreme simplicity of plan. Of most of them, the Roman again excepted, the
relative age is all that we can hope to ascertain, but even from this
knowledge we are at present very far; and although it is probable that the
simple encampments, of irregular outline, and on high ground, are the work
of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, and those of circular or more regular
outline, having higher banks, and placed in more accessible positions, are
the works of the post-Roman period, yet the outlines are often so mixed,
and the arrangement of the mounds and banks so alike, that it cannot always
certainly be said what is sepulchral, what merely commemorative or
monumental, and what military; what the works of the earlier or later Celts,
what of the Saxons, what of their Danish conquerors, and sometimes even,
though not often, what is Roman.
The particulars of these various earthworks, so different in plan and
extending over so many centuries, deserve a separate notice, and therefore,
though originally intended to have been here treated of, it seemed more
prudent to lay this branch of the subject aside for the present, in the hope
that it may be taken up when the completion of the larger scale Ordnance
Maps shall afford more accurate and copious data than now can
conveniently be procured. The subject, in fact, should have entered into the
instructions given to the officers of the Survey, by which means we should
at least have avoided the obscure and sometimes contradictory system of
nomenclature by which these works have been designated at different
periods of this great, and in most respects admirable, national undertaking.
But, although it be expedient here to pass by in silence those earthworks,
irregular, rectangular, or concentric, which have no direct connexion with
the subsequent castles of masonry, and therefore with military architecture,

there remain, nevertheless, certain earthworks which are so connected, and
which must therefore here be noticed, and are of importance sufficient to
require a separate chapter for their consideration.

CHAPTER II.
EARTHWORKS OF THE POST-ROMAN AND ENGLISH PERIODS.

BUT little is recorded of the internal condition of Britain between the
departure of the Legions, a.d. 411, and the arrival of the Northmen in force
thirty or forty years later; but whatever may have been the effect of Roman
dominion, or of the infusion of Roman blood, upon the social or
commercial character of the Britons, it is at least certain that they had made
little progress in the construction of places of defence. The Romans dealt
rather with the country than with the people. The foreign trade under the
Roman sway was no doubt considerable, and much land was under
cultivation, but the Britons seem to have acquired but few of the Roman
arts, and nothing of the Roman discipline. Neither have their descendants,
the Welsh, many customs which can be traced distinctly to a Roman origin;
and although there are many words in their language which show its origin
to be cognate with the Latin, there are comparatively few which can, with
any probability, be shown to be derived from the Latin. How far against the
Scots and Picts they made use of Roman tactics or employed Roman
weapons is but little known. In defending themselves against the Northmen
they, no doubt, took advantage of the Roman walls at Richborough and
Lymne, and afterwards of Pevensey, but on the whole with only temporary
success; and from these they were driven back upon the earthworks of their
probably remote predecessors. There is not a shadow of evidence that they
constructed any new defensive works in masonry upon the Roman models,
or even repaired those that were left to them in the same material.
There do, however, remain certain earthworks which seem to be laid out
according to Roman rules, but which contain no traces of Roman
habitations, are not connected with great Roman roads, and the banks and
ditches of which are of greater height and depth than those generally in use
among the Romans in Britain, and which therefore there seems reason to
attribute to the post-Roman Britons. Such are Tamworth, Wareham,
Wallingford, possibly Cardiff, though upon a Roman road, and the additions
to the Roman works at York. The name Wallingford, “the ford of the

Welsh,” may be quoted in support of this view. It is difficult to understand
how it is that there are no remains in masonry which may be attributed to
this period, for it is impossible that with the example of the Romans before
their eyes, and a certain admixture of Roman blood in the veins of many of
them, the Britons should not have possessed something of the art of
construction. This difficulty does not occur in Gaul, whence the Romans
were never formally withdrawn. On the Continent indeed, generally,
buildings are found of all ages, from the Roman period downwards.
Gregory of Tours, in his “Historia Francorum,” written towards the end of
the sixth century, describes the fortified place of Merliar as of great extent
and strength, in which there were included a sweet-water lake, gardens, and
orchards; and M. de Caumont cites a description of an episcopal castle on
the Moselle in the same century, which was defended by thirty towers, one
of which contained a chapel, and was armed with a balista, and within the
place were cultivated lands and a water-mill; and there were many such,
like the defences of Carcassonne, of mixed Roman and post-Roman work,
that is, of work executed before and about the fifth century.
In Britain, the course of events was different. The Northmen, men of the
sea, and accustomed to life in the open air, had no sympathies with the
Celts, and utterly disdained what remained of Roman civilisation; slaying or
driving out the people, and burning and destroying the Roman buildings,
which, in consequence, are in England fragmentary, and in most cases only
preserved by having been covered up with earth or incorporated into later
structures. The Roman works were mostly on too large a scale for the wants
of new settlers, and even where these occupied the Roman towns they cared
not to restore or complete the walls, but buried what remained of them in
high earthen banks, upon which they pitched their palisades, and within
which they threw up their moated citadels. The Northmen respected
nothing, adopted nothing. Their earliest mission was one of violence and
destruction. They appear, in the south and east at least, in a large measure to
have slain and driven out the people of the land, and to have abolished such
institutions as they possessed. But not the less did they carry with them the
seeds of other institutions of a far more vigorous and very healthful
character. Whether Saxons, Angles, or Jutes, though landing on the shores
of Britain in quite independent parties, they had the substance of their
speech, their customs, and their gods in common. They had the same
familiarity with the sea, the same indisposition to occupy Roman buildings,

the same absence of all sympathy with the native Britons. If they still held
most of their lands in common, the house and the homestead were already
private property. Their family ties were strong, as is shown in the
nomenclature of their villages. As they conquered, they settled, and
practised agriculture, and as they embraced Christianity they gradually
established those divisions, civil and ecclesiastical, sokes and rapes,
tythings, hundreds, wapentakes, and parishes, which still remain to attest
the respect to which they had attained for law and order, for the rights of
private property, and their capacity for self-government.
Much akin to, and before long to be incorporated into the English nation,
were the Norsemen from the seaboard country north of the Elbe, the Danes
of English history and of local tradition, who in the eighth century played
the part of the Saxons in the fifth. They scoured the same seas, and harassed
the Saxons as the Saxons had harassed the Britons, only the invaders and
the invaded being, generally, of the same blood, finally coalesced, and the
distinctions between them became well-nigh effaced; still, for three
centuries, the ninth, tenth, and eleventh, the Danish name was the terror of
the British Isles. They infested every strand, anchored in every bay,
ascended every river, penetrated and laid waste the interior of the country.
Orkney is full of their traces, their language is the key to the
topographical nomenclature of Caithness, the gigantic works at
Flamborough Head are attributed to them; the great cutting, by which they
carried a branch of the Thames across Southwark, is on record. In the year
a.d. 1000, Ethelred found them forming much of the population of
Cumberland. Such terminations as eye, ness, holm, and by, so common
along the shores of England, or over the lands watered by the Trent and the
Humber, the Tees and the Tyne, and not unknown on the western coast,
show the extent and permanence of their settlements. It does not, however,
appear that the Danish earthworks differed materially from those thrown up
by the other northern nations in England. Camps tending to the circular
form and headlands fortified by segmental lines of bank and ditch belong to
all, and all when they settled and acquired property underwent very similar
changes in their habits and modes of life.
No doubt, among the earlier works of the Northmen, those thrown up to
cover their landing and protect their ships, were the semicircular lines of
ditch and bank found on capes and headlands and projecting cliffs on

various parts of the sea-coast. Usually they are of limited area, as the
invaders came commonly in very small bodies, but the Flamborough
entrenchment has a line of bank and ditch three and a half miles long, of a
most formidable character, and including a very large area.
Along the coast of South Wales are many small camps, probably of
Danish origin, such as Sully, Porthkerry, Colhugh, Dunraven, Pennard,
Penmaen, five others on the headland of Gower, and five or six along the
southern shore of Pembrokeshire. Besides these material traces of the
invaders, are a long list of such names as Haverford (fiord), Stackpole,
Hubberton, Angle, Hubberston, Herbrandston, Gateholm, Stockholm,
Skomer, Musselwick, Haroldston, Ramsey, Strumble, Swansea, savouring
intensely of the Baltic. The Dinas’ Head between Newport and Fishguard
bays, though bearing a Welsh name, is fortified by an entrenchment due
without doubt to the Northmen.
These and similar works evidently belong to the earlier period of the
northern invasions, when the long black galleys of the vikings visited at not
infrequent intervals the British and Irish shores, before they settled in either
land. In the fifth and sixth centuries settlements began to be formed in
Britain, and speedily assumed dimensions very formidable to the natives.
The south-eastern coast of Britain, infested even in Roman times by the sea-
rovers, and thence known as the Saxon shore, had been fortified by the
Romans, but the works, intrinsically strong, were too weak in British hands
to stem the progress of the foe. In a.d. 530, Cerdic and Cynric took the Isle
of Wight, and slew many Britons at a place where Wightgar was afterwards
buried, and where he probably threw up the work which bore his name, and
afterwards, as now, was known as Carisbroke. In 547, Ida, the “flame-
bearer” of the Welsh bards, founded Bebbanburgh, now Bamborough, and
enclosed it first by a hedge [hegge], and afterwards by a wall; and in 552
Cynric engaged the Britons at Sorbiodunum, afterwards Searo-burh, and
now Old Sarum; as did in 571 Cuthwulf or Cutha at Bedcanford or Bedford,
in each of these two latter places, as at Carisbroke and probably at
Twynham or Christchurch, throwing up the works which yet remain. The
conquest of the Romano-British cities of Cirencester, Bath, and Gloucester,
and the whole left bank of the Severn, from the Avon of Bristol to that of
Worcester, was the immediate consequence of the victory of Deorham in
571, and was followed by the possession of Pengwern, afterwards

Shrewsbury, a most important post, and one by means of which the
Mercians, and after them the Normans, held the Middle March of Wales. All
along the line from Christchurch and Carisbroke, by Berkeley and
Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick and Shrewsbury, earthworks were then
thrown up, most of which are still to be seen.
With the social changes among the invaders changed also the character of
their military, or rather of their mixed military and domestic, works. The
British encampments, intended for the residence of a tribe having all things
in common, were, both in position and arrangements, utterly unsuited to the
new inhabitants. The Roman stations, intended for garrisons, save where
they formed part of an existing city, were scarcely less so, nor were the
earlier works of the Northmen suited to their later wants. These were mostly
of a hasty character, thrown up to cover a landing or to hold at bay a
superior force. No sooner had the strangers gained a permanent footing in a
district than their operations assumed a different character. Their ideas were
not, like those of the Romans, of an imperial character; they laid out no
great lines of road, took at first no precautions for the general defence or
administration of the country. Self-government prevailed. Each family held
and gave name to its special allotment. This is the key to the plan of the
later and great majority of purely English earthworks. They were not
intended for the defence of a tribe or territory, nor for the accommodation of
fighting men, but for the centre and defence of a private estate, for the
accommodation of the lord and his household, for the protection of his
tenants generally, should they be attacked, and for the safe housing, in time
of war, of their flocks and herds.
These works, thrown up in England in the ninth and tenth centuries, are
seldom, if ever, rectangular, nor are they governed to any great extent by the
character of the ground. First was cast up a truncated cone of earth, standing
at its natural slope, from twelve to even fifty or sixty feet in height. This
“mound,” “motte,” or “burh,” the “Mota” of our records, was formed from
the contents of a broad and deep circumscribing ditch. This ditch, proper to
the mound, is now sometimes wholly or partially filled up, but it seems
always to have been present, being in fact the parent of the mound.
Berkhampstead is a fine example of such a mound, with the original ditch.
At Caerleon, Tickhill, and Lincoln it has been in part filled up; at Cardiff it
was wholly so, but has recently been most carefully cleared out, and its

original depth and breadth are seen to have been very formidable. Though
usually artificial, these mounds are not always so. Durham, Launceston,
Montacute, Dunster, Restormel, Nant cribba, are natural hills; Windsor,
Tickhill, Lewes, Norwich, Ely, and the Devizes, are partly so; at Sherborne
and Hedingham the mound is a natural platform, scarped by art; at Tutbury,
Pontefract and Bramber, where the natural platform was also large, it has
been scarped, and a mound thrown up upon it.
Connected with the mound is usually a base court or enclosure,
sometimes circular, more commonly oval or horseshoe-shaped, but if of the
age of the mound always more or less rounded. This enclosure had also its
bank and ditch on its outward faces, its rear resting on the ditch of the
mound, and the area was often further strengthened by a bank along the
crest of the scarp of the ditch. Now and then, as at Old Sarum, there is an
additional but slighter bank placed outside the outer ditch, that is, upon the
crest of the counterscarp. This was evidently intended to carry a palisade,
and to fulfil the conditions of the covered-way along the crest of one of
Vauban’s counterscarps. Where the enclosure is circular, the mound is either
central, as at Pickering, or Mileham, or at Old Sarum, where it is possibly
an addition to an older work, such as Badbury, or it stands on one side, as at
Tutbury. Where the area is oblong or oval, the mound may be placed near
one end, as at Bramber. At Windsor and Arundel it is on one side of an
oblong enclosure, producing a sort of hourglass constriction, and where this
is the case a part of its ditch coincides with the ditch of the place. Where the
court is only part of a circle it rests upon a part of the ditch of the mound. At
Sarum there are two ditches concentrically arranged. At Berkhampstead the
mound is outside the court. On the whole, as at Tickhill, Castle Acre, and
Lincoln, it is most usual to see the mound on the edge of the court, so that it
forms a part of the general “enceinte” of the place. Where the base court is
of moderate area, as at Builth and Kilpeck, its platform is often slightly
elevated by the addition of a part of the contents of the ditch, which is
rarely the case in British camps. At Wigmore and Builth, where the mound
stands on the edge of a natural steep, the ditch is there discontinued. The
base court is usually two or three times the area of the mound, and
sometimes, as at Wallingford or Warwick, much more. No doubt the reason
for placing the mound on one side rather than in the centre of the court was
to allow of the concentration of the lodgings, stables, &c., on one spot, and
to make the mound form a part of the exterior defences of the place.

The mound and base court, though the principal parts, were not always
the whole work. Often there was on the outside of the court and applied to
it, as at Brinklow and Rockingham, a second enclosure, also with its bank
and ditch, frequently of larger area than the main court, though not so
strongly defended. It was intended to shelter the flocks and herds of the
tenants in case of an attack. At Norham, the castle ditch was used for this
purpose as late as the reign of Henry VIII. There are several cases in which
the mound is placed within a rectangular enclosure, which has given rise to
a notion that the whole was Roman. Tamworth is such a case, and there,
fortunately, the mound is known historically to have been the work of
Æthelflaed, as is that of Leicester, similarly placed. From this and from the
evidence of the earthworks themselves a like conclusion may be drawn as
to the superadded mounds at Wareham, Wallingford, and Cardiff. At
Helmsley, as at Castle Acre, Brougham, and Brough, the earthworks stand
upon part of a Roman camp, and at Kilpeck and Moat Lane, near
Llanidloes, part of the area may possibly be British.
East Anglia contains some fine examples of these moated mounds,
combined with rectangular encampments. Castle Acre is an excellent
example, as are, in a less degree, Mileham and Buckenham.
When the English lord took up his abode within a Roman camp or
station, he often turned the Roman works, whether of earth or masonry, to
account, and threw up his bank in one corner, altering the contiguous banks
and ditches to suit his new arrangements. Thus at Pevensey, Leicester,
Cambridge, Lincoln, Southampton, Winchester, Chichester, Caerleon,
Chester, English mounds and base courts are placed within Roman
enclosures which either are or were walled. At Auldchester, near Bicester,
the Roman Alauna, is a mound of later date than the camp. At Plessy,
Tamworth, Wallingford, Wareham, Cardiff, are found mounds decidedly of
later date than the enclosing works. There are also cases where the mound is
placed within an earthwork with something of a tendency to the rectangular,
though scarcely to be pronounced either Roman or Romano-British. Such
are Clare, Hereford, Eaton-Socon, where the mound is very small indeed;
and Lilbourne. Tempsford is very peculiar: it is a small rectangular
enclosure close to the Ouse, and in one corner, upon the bank, is a small
mound.

The group of works, of which the mound was the principal feature,
constituted a Burh. The burh was always fortified, and each inhabitant of
the surrounding township was bound to aid in the repair of the works,
almost always of timber, a material which the Saxons, like other German
nations, appear usually to have preferred for building purposes to stone,
though some of their towns were walled, as Colchester and Exeter, and
Domesday records the custom of repairing the walls of Oxford, Cambridge,
and Chester.
In these English, as before them in the British works, the ditches were
sometimes used to contain and protect the approaches. This is well seen at
Clun and Kilpeck. At Tutbury the main approach enters between two
exterior platforms, and skirts the outer edge of the ditch, until it reaches the
inner entrance. The object was to place the approach under the eyes and
command of the garrison.
As there are still some archæologists whose experience entitles their
opinions to respect, who attribute these moated mounds to the Britons, it
will be necessary to point out that the attribution of them to the English,
though materially strengthened by the evidence of the works themselves,
does not wholly, or even mainly, rest upon it. While the British camps are
either præhistoric or unnoticed even in the earliest histories, and the age of
the Roman works is only deducible from their plan and style, and from the
known and limited period of the Roman stay in Britain, English works are
continually mentioned in the chronicles, and the names of their founders
and date of the construction of many of them are on record. Thus Taunton
was founded by Ine a little before 721–2, when Queen Æthelburh destroyed
it. The original earthworks still remaining are considerable, and formed part
of the defences of a fortress erected long afterwards. In the ninth century, as
the Danish incursions became more frequent, works of defence became
more general, and are largely mentioned directly, or by implication, in the
Anglo-Saxon chronicle. In 868–9, the Danish army was at Nottingham, a
strong natural position, in which it was besieged by the West-Saxons. In
870, the Danes were a whole year at York and wintered at Thetford, where
large earthworks remain. In 875 they were at Cambridge, and in 876 at
Wareham, a West-Saxon fortress, whence they attacked Exeter, and at all
these places are earthworks. In 878, we read that Ælfred “wrought” a
fortress at Æthelney, and in 885 the Danes laid siege to Rochester and

“wrought” another fortress about their position, no doubt the great mound
that still remains outside the castle and the Roman area. In 893, the Danes
ascended four miles along the Limen or “Lymne” river in Kent, and there
stormed a work, “geweorc,” which was but half constructed. In the same
year Hæsten entered the Thames and “wrought” him a work at Milton, and
other Danes landed at Appledore, at the mouth of the Limen. In 894 Ælfred
fought with the Danes at Farnham, where the episcopal keep still stands
upon a burh. Hæsten or Hastings had already constructed a burh at Benfleet,
which was stormed by Ælfred, who in the same year blocked him up at
Buttington, on the Severn. In 896, the Danes threw up a work on the Lea,
twenty miles from London, whereupon Ælfred threw up another work on
each bank of that river lower down, and diverted the waters through a
number of shallow courses, thus effectually shutting in the Danish ships.
The Danes, in consequence, marched inland, and crossed the country to
Quatbridge, on the Severn, and there “wrought a work” and passed the
winter. Some of these works remain, and are good examples of moated
mounds.
In the tenth century the number of English fortresses was prodigiously
increased, chiefly by the energy of Æthelflaed. Ælfred died in 901, and was
succeeded by Eadward, his son, who attacked, in the fortress of Badbury,
his cousin Æthelwald, who held Christchurch and Wimborne. In 907,
Chester, the Roman walls of which had long lain in ruin, was strengthened,
probably by the earthworks still to be seen in its south-western corner,
though the mound has been almost entirely removed. In 910, Æthelflaed,
sister to Eadward and Lady of the Mercians, comes upon the scene as the
greatest founder of fortresses in that century. In that year she built a burh at
Bramsbury, and in 913 one at Scergeat or Sarrat, and at Bridgenorth
(Oldbury). In 913, about the 14th of April, Eadward built the north burh at
Hertford, between the rivers Memera or Maran, the Benefica or Bean, and
the Lygea or Lea, upon which long after stood the shell keep of the Norman
castle; and after May and before midsummer he encamped at Maldon while
Witham burh was being built. Then also the second burh of Hertford, south
of the Lea, was built. In the same year, 913, Æthelflaed and her Mercians
built the burh of Tamworth in the early summer, and in August that of
Stafford; and in the next year, 914, also in the summer, that of Eddesbury,
and towards the end of autumn, that of Warwick, on which are still traces of
a later keep.

In 915, Æthelflaed constructed a burh at Chirbury, probably in the field
still known as the King’s Orchard, and at Wardbury, and before mid-winter
that of Runcorn, where was afterwards a Norman castle. In that year the
Danes ascended the Bristol Channel and entered Irchenfield, west of
Hereford, remarkable, amongst many others, for its burhs of Kilpeck and
Ewias-Harold, whence they were driven back by the men of Hereford and
Gloucester, and of the surrounding burhs. In 916, Æthelflaed stormed the
mound of Brecknock, and took thence the Welsh king’s wife and thirty-four
persons. Late in the year Eadward was some weeks at Buckingham, and
there constructed two burhs, one on each bank of the river, on one of which
afterwards stood Earl Giffard’s keep. In 917, Æthelflaed took Derby, the
gates of which town are mentioned, and in 918 the burh of Leicester, soon
after which she died in her palace in Tamworth. In 919, Eadward went to
Bedford, took its burh, the site of Lord Beauchamp’s keep, and there
remained for four weeks, during which time he threw up a second burh on
the opposite or south bank of the river Ouse. In 920 he constructed the burh
at Maldon, and in 921, in April, that at Towcester, which in the autumn he
girdled with a wall of stone. In the following May he directed the burh at
Wigmore to be built, and in August the whole Danish army spent a day
before Towcester, but failed to take it by storm. In that year the Danes
abandoned their work at Huntingdon and wrought one at Tempsford, and
thence moved to Bedford, whence they were repulsed. They also attacked
the burh at Wigmore for a day, but without success. This was a busy year. In
it the English stormed Tempsford burh, and beset Colchester burh, and slew
there all but one man who escaped over the wall. Maldon burh also was
attacked by the Danish army, but without success. In November, Eadward
repaired the burhs at Huntingdon and Colchester and raised that at
Cledemutha. In 922, the same great English leader, between May and
midsummer, “wrought” a burh at Stamford on the south bank of the
Welland, opposite to that already existing. He reduced the burh at
Nottingham, repaired it, and garrisoned it with Englishmen and Danes. In
923, Eadward erected a burh at Thelwall, and in 924 one at Bakewell, and a
second at Nottingham, opposite to the existing one, the Trent flowing
between them. In 943, Olaf the Dane took Tamworth by storm. In 952,
mention is made of the fastness of Jedburgh, and of the town of Thetford. In
993, Bamborough was stormed.

TOWCESTER BURGH BURY MOUNT

Of the fifty burhs named in the chronicle, about forty-one have been
identified, and of these about twenty-nine still exist. Of this number,
twenty-two are moated mounds, mostly with base courts also moated. At
Taunton, as at Chirbury, there is reason to suppose that there was a mound,
and the works at Exeter, Rochester, Colchester, and Pevensey, which are
Roman, possibly succeeding earlier British works, have been taken
possession of and altered by the English, as is the case also at Chester,
where was, and at Pevensey, where still is, a mound. At Rochester is a large
mound, though outside the fortress. Rougemont in Exeter is itself a natural
mound, and Bamborough, from its great height and steepness, needed

neither mound nor earthwork of any kind. Of double burhs, commanding
the passage of a river, the chronicle mentions Nottingham and those on the
Lea, and others at Hertford, Bedford, Stamford, and Buckingham.
Unfortunately, none of these are perfect. At Nottingham and on the Lea
both mounds have long been removed; one is remembered at Stamford and
Buckingham, and one may still be seen at Hertford. But the only double
mounds remaining to show how, in the tenth century, the English defended
the passage of a river, are those at York, which are not mentioned in the
chronicle.
It appears then, that setting aside works that have not been identified, or
which have been destroyed before note was taken of them, there are above a
score of burhs, the date of the erection of which, and the name of the
founder, are entered in a trustworthy record, and which are still to be seen.
What then is a burh? A burh is a moated mound with a table top, and a base
court, also moated, either appended to one side of it, or within which it
stands. But the burhs, the dates of which are on record, and which are thus
described, are but a very few of those found all over England, in the
lowlands of Scotland, and on the marches bordering on Wales, which from
their precise similarity in character to those actually identified must be
assumed to be of like date and origin, and may therefore safely be attributed
to the ninth and tenth and possibly to the eighth centuries, and to the
English people, that is to the Northern settlers generally, as distinguished
from the Britons and the Romans.
It happens also that, in very many cases where these burhs are found,
they can be shown to have been the “caput” or centre of an estate. It is
probable that this was always the case, but as a rule it is only with respect to
the very large estates that this can be proved from records. Thus the mound
of Wallingford was the seat of Wigod, whose heiress married Robert
D’Oyley; Bourne or Brum was held by Earl Morcar in 870; Edwin, Earl of
Mercia, Lord of Strafford Wapentake, in Yorkshire, had an “aula” at
Laughton-en-le-Morthen, and Conyngsborough was the centre of a royal
fee. The English Lord of Richmondshire had a seat at Gilling, the mound of
which has not long been levelled. The mound at Halton was the seat of Earl
Tosti. At Berry Banks, near Stone, dwelt Wulfer, Lord of Mercia. The chief
seats of the English lords of Hallamshire are not known, but in that district
the latter thanes were Waltheof, Tosti, Sweyn Lord of Sheffield, and Harold,

whose seats must be sought for in the mounds and banks of Castle Hill and
Castle Bailey, near Bradford; Castle Hill, at the meeting of the Sheaf and
Don; Tickhill, Wincobank, and Mexborough, all moated mounds; also in
Lancashire and Yorkshire are Melling and Hornby in Lonsdale, Castle Hills
at Black Bourton, Robin Hood’s butt at Clapham, and Sedbury or Sedda’s
burh, a well-known mound with oval courts, Castle-dykes at Ledescal and
Langwith, Maiden Castle at Grinton, and Kirkby Malessant. The great
mound at Clare in Suffolk was the fortified seat of Earl Aluric, who held an
enormous estate in that district. Eye, in the same county of Suffolk, the seat
of Earl Edric, has a fine mound, as have Thetford and Haughley. The hill of
Hedingham and that of Norwich are natural, but the latter was raised
artificially and fortified with a ditch and horseshoe appendages, probably in
the ninth or tenth centuries. Dudley also was a great English residence, as
was Bennington mound in Hertfordshire. Hereford was fortified by the
great Harold, Ewyas by another Harold; Kilpeck and Richard’s Castle were
also early seats, as were the mounds of Clun, Oswestry, and Whittington, in
Shropshire. In Scotland upon the mound called the “Butte of Dunsinane,”
tradition places the residence of Macbeth early in the eleventh century. The
butte stands within an oval area defended, says Pennant, by banks and
ditches. Opposite Kingussie on the Spey is a very curious natural mound,
rising on three sides out of the marshes of the river, and which is known to
have been the residence of the celebrated Wolf of Badenoch. There is also a
moated mound with appended courts on the banks of the Clyde.

LAUGHTON-EN-LE-MORTHEN

The burhs are mentioned in the early laws of England, but by this time
the signification of the word had become extended, so that it was frequently
applied not only to a moated mound but to the town that had sprung up
around it. By the laws of Æthelstan, every burh was to be repaired within
fourteen days after the Rogation days, and money was allowed to be coined
at royal burhs. By the laws of Edmund the king’s burh was a place of

refuge, and under those of Æthelred, he who fought in a king’s burh was
liable to death. Burh-bryce was the violation of a castle or dwelling. Burh-
bote, a payment for keeping burhs or fortresses in a state of defence, was a
branch of the well-known “trinoda necessitas.” Originally, the English burh
was a fortified house, the “Domus defensabilis” of Domesday, the “Aula,”
the German “Saal,” of the owner of the surrounding estate or manor, which
the tenants were bound to defend; of which the designation may sometimes
be Norman, but the thing designated is undoubtedly of far earlier origin.
The term burh naturally became extended to the cluster of surrounding huts,
and a hedge with a ditch was their primary enclosure, the repair of which is
provided for in very early Saxon laws. A good stout hedge, even of
quickset, is not to be despised, and the cactus and bamboo hedges of India
will turn a band of soldiers. The word “Haia” is not infrequent in
Domesday, and it there means an enclosure into which wild beasts were
driven, “Haia in qua capiebantur feratæ.” It was also used for the enclosure
of a park, as the Haye Park, at Knaresborough, and the Hawe Park attached
to Skipton Castle. King Ida’s hedge at Bamborough was for the defence of
annexed pasture lands, for the castle scarce needed any such addition to its
surpassing strength. The word was also extensively used in Normandy, both
for a defence and for an enclosure. One of the old Herefordshire castles
bears the name of Hay.

CASTLE HILL MEXBOROUGH

The Edictum Pistense of Charles the Bald, in 864 (cap. i.), expressly
orders all “Castella et firmitates et haias,” made without his license, to be
destroyed, “disfactas,” because they were injurious to the district. “Vicini et
circummanentes exinde multas deprædationes et impedimenta sustinent”
(“Rerum Gallicarum Scriptores,” vii., 677). Hedges therefore were not
always mere enclosures, but sometimes a military defence.
These mounds, where they have descended to us, and have undergone no
change at the hands of the Norman architect, are mere green hillocks, clear
indeed in their simplicity, though having lost by time the sharpness of their
profile, and more or less of their height and of the depth of their ditches. No
masonry has ever been observed upon them which could by any possibility
be attributed to their founders, or which could be supposed to be part of
their original design. It is evident, however, that the earthwork was only the
support of some additional defence. On the mound was certainly a
residence, and both its crest and base, as well as the appended courts, must

have been encircled by some sort of barrier besides the earth-bank. We read
that Towcester was defended by a wall, which however was built very
quickly, and probably was like a field wall, without mortar. But with or
without mortar, no wall could have been placed upon a fresh heap of earth,
and that spoken of must have stood upon the natural ground at or around the
base of the mound. No doubt Exeter was walled by Æthelstan, and
Colchester had walls, partly, as we see, Roman, but partly no doubt,
English; and Derby had gates, though of what material is not stated. At
Corfe is some masonry, certainly older than the Conquest, and part of its
outer defences; but Corfe is a natural hill. It is well known that the English
were from a remote period conversant with masonry, and constructed
churches of stone or timber as suited them best; and nothing is more natural
than that they should have employed the former where the object was to
resist an attack. But upon a burh, or upon an artificial earthwork of any
height, masonry of any kind was obviously out of the question. Timber, and
timber alone, would have been the proper material. Timber was always at
hand, and it was a material of which, possibly from their early maritime
habits, the English were very fond. Also the rapidity with which these burhs
were constructed shows that timber must have been largely employed. They
were thrown up, completed, attacked, burnt, and restored, all within a few
months.
There are not wanting descriptions of these timber-defended works. M.
de Caumont cites a curious passage from Ernaldus Nigellus, an author of
the ninth century, who relates an expedition under Louis le Debonnaire
against the Breton king, Marman, whose strongholds were protected by
ditches and palisades.
“Est locus hinc silvis, hinc flumine cinctus amoeno.
Sepibus et sulcis atque palude situs.”
Intus opima domus....

This however was a Breton work, and there is no mention of a mound.
Two centuries later the mound was in general use, and another quotation,
taken also from M. de Caumont, from the life of John, a canonised prelate
of the church of Terouane, by Archdeacon Colmier, gives an account of the
fortress of Merchen, near Dixmude, in which the material employed and the
mode of construction are clearly set forth. The original, taken from the
“Acta Sanctorum,” is appended to this paper, and is in truth a description of

a moated mound, with its fence and turrets of timber, its central dwelling,
and the bridge across the ditch rising to the top of the mound. The
description is illustrated by the representation of the taking of Dinan, in the
Bayeux tapestry. There is seen the conical mound surmounted by a timber
building, which two men with torches are attempting to set on fire, while
others are ascending by a steep bridge which spans the moat, and rises to a
gateway on the crest of the mound.
Many of these mounds under the name of motes (motæ) retained their
timber defences to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and that too on the
Shropshire and Welsh border, crowded with castles of masonry.
Ducange defines mota as “Collis, seu tumulus, cui inædificatum est
castellum. Olim castella numquam nisi in eminentissimis locis extruebantur.
In Flandria vero, humili ac planissima regione, congestis undequaque
terrarum molibus, fieri solebant motæ, quibus arces imponerentur”; and
adds that mota is the same work known in Dauphigny as “poypia,” and in
Auvergne as “mote seigneuriale.” From Lambertus Ardensis he quotes:
“Motam altissimam, sive dunjonem eminentem in munitionis signum
firmavit, et in aggerem coacervavit.” And Orderic tells that, in 1098, Pain
de Mont-Doubleau delivered up to William Rufus, “Fortissimam, quam
apud Balaonem possidebat, motam, per quam totum oppidum adversariis
subactum paruit.” And in 1119, Fulk of Anjou, with 500 knights laid siege,
“ad motam Galterii,” which the king had fortified. Also near Ponte-Corvo
was “Motam magnam, quam faciebat facere Dominus Canis cum mulfossis
et tajatis ad claudendum Paduanos,” like the great mound at Rochester, just
outside the city wall. In the Roman de Rou:—
“Hubert de Rie est à sa porte
Entre le mostier et sa mote.”

“Mostier” being the church. Also in “La Bataille des Sept Arts”:—
“Qui fu fier cum chastel sur mote.”

Also the Consuetudines Trecensis speak of “Le principal chastel ou maison-
fort, mote, ou place de maison seigneuriale”: and in Colletus, “Il y a des
masures qui ont des droits très considérables; nous avons des simple poypes
[ce sont des terres élevées et fossoyées] qui ont les plus beaux droits.” The
History of Dauphigny has, in 1290, “Item castrum seu Poypiam de

Montlyopart; item castrum seu fortalicium de Pusigniano.” Ducange is
copious on this subject.
The use of the mound as the site of the “maison seigneuriale” was
general in England, and several such—as Barwick-in-Elmet and Laughton-
en-le-Morthen—are still pointed out as the seats of early English nobles and
kings; and of others thrown up primarily for defence, as Tamworth and
Leicester, and afterwards occupied as royal and other residences, the date is
on record.
After the Conquest, the English term “burh” seems to have given place to
the Latin “mota,” at least in public records. It is true that in a charter by the
Conqueror, given by Rymer, occurs “Et in burgis, et muro-vallatis, et in
castellis,” but “burgis” may be held to mean borough towns. In the charter
of Matilda, 1141, bestowing the earldom of Hereford on Milo de
Gloucester, she grants “Motam Hereford et cum toto castello,” words which
evidently refer to the mound, now destroyed, and not, as has been supposed,
to the right to hold a moot there. Also, in the convention between Stephen
and Henry of Anjou the distinction is drawn between “Turris Londinensis et
‘Mota de Windesora,’” London having a square keep or tower, and Windsor
a shell keep upon a mound. Probably when, as at Durham, keeps of
masonry superseded the “ligna tabulata firmissime compacta,” the fortress
ceased to be called a mote, and became a castle; but in very many instances
this change was a long time in coming about, and in many of the less
important and private residences it never occurred at all. Thus, the moated
mounds on the Upper Severn show no trace whatever of masonry, and as
late as the reign of Henry III., 159 years after the Conquest, and years too of
incessant battling with a warlike and sleepless foe, timber was still the
material of their defences. The Close Roll of 9 Henry III., 30 May, 1225,
thus addresses the Custos of Montgomery:—
“Rex etc. dilecto et fideli suo Godescallo de Maghelins salutem.
Precipimus tibi quod ex parte nostra firmiter precipias omnibus illis qui
motas habent in valle de Muntgumery quod sine dilatione motas suas bonis
bretaschiis firmari faciant ad securitatem et defensionem suam et parcium
illarum.”[1] And not only in the defences of these lesser motes and fortified
private houses did timber play an important part. Turrets of timber were
prepared for the castle of Montgomery, and even Shrewsbury itself, the seat
successively of three most powerful earls and the chief place in their

earldom, was by no means wholly a work in masonry. In the reign of
Edward I. the jurors appointed to report upon the condition of the castle,
state: “Quod unus magnus turris ligneus qui edificatur in castro Salop
corruit in terram tempore domini Uriani de St. Petro tunc vice comitis et
meremium ejusdem turris tempore suo et temporibus aliorum vice comitum
preterea existencium ita consummatur et destruitur quod nichil de illo
remansit in magnum dampnum domini Regis et deterioracionem ejusdem
castri.” In a French charter of 1329 occurs, “Premierement le motte et les
fossez d’entour le motte de Maiex,” and in 1331, “Le motte de mon Manoir
de Caieux et les fossez entour.” It appears, then, that from an early period,
certainly from the ninth century, it was a common practice in constructing a
strong place, whether a private dwelling or a military post, to place it upon
the summit of a mound, and to surround both the mound and an appended
enclosure with defences of earth, and that in many, probably for some time
in all, cases the building within and the defences around such places were
of timber, and indeed, so far as they stood on made ground, necessarily so.
Sometimes probably, when the front was more extended, as when a small
pasture ground attached to the main fortress was to be protected from
sudden assaults, recourse was had to a “haia” or “clausura.”
In viewing one of these moated mounds we have only to imagine a
central timber house on the top of the mound, built of half trunks of trees
set upright between two waling pieces at the top and bottom, like the old
church at Greensted, with a close paling around it along the edge of the
table top, perhaps a second line at its base, and a third along the outer edge
of the ditch, and others not so strong upon the edges of the outer courts,
with bridges of planks across the ditches, and huts of “wattle and dab” or of
timber within the enclosures, and we shall have a very fair idea of a
fortified dwelling of a thane or franklin in England, or of the corresponding
classes in Normandy from the eighth or ninth centuries down to the date of
the Norman Conquest.
The existence of these mounds in distinct Welsh territory is very curious
and requires explanation. That this form of dwelling was in common use
among the Welsh is certainly not the case. Where moated mounds occur in
Wales it is usually on the border, or near the sea-coast, or in or near the
open valleys accessible to the English, which the English or Northmen are
known to have invaded in the eighth and ninth centuries. The mound near

Llanidloes is an exception, being distinctly within the hills. But that of
Tafolwern, from which the Welsh princes dated several charters, is near the
open valley. That of Talybont, whence Llewelyn dated a letter to the
Archbishop of Canterbury in 1275, and which was afterwards visited by
Edward the First, is on a plain within easy reach of the sea. Hên Domen and
Rhos Diarbed on the Upper Severn are also good examples. Still, as the
Welsh princes intermarried and had frequent communication with the
English, they must have been familiar with a form of fortification very
simple and easy to construct, and yet very capable of being held against a
sudden attack. It must be observed, also, that the English hold upon the
Welsh border was of a very fluctuating description, and the Welshmen must
not only have been perfectly familiar with the English method of
construction, but from time to time have been actually in possession of their
strongholds. That the Welsh used timber for defensive purposes appears
from their law by which the vassals were to attend at the lord’s castle for its
repairs or for rebuilding, each with his axe in his hand. In some cases in
these Border works there is scarcely any mound, at others the mound is low
and hollow in the centre. Caer Aeron and another small earthwork near
Builth seem to have been the earthen bases of a mere circular wigwam.
Caer Aeron cannot have been a mere temporary structure, as the
circumscribing ditch has been cut with considerable labour in the rock.
It is very evident, both from the existence of Offa’s dyke, and from the
immense number of these moated mounds thrown up along its course, that
the English had early and long possession of large tracts of the border
territory. Offa ruled over Mercia from a.d. 757 to 796, and his dyke extends
from the mouth of the Wye to that of the Dee. At its northern part, for about
forty miles, is a second work, known as Wat’s Dyke, a little in its rear, and
thought to be a somewhat earlier work, also by Offa. Before the actual line
of a work so galling to the spirit of a turbulent people could have been
decided upon there must have been many years of contest along the border,
and the English must have had something like permanent possession of the
land on either side, and have held estates of which the mounds still existing
were the “capita” or chief seats. The dyke, it should be remembered, was
rather a civil boundary than a military defence.
It is further to be remarked that moated mounds corresponding precisely
in pattern to those in England, are very numerous in Normandy. In size they

vary within much the same limits. All have or had a proper ditch, some, as
Briquessart and Des Olivets, stand in the centre of the court, some at one
end, others on the edge. The court is sometimes circular, most commonly
oblong, very rarely indeed rectangular. The outer enclosures have their
ditches, which communicate with those of the inner defences. M. de
Caumont gives a list of fifty-four of these mounds, within a radius of sixty
miles from Caen, and since he wrote many more have been observed. These
also were, from an early period, the seats of great landowners, and from
very many of them came the knights and barons who accompanied William
to England, and there settled in posts very similar. Sir F. Palgrave gives a
list of 131 of these fortified residences in the Cotentin, the Avranchin, and
the Bessin, which includes only six of those mentioned by de Caumont. A
large number of those earthworks seem never to have had, at any time,
defences of masonry. Others, upon the mounds, had Norman shell keeps.
Besides the British theory, these mounds have been claimed as
sepulchral. It is of course possible that such mounds as Arundel or
Marlborough may have been originally sepulchral, and therefore older than
their defensive additions. To few if any has the crucial experiment of
opening them been applied; but this is not a very probable explanation, and
could certainly not be applied to those mounds as a class. Among many
other reasons for taking this view, it may be observed that sepulchral
mounds are always artificial, whereas moated mounds are often natural, and
still more frequently partly so. No one could suppose Hawarden, or
Dunster, or Montacute, to be sepulchres, and yet these are as much moated
mounds as Arundel and Tonbridge. Moreover, sepulchral mounds are not
often placed where a defensive work is obviously needed, and most rude
nations are superstitious, and would object to dwell upon or around a grave.
The Tynewald in Man, Cwichelmsley Knowe in Berkshire, and a work
upon the Clyde in Lanarkshire, are the only known sepulchral mounds
which have been employed for other purposes, and of these the two former
are judicial, not residential. The barrows round York, though smaller than
most burhs, are big enough to have carried residences, but do not appear to
have been so employed. Moreover, the common testimony of the country
has generally given to the moated mounds some name, such as Castle Hill
or Burh, indicative of their military origin.

It has been observed that moated mounds are usually near the parish
church. This might be expected, since the parish, like the manor, was
usually a private estate, and the church was originally provided by the lord
for the accommodation of his tenants and himself.
There is a class of mounds due probably to the same people with those
above described, but very seldom moated, and not usually accompanied by
base courts and enclosures. These are the moot-hills, used for civil
purposes, as the holding of courts-leet, of which the mound at Barton, in
Northamptonshire, is a fine example. They are not uncommon. There is one
near Kenilworth, close to Stoneleigh Church, one at Hawick, one called the
Mote Hill, in Hamilton Park; there is also one on the right bank of the
Neckar, below Heidelberg. Sometimes they are called toot-hills; hence
Tothill Fields, though the mound is gone.
In claiming for these moated mounds a northern and in Britain an English
origin it would be too much to assert that in no other class of works is the
mound employed, or by no other people than the Northmen; but it may be
safely laid down that in no other class of early fortification does the mound
occur as the leading and typical feature. In Roman and Norman, and
possibly in purely British works, the mound may be occasionally seen, like
the cavalier in the works of Vauban, as at Kenilworth, or as an outwork, as
at Caerphilly, or it may be employed to cover or divide an entrance; but
such mounds are of irregular shape, mere detached and elevated parts of the
general bank, and not likely to be confounded with the moated mound
described above.

Appendix.

Vita Sti Johannis Epis: Morinorum. Ob: 1130.
[Acta Sanctorum, Januarii 27.]

Contigit ut in villa, cui Morchem vocabulum est, hospitii
mansionem haberet [Johannes]. Erat autem secus atrium ecclesiae
munitio quaedam quam castrum vel municipium dicere possumus
valde excelsa, juxta morem terrae illius, a domino villae ipsius multis
retro annis extructa. Mos namque est ditioribus quibuscunque regionis

hujus hominibus et nobilioribus, eo quod maxime inimicitiis vacare
soleant exercendis et caedibus, ut ab hostibus eo modo maneant
tutiores, et potentia majore vel vincant pares, vel premant inferiores,
terrae aggerem quantae praevalent celsitudinis congerere eique fossam
quam late patentem, multamque profunditatis altitudinem habentem
circumfodere, et supremam ejusdem aggeris crepidinem vallo ex lignis
tabulatis firmissime confacto undique vice muri circummunire,
turribusque, secundum quod possibile fuerit, per gyrum dispositis,
intra vallum, domum vel, quae omnia despiciat, arcem in medio
aedificare, ita videlicet ut porta introitus ipsius villae non nisi per
pontem valeat adiri, qui ab exteriori labro fossae primum exoriens est
in processu paulatim elevatus, columnisque binis et binis, vel etiam
trinis altrinsecus per congrua spatia suffixis innixus, eo ascendendi
moderamine per transversum fossae consurgit, ut supremam aggeris
superficiem coaequando oram extremi marginis ejus, et in ea parte
limen prima fronte contingat.
In hujus-modi ergo asylo Pontifex, cum suo frequenti et reverendo
comitatu hospitali, quum ingentem populi turbam tam in ecclesia,
quam in atrio ejus, manus impositione, et sacri Chrismatis unctione
confirmasset, ut vestimenta mutaret, eo quod coemiterium humandis
fidelium corporibus benedicere statuisset ad hospitium regressus est,
unde illo, ut propositum perficeret opus, iterum descendente, et circa
medium pontis, triginta quinque vel eo amplius pedum, altitudinem
habentis, certa de causa subsistente, populique non modica caterva
ante et retro, dextra lævaque circumstipante, continuo antiqui
machinante hostis invidia, pons ponderi cessit, et dissipatus corruit,
magnamque illorum hominum turbam cum episcopo suo ad ima
dejicit; fragore autem ingenti e vestigio consecuto, transtris,
trabibusque tabulatis, et ruderibus magno cum impetu pariter et
strepitu concidentibus: nebula quaedam tenebrosa ita omnem illam
ruinam repente circumfudit, ut quid ageretur vix quisquam discernere
potuerit.

Translation.

It chanced that in a town called Merchem, Bishop John had a guest-
house. There was also close to the court of the church a strong place,

which might be regarded as a castle or a municipium, very lofty, built
after the fashion of the country by the lord of the town many years ago.
For it was customary for the rich men and nobles of those parts,
because their chief occupation is the carrying on of feuds and
slaughters, in order that they may in this way be safe from enemies,
and may have the greater power for either conquering their equals or
keeping down their inferiors, to heap up a mound of earth as high as
they were able, and to dig round it a broad, open, and deep ditch, and
to girdle the whole upper edge of the mound, instead of a wall, with a
barrier of wooden planks, stoutly fixed together with numerous turrets
set round. Within was constructed a house or rather citadel,
commanding the whole, so that the gate of entry could only be
approached by a bridge, which first springing from the counterscarp of
the ditch, was gradually raised as it advanced, supported by sets of
piers, two, or even three, trussed on each side over convenient spans,
crossing the ditch with a managed ascent so as to reach the upper level
of the mound, landing at its edge on a level at the threshold of the gate.
In this retreat the bishop with his numerous and reverend retinue,
after having confirmed a vast crowd of people both in the church and
its court, by laying on of hands and the unction of the sacred chrism,
returned to his lodging that he might change his vestments, because he
had resolved to consecrate a cemetery for the burial of the bodies of
believers. When, in again descending from his lodging, in order to
effect the proposed work, he halted for some reason about the middle
of the bridge, which had there a height of thirty-five feet or more, the
people pressing behind and before, and on each side, straightway, the
malice of the old enemy so contriving, the bridge yielded to the weight
and fell shattered; and the crowd with the bishop fell to the bottom
with a great crash of joists, beams, and planks, with great force and
noise, while a thick dust at once enveloped the ruin so that scarce any
one could see what had happened.
The following is also curious:—
(Ludovicus Grossus, a.d. 1109.) “Puteolum regreditur antiquam
antecessorum suorum destitutam Motam castro jactu lapidis
propinquam, occupat. Castrum fundibalariorum, balistariorum,
saggitariorum, emissa pericula sustinentes; etc.”

CHAPTER III.
OF THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AT THE CONQUEST AND UNDER THE
CONQUEROR.

IT has usually been assumed that the rapidity of William’s conquest was
due to the absence of strong places in England. There is, however, ground
for believing that England, in this respect, was exceedingly well provided,
—quite as well provided as Normandy; and that, with the possible
exception of a very few recently-constructed strongholds, the works in the
two countries were very similar in character. The older sites of the castles of
the barons in Normandy are nearly all ascertained, and are for the most part
distinguished by a moated mound with an appended court or courts also
moated. This simple and very effective form of defence has been shown to
have been in use among the Northern nations, invaders both of England and
the Continent, and in the ninth and tenth centuries was as common on the
banks of the Thames, the Humber, and the Severn, as on those of the Seine
and the Orne. It was in the eleventh century, and chiefly during the troubles
attendant upon the accession and minority of Duke William, that the
Normans seem to have adopted a new and more permanent description of
fortress, and the old-fashioned structure of timber began to be replaced by
walls and towers in masonry, and especially by keeps of that material. Of
these the best-known, because the most durable, form was the rectangular,
of which not above half a dozen examples can be shown with certainty to
have been constructed in Normandy before the latter part of the eleventh
century, and but very few, if any, before the English conquest; nor is there
known to be in Normandy any specimen of the polygonal or circular form
of keep as early as that event. De Caumont, indeed, attributes the
rectangular keep of Langeais, in which brick is largely used, to the year
992; but there is great reason to doubt this conclusion, and Du Pin and St.
Laurent are probably among the oldest of this form, and do not seem to be
earlier than the reign of Duke William; and this is true also of Arques and
Nogent-le-Rotrou. In Normandy, as in England, the polygonal or shell keep,
though on the older site, seems usually to be in masonry, which is the later
construction; that of Gisors was built by Robert de Belesme in 1097, and

that of Carentan at about the same time. Many even of the most
considerable mounds, as Briquessart and Vieux-Conches, show no trace of
masonry. The shell keep of Plessis-Grimoult was held by De Caumont to
have been constructed before 1047; but if this be so, it is certainly a singular
exception. Castle-building in Normandy seems to have preceded the
English conquest, if at all, by but a very few years.
The Romans left behind them in Britain many walled towns; but it is not
known to what extent these defences were preserved by the Northmen, or in
what condition they found them. At the conquest, Chester, Lincoln, Exeter,
Hereford, Leicester, Oxford, Stafford, and Colchester, seem to have been
already walled, and the walls of Exeter had been repaired or rebuilt by
Æthelstan. Canterbury, Nottingham, and York were defended by a ditch.
There were also probably some others, and possibly a few military towers
in masonry of English workmanship; but there is no evidence of there
having been anything like a rectangular keep, notwithstanding the special
mention in 1052 of Richard’s Castle, the work of Richard, the son of Scrob.
There is no reason to suppose that it possessed a tower of that character,
which would have been quite out of keeping with the moated mound which
even now marks the spot, and upon which the remains of the shell keep are
still to be seen. Still less had the English any shell keeps constructed in
masonry. What there really was in the way of military masonry and what
was its character are not so clear. It was said of Dover, by William of
Poictiers, that it was by Harold “studio atque sumptu suo communitum,”
and that there were “item per diversa loca illius terræ alia castra ubi
voluntas Ducis ea firmari jubet”; also in the account of the advance of
William from Canterbury it is added, “Veniens ... ad fractam turrim castra
metatus est,” pointing to a work in masonry, though no doubt it might, as at
York, be Roman. Arundel, named in “Domesday” as having been a castle in
the reign of the Confessor, was probably, from the size of its mound and the
depth of its ditches, as strong as any castle of its type in Normandy; but no
masonry has been observed there, either upon or about the mound, of a date
earlier than the Conquest, if as early.
That there existed in England, at the Conquest, no castles in masonry of
English work it may be too much to assert; but it may safely be said that,
save a fragment of wall at Corfe, no military masonry decidedly older than
that event has as yet been discovered. In 1052, when the Confessor and Earl

Godwin came to terms, and the attack on London was set aside, it is stated
that Archbishop Robert and his Frenchmen fled, some westward to
Pentecost Castle and some northwards to Robert’s Castle; so that these
places probably, like Richard’s Castle, were in Norman hands, though it
does not follow that they were constructed of the material or in the fashion
then coming into use in Normandy.
“Domesday” mentions directly forty-nine castles as existing at the date of
the survey, and of these at least thirty-three were on sites far older than the
Conquest; and of them at least twenty-eight possessed artificial mounds
similar to Arundel and the castles in Normandy. “Domesday,” however, is
notoriously capricious both in its entries and omissions on such matters as
were not included in its proper view, and its list of castles is nearly as
incomplete as its list of churches. Neither were required to be noted. “Of the
forty-nine castles recorded,” says Sir H. Ellis, “eight are known, either on
the authority of ‘Domesday’ or of our old historians, to have been built by
the Conqueror himself; ten are entered as erected by greater barons, and one
by an under-tenant of Earl Roger; eleven more, of whose builders we have
no particular account, are noticed in the ‘Survey,’ either expressly or by
inference, as new.” The fact is, however, that although the number of castles
actually mentioned may be only forty-nine, of castles and castelries (which
imply a castle) there are named in “Domesday” fifty-two. The castles
reputed to have been built by the Conqueror himself are Lincoln,
Rockingham, Wareham, two castles at York, Dover, Durham, London, and
Nottingham, of which the last four are not mentioned in “Domesday.”
Exeter, also omitted, is generally reputed to be one of William’s castles, as
was Stafford; which, however, was constructed and destroyed before the
date of the survey. “Terra de Stadford in qua rex percepit fieri castellum,
quod modo est destructum,” a very short period for the construction and
destruction of a work in masonry. Mr. Pearson, who has given great
attention to the subject of Norman castles in England, tabulates the result of
his researches in the atlas attached to his “History.” He there enumerates, as
standing in the reign of the Conqueror, forty-nine castles belonging to the
King and fifty to his subjects. Of these, at least thirty-eight have mounds.
He gives also a list of fifty-three belonging to private persons in the reign of
William Rufus, of which at least five have mounds. Probably there were of
each class many more than these. Colchester, for example, is not included,
nor Farnham, nor Berkhampstede.

Of the ninety-nine castles enumerated by Mr. Pearson as belonging to the
reign of the Conqueror, at least fifty are on old sites. These are Arundel,
Berkeley, Bramber, Cambridge, Carisbrook, Chester, Clare, Clifford,
Caerleon, Coningsburgh, Dover, Durham, Dunster, Dudley, Eye, Ewias,
Guildford, Hastings, Huntingdon, Launceston, Leicester, Lincoln, Lewes,
L’wre, Marlborough, Montacute, Norwich, Oxford, Pevensey, Pontefract,
Quatford, Raleigh, Richard’s Castle, Rochester, Rockingham, Shrewsbury,
Striguil, Stafford, Stamford, Tickhill, Tonbridge, Trematon, Tutbury,
Wigmore, Windsor, Wallingford, Wareham, Warwick, Worcester, and York.
Almost as many are doubtful, and probably not more than two or three,
such as Richmond, London, and possibly Malling, were altogether new. The
fact is, that all these lists, however valuable they may be as showing what
castles were taken possession of or re-edified or strengthened by the
Normans, give no adequate idea of the fortresses already existing in
England, and omit scores of earthworks as large and as strong as those
occupied by the Normans in England or left behind them in Normandy, of a
date long before the reign of William,—probably before the end of the tenth
century. If, as said by William of Newbury, the castles were the bones of the
kingdom, it must be admitted that the English skeleton was a very perfect
one. Every part of England, much of Scotland, and the accessible parts of
the Welsh border, were covered with strong places, which were, no doubt,
defended, and well defended, with palisades, as more suitable to made
ground than work in masonry such as was more or less in use for
ecclesiastical purposes. If, at the Conquest, no English stronghold held out,
it was not that such places were less capable of defence than those in
Normandy, but that England was broken up into parties. Harold’s seat was
too insecure and the few months of his reign far too brief to allow his great
administrative talents to come into play; and his early death left the English
without a leader. The power of the other earls was local. There was no
organised opposition. Notwithstanding the assertion of Orderic that the
English were mere tillers of the soil, a convivial and drinking race, they by
no means submitted quietly to the Norman rule; but their efforts for
freedom, boldly devised and gallantly executed, were ill-timed and ill-
combined, and were in consequence put down in detail. Under such
circumstances, the strongholds of the country availed little. Dover, Lewes,
Arundel, Bramber, Tonbridge, Rochester, Guildford, Farnham, Wallingford,
and Berkhampstede, had their strong earthworks been held in force, would

have rendered William’s advance too imprudent to have been attempted;
and that these and other not far distant positions were well chosen is shown
by the fact that they were all adopted by the Conqueror. The conquest of
England was made possible, not by the absence of strong places, but by the
want of organisation for their defence.
But whatever may have been the character of the defences in use in
England before the arrival of the Normans, it is certain that from that period
they underwent a considerable and probably a rapid change, though
scarcely so rapid as has been supposed. The Normans, who had so long, in
common with the English (probably by reason of their common ancestry),
employed the moated and palisaded mound, proceeded to carry out in
England the important improvements they had already commenced in
Normandy. William’s chief object, having conquered, was to secure his
conquest; and his first care, on obtaining possession of each division of the
kingdom or each capital city or town, was to regard it from a military point
of view, and to order the construction of such strong places as might be
necessary for the holding of it. How completely, in so doing, he trod in the
footsteps of those who had gone before, is shown by what he found and
what he did towards the covering of London and the maintaining of his
communication with the sea. Thus he found and reinforced castles at
Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Hastings, and Dover. On his road he
found and strengthened Canterbury, Tonbridge, Rochester, and Ryegate. In
London he founded the Tower, an entirely new work; but for the defence of
the basin of the Thames he trusted to the ancient sites of Guildford and
Farnham, possibly Reading, and certainly Wallingford and Berkhampstede.
And so all over the kingdom, such strongholds as were central, in good
military positions, or of unusual strength, or were placed in the ancient
demesne lands of the Crown, were taken possession of or reconstructed for
the sovereign; but every baron or great tenant in chief was permitted,—and,
indeed, at first expected, and was no doubt sufficiently ready,—to construct
castles for the security of the lands allotted to him, which in the vast
majority of instances meant to remodel the defences of his English
predecessors. This was under the pressure of circumstances; for William
seems always to have been awake to the danger of uniting extensive
hereditary jurisdictions, and even from the first to have contemplated
governing the counties through the intervention of vice-comites, or sheriffs,
who were appointed and could be displaced at pleasure. But this policy was

at first, in certain districts, necessarily postponed; though even then William
made it to be understood that the chief castles of the realm, by whomsoever
built, were royal castles; and their actual acquisition was always an
important part of the policy of both him and his successors so long as
castles were of consequence. Thus Windsor, Cambridge, Exeter, Corfe,
Wareham, Winchester, Porchester, Southampton, Carisbrooke, Canterbury,
Dover, Lincoln, Rockingham, Nottingham, Stafford, Guildford, Warwick,
Marlborough, and York were royal castles from the commencement.
Wallingford, Gloucester, Bristol, Oxford, Tutbury, Worcester, though built
by subjects, were not the less claimed and officered by the Crown. Even
Durham, though held by the bishops, and Leicester, Lincoln, and
Huntingdon, by the lords of those earldoms, were from time to time in the
hands of the Crown, whose rights over them were of a far more direct
character than those it claimed to exercise over the lands and other feudal
possessions of the same lords.
Arundel, Shrewsbury, Montgomery, Bridgenorth, and some less
important fortresses, fell to the Crown on the overthrow of the house of
Talvas; and with this event a number of castles on the Welsh border, built by
tenants of Earl Roger, became fiefs in capite, dependent directly upon the
Crown. Besides these, there are on record in England about forty or fifty
castles built by local barons, which, when it suited the Crown, were taken in
hand and repaired and garrisoned at its charge.
Of nearly all the castles on record, as existing in the reigns of the
Conqueror and his sons, the sites are well known; and of very many,
fragments of the masonry remain. What is very remarkable is, that of this
masonry there is but little which can be referred to the reign of either the
Conqueror or William Rufus,—that is, to the eleventh century. Of that
period are certainly London and Malling, Guildford, Bramber, Carlisle, the
gate-house of Exeter, the lower story of Chepstow, the keeps of Chester,
Goderich, Walden, Wolvesey, Colchester, and Newcastle, though this last
looks later than its recorded date. Newcastle was probably on the site of an
earlier castle; at least, the entry in the Hundred Rolls (ii., 119),—“Juratores
dicunt quod Vicecomes ... fecit quandam inquisitionem ... super motam
castri predictæ villæ,”—looks like it. There is some reason to regard the
keep at Malling as the earliest Norman military building now extant in
England, and as the work of Gundulf, the architect of the Tower keep. The

North or Gundulf’s tower at Rochester Cathedral is by the same great
builder, and possibly was intended as a military building: if so, it may rank
with Malling. Probably there is more of this early masonry; but not much.
Dover, Rochester, Porchester, and Hedingham, among our finest examples,
are certainly later. Part of Durham Castle is, no doubt, of the age of the
Conqueror; but the shell keep has been rebuilt, and it is doubtful whether
the original work was of the age of the early Norman chapel and hall
attached to it. Speaking generally, those castles in England which belong to
what is called the Norman period are too late to be the work of the
Conqueror or his personal followers, and too early to allow of any
preceding work in Norman masonry (usually sound and solid), having been
constructed and swept away. What is the solution of this difficulty? Of what
character and material were the great majority of the castles which William
ordered to be constructed? Of what character were those mentioned in
“Domesday”?
That William ordered many castles to be constructed is certain; and
among the orders left with Bishop Odo and William Fitz Osborn, when
acting as joint regents of the kingdom, was one specially charging them to
see to the building of castles; and no doubt these orders were obeyed. But it
has been hastily assumed that the castles constructed were of masonry. The
keeps of Dover and Rochester, for example (if such were erected under the
Conqueror), were certainly not those now standing, which belong to the
reign of Henry II.; and so of Norwich, and probably of Nottingham, now
destroyed. And yet the masonry of William’s reign was of a very durable
character, as is seen in the Tower of London, and in not a few still standing
churches. Also it is stated that William “custodes in castellis strenuos viros
collocavit, ex Gallis traductos, quorum fidei pariter ac virtuti credebat.”
This looks very much as though the castellans were at first, at any rate, put
in charge of existing castles; which must mean that in most cases some
temporary arrangement was made, and the existing works strengthened
until it was convenient to replace them by others more in accordance with
the new ideas of strength and security.
William and his barons evidently employed two classes of castles,—one
always in masonry, and one very often in timber. Where a castle was built in
a new position, as in London, or where there was no mound, natural or
artificial they employed masonry and chose as a rule for the keep the

rectangular form,—a type said to have been introduced from Maine, and
seen at Arques, at Caen, and at Falaise; but where the site was old, and there
was a mound, as at Lincoln, Huntingdon, Rockingham, Wallingford, or
York, they seem to have been content to repair the existing works, usually
of timber only, and to have postponed the replacing them with a regular
shell till a more convenient season, which in many cases did not occur for a
century.
Nor was the postponement very serious, for the native fortresses, if well
manned, were strong, at least for a limited time. The attacks of the Danes
upon Towcester, Bedford, and Wigmore are on record; and yet these, of all
of which the earthworks remain, were not burhs of the first class, and
certainly would not contain a hundred men,—or, even if the base-court were
occupied, more than thrice that number,—and the Danish army could
scarcely be less than ten times as numerous. The fact is, however, that such
a mound as Arundel or Tonbridge, palisaded, could be held for a short time
by three or four score of resolute men against a sharp attack from any
number, armed as men were armed in the tenth and eleventh centuries. No
doubt, towers of masonry were more secure, because less dependent upon
the vigilance of the garrison, less obnoxious to fire, and less liable to be
taken by surprise. But the Normans were stout soldiers, well disciplined,
and could from the first expect no quarter from the insurgent English.
Among the castles ordered by William to be built, one of the most
important was York. The order was given in the summer of 1068; and it is
known that the new castle was to be upon the old English site, which
contained a moated mound of the first class, commanding and protected on
one side by the Roman city, and on the others by the swamps and waters of
the Ouse and Foss. William’s castle was to be garrisoned by three leaders
and five hundred knights, which implied a considerable following. Its area,
therefore, must have been spacious, and no doubt included with the mound
its ample base-court as seen at the present day. In 1069, the castle was
attacked by the citizens in revolt, and was even then capable of being held,
and was held, till William came to its assistance. He then ordered a second
castle to be constructed upon the Bayle Hill, the mound still to be seen on
the opposite or right bank of the river; and this was completed in eight days,
before he left the city. A few months later, before September, 1069, the
citizens, aided by the Danes, again attacked and burned the castles, which in

1069–70 were again renewed. Now, York was the metropolis of the most
disaffected half of the kingdom. There, if anywhere, a castle of stone would
be desirable, and stone could readily have been brought by water; and yet
York Castle was constructed and made capable of being defended in a few
months, and its subsidiary fortress in eight days; and both soon after were
taken and burned, and at once ordered to be reconstructed. It is clear, from
the time occupied by the whole sequence of events, that these castles were
not of masonry. Moreover, the masonry of the present York keep contains
nothing that can be attributed to the eleventh century; but much that is far
too early to have replaced a really substantial keep or curtain of Norman
date had such been built. Upon the great and artificial mound of Bayle Hill,
the site of the second castle, there is neither trace nor tradition of any
masonry at all.
The building of a Norman castle required both time and money. The
architects, overlookers, and probably the masons, had to be imported from
Normandy, and in many cases the stone for the exterior; and as most of the
existing square keeps, and very nearly all the shell keeps, are of the twelfth
century, it seems probable that the Conqueror was to some extent content
with such defences as he found in England; strengthened, no doubt, very
materially by the superior skill and resources of his engineers. This is quite
consistent with the fact that the art of castle-building did, from the building
of the White Tower, undergo a great and somewhat rapid change. It is true
of William, both in Normandy and in England, as Matthew Paris observes,
“ad castra quoque construenda, rex antecessores suos omnes superabat”;
and he, no doubt, as we are told by William of Jumieges, “tutissima castella
per opportuna loca stabilavit.” Lanfranc, writing to Roger, Earl of Hereford,
before his rebellion, assuring him of William’s confidence, adds, “et mandat
ut quantum possumus curam habeamus de castellis suis, ne, quod Deus
avertat, inimicis suis tradantur”; and in the subsequent rebellion, it was
when Ralph Guader found the men of castles against him, that he left his
wife and children to make terms from Norwich Castle, while he himself
fled. Lanfranc’s despatch informs William, “Castrum Noruuich redditum
est, et Britones qui in eo erant et terras in Anglia terra habebant, concessis
eis vita et membris.” Besides the Bishop and Earl Warrene, the castle
contained three hundred “loricati,” with cross-bowmen and many artificers
of military machines. Also the same prelate charges Bishop Walcher, of

Durham, “Castrum itaque vestrum, et hominibus, et armis, et alimentis
vigilanti cura muniri facite.”
Castles, no doubt, there were at William’s command, many and strong.
All that is here contended for is, that whatever he may have desired,
William was able to construct but few castles such as London or Durham;
and that the greater number of those that remain and exhibit the Norman
style of architecture belong, some to the close of the eleventh, and a greater
number to the twelfth century. But if William did not actually build so many
castles as is supposed, he and his followers certainly restored and occupied
an immense number, upon which those who came immediately after him
built structures, the ruins of which we now see.
There is much to be learned from the consideration of the positions of
these fortresses. William’s first care, on obtaining possession of each
district, was to order the preparation of such strong places as might be
necessary for the holding of it. But it is evident that he was influenced also
by another consideration: he desired to be regarded as the legitimate heir of
the Confessor, rather than as the conqueror of the kingdom; and so far as
was consistent with his own security, he strove to administer the ancient
laws, and to leave the ancient tenures and private estates, and even English
owners, undisturbed. This indeed, owing to the strong national discontent,
shown by repeated insurrections and by a general current of ill-will of
which these were the indications, he speedily found to be out of the
question. But even while driving out the native magnates, he was careful to
associate the new men, as far as possible, with the past, in the hope (well
founded) that before long the “successores et antecessores,” as they are
called in “Domesday,” would be looked upon as part of a continued line,—
Earl Roger, for example, as the representative of Edwin of Shrewsbury,
Hugh Lupus of Morcar, and William Fitz Osbern of Ralph the Earl of
Hereford under the Confessor.
And this policy is particularly evident in the sites of the castles. Where
circumstances absolutely required it, an entirely new position was selected;
but this was extremely rare, and probably did not occur in half a dozen
instances, if indeed in more than London and Richmond. Usually it was
found that the English lord had attached to his estate an earthwork upon
which he and his ancestors had lived for centuries, which was identified
with the estate or district, and regarded with respect and confidence by the

surrounding tenantry. It is surprising to find how completely the leading
positions in the country had thus been occupied. The upland passes; the
margins of the rivers; the summits, where readily accessible, of the
detached hills; the spots rendered strong by cliffs or ravines, or extended or
impracticable marshes. Each had its aula, where a succession of lords had
identified themselves with their people, afforded them protection, and
received in return their support. Such were Guildford, Farnham, and
Berkhampstede, in the clefts of the belt of chalk by which London is
girdled; Hertford, Bedford, Wallingford, Tamworth, Worcester, Shrewsbury,
Durham, and York, upon the banks of deep or rapid streams; Windsor,
Belvoir, Lincoln, Corfe, and Montacute, placed on the summit of more or
less detached hills, commanding a broad sweep of country; Dover,
Scarborough, and Bamborough, upon rugged and lofty sea-cliffs, isolated
by deep and formidable ravines; Huntingdon, Cambridge, Ely, and Oxford,
more or less covered by marshy fens at that time almost impassable; while
attached to and so placed as to overawe their adjacent cities or towns were
such fortresses as Exeter, Leicester, Winchester, Chester, Chichester,
Taunton, York, Norwich, and Nottingham. Each, including many that
belonged to the Crown, represented an English estate. To many of them
military service had long been paid; and now into them the knights and
barons from Normandy and the lieutenants and governors for the Crown
were inserted.
So far, the policy was sound and promised to be successful; but when the
new lords began to build castles of stone they became obnoxious to both
sovereign and people. The possessor of a strong castle was ever ready for
rebellion, and was not uncommonly a tyrant even to his own people, of
whom this made him independent: hence, castles properly so called,—
buildings in masonry,—were hated by both king and people. The old-
fashioned residence, half mansion, half fortress, formed of earth and timber
or at best of a rude kind of masonry, such as Scott more by intuition than
inquiry attributes to the Saxon Cedric, was strong when held by brave men
in sufficient numbers for a short time; but under ordinary circumstances it
could easily be attacked, and set on fire. These fortified residences were out
of fashion with the Normans, and fell into disuse. The English lords were of
the same immediate lineage with their tenants; and if they occasionally
squeezed them, they did it as a man squeezes his own milch cow, tenderly.
But the castle of stone was held by a stranger whose language, arms, and

armour were strange to the people, and by them feared and hated. The
Norman castle was a purely military building. It was not only strong when
well garrisoned, but its passive strength was also great; and when the bridge
was up and the gates closed it was at all times safe against an enemy
unprovided with military engines. Fire, the ordinary and ready weapon of
the populace, against such a wall, for example, as Cardiff (40 feet high and
11 feet thick), or against such a Tower as London, could do nothing. The
garrison also, composed in the English times of the tenants of the lord,
under the Normans were not unfrequently mercenaries,—men without ruth
or conscience, distrusted even by their employers, whose trade was war and
whose gain was plunder, and of whom Maurice de Bracy was a very
favourable specimen. “Quot domini castellorum,” it was said “tot tyranni.”
No wonder, then, that the Norman castles came to be regarded as the
symbol of rebellion on the one hand, and of tyranny on the other.
Although the personal attention of the Conqueror was necessarily
confined to the chief cities and central towns of England, to Exeter,
Gloucester, Nottingham, Lincoln, York, or Durham, his western frontier
was not neglected, although he was obliged to depute its ordinary defence
to others. The Welsh, hardened by centuries of constant warfare, held with
tenacity their strip of mountain land between Offa’s Dyke and the sea, and
were ever on the watch to spoil that other more fertile tract which lay
between the Dyke and the Severn and the Dee, known as the March.
Foremost among the barons of the March were Roger of Montgomery and
Hugh D’Avranches, Earl of Chester, to whom later generations gave the
surname of the “Wolf.” The caput of this latter earldom, protected by the
deep and rapid Dee, was posted at one angle of the old Roman enclosure;
and the castle of Earl Roger, girdled by the convolutions of the Severn, was
an almost impregnable citadel. From these fortresses these great earls
exercised more than regal power over the counties of Salop and Hereford,
composing the Middle March. The border barons, their feudatories,
succeeded to no peaceful heritage; but by degrees they possessed
themselves of the older English possessions upon the border, and along with
them of the fortresses by which in Mercian times the Welsh had been held
so long at bay. That these were numerous is evident from the remains of
their earthworks; and that they were strong and well held against the Welsh
is evident from the English names along and beyond the frontier.
“Domesday,” however, though compiled after Earl Roger had held the

Earldom of Shrewsbury about twelve years, only mentions four castles
upon his border,—Oswestry, Montgomery, Shrewsbury, and Stanton or
Castle Holgate, and the Earl’s house at Quatford. Bridgenorth and
Carreghova were built a few years later, in the reign of Rufus; but
Bridgenorth represented the burgh of Æthelflæda, the remains of which are
possibly seen at Oldbury, as are earthworks of still stronger type, actually
employed by Earl Roger at Quatford. Besides these, Wattlesborough and
Clun exhibit rectangular Norman keeps; and eleven or twelve more castles
in those districts are mentioned in records as early as the reign of Henry I.
Altogether, by the close of the twelfth century there were from fifty to sixty
castles in the county of Salop alone. Now, although the masonry of these
castles, or of such of them as remain, can very rarely indeed be attributed to
the Norman period, the earthworks show that they existed as fortresses long
before that time; and it seems, therefore, certain that here, as in other parts
of England, Earl Roger and his barons made the most of such works as they
found ready to their hands; and this applies equally to the Palatinate of
Chester and to the southern Marches, where also Norman castles took the
place, with more or less of interval, of strongholds of the English type.

CHAPTER IV.
OF THE POLITICAL VALUE OF CASTLES UNDER THE SUCCESSORS OF THE
CONQUEROR.

IT is rather remarkable that castles should not occupy, even incidentally, a
more prominent place in the “Domesday Survey,” as they formed a very
important feature in the country; were closely, for the most part, attached to
landed property; and were of great political importance. No great baron was
without a castle upon each of his principal estates, nor was any bishop
secure of his personal safety unless so provided. At the death of the
Conqueror, it was the possession of Winchester Castle that gave to William
Rufus the royal treasure, and enabled his adherents to acquire the castles of
Dover and Hastings, and thus, at the commencement of his reign, to secure
a safe communication with Normandy. The king, it is true, had the people
on his side and owed his eventual success to their support, but the barons of
his party depended largely upon their fortresses. Archbishop Lanfranc held
Saltwood, which the earthworks show even then to have been strong;
Willam de Warren held Lewes and Ryegate and the strong hill of
Coningsburgh in Yorkshire; Chester belonged to Earl Hugh, who was
supported by his fifteen barons, each of whom had his castle; and in North
Wales the Earl held Diganwy, which, covered in front by the Conwy water,
closed the seaward pass from that aggressive district. With the Earl and on
the side of Rufus were Robert de Tilliol, who held Flint and Rhuddlan, and
Scaleby and other castles on the Scottish border; while Bishop Wolstan,
representing the English feeling, held his episcopal castle of Worcester
against Urso d’Abitot and a swarm of Marcher barons who crossed the
Severn to assail him.
Nevertheless, the lords of the castles were mostly on the side of Duke
Robert. Such were Alan the Black and Ribald his brother, the lords of
Richmond and Middleham; Stephen of Holderness, strong in his sea-girt
rock of Scarborough; the Mowbrays, Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutance,
Justiciary to the Conqueror, and a great soldier; and Robert Mowbray, his
brother’s son, who held the impregnable rock of Bamburgh and the great

castle of Axholm in the fens of Lincolnshire; both strong, though in a
different kind of strength. With them was the powerful Earl Roger of
Shrewsbury with his border following; and at a later period Robert de
Belesme, his successor, builder of Bridgenorth and Carreghova, and
superior lord of many border castles. In the west, Duke Robert was
supported by Bernard Newmarch, who held the castles of Brecknock and
Builth, and a large and fortified tract of Monmouthshire; with whom were
William of Breteuil, son of William Fitz-Osborn, and lord of Hereford;
Roger de Lacy of Ewias; and William Earl of Eu, the owner of the strong
rock of Hastings, who at that time held the castle and walled city of
Gloucester. Besides these great leaders were, on the same side, Ralph
Mortimer of Wigmore; Walter Giffard, whose castle on one bank of the
Buckinghamshire Ouse, combined with a similar moated mound on the
other, commanded that town and its river; Ralph Guader, who held
Norwich; and Hugh Bigot, his successor there, lord of Framlingham, after
Norwich the strongest place, both in earthworks and masonry, in East
Anglia. Between Bristol and Bath the Mowbrays ravaged the country up to
the tower of Berkeleyness, the present castle being then but an earthwork;
and with them were Hugh de Graintmaisnel, who held Hinckley and
Leicester castles; and William de Carileph, at first one of William’s prime
councillors; but who afterwards changed sides, and was enabled to do so
with safety from his possession of the keep of Durham. Bishop Odo, who
held Rochester Castle (even then a place of great strength), and with it the
passage of the Medway, placed there Eustace of Boulogne; and himself,
with his brother Earl Robert and five hundred knights, held the Roman
Pevensey, strengthened by a mound and some other English additions in
earth.
Rufus, however, with far more energy than his brother Robert, had also
the popular feeling on his side, which enabled him to make head even
against this powerful combination. He laid siege to Pevensey, and took it
after a seven weeks’ siege. He then assailed and took Rochester, and finally
Tonbridge, held by Gilbert Fitz-Richard, the consequence of which success
was the banishment of Bishop Odo. Robert Mowbray was beaten back from
before the walls of Ilchester Castle, now utterly destroyed; and Bishop
William was forced to surrender Durham. Carlisle, wasted by the Danes in
877, received from Rufus a castle and a keep, now standing; and Newcastle,
similarly provided in 1080, also retains its keep, and a gatehouse with some

traces of the exterior wall. In 1098 Malcolm of Scotland, the husband of St.
Margaret, was slain before Alnwick, then better known as Murielden; and
Mowbray was driven from Tynewald Castle back upon Bamburgh, which
seems to have been finally taken by means of a “malvoisin,” which in this
instance was evidently an entrenched camp thrown up to the west of the
castle, and employed probably as the headquarters of a blockade. In this
reign also the conquest of South Wales was completed, and the foundations
laid of a chain of castles from Gloucester and Hereford to Pembroke, the
main links of which were Chepstow and Abergavenny, Caerleon and
Cardiff, Builth and Brecknock, Caerkennen, Caermarthen, Cardigan, Tenby,
and Carew. How far these Welsh castles were at once constructed of
masonry is uncertain. Besides Chepstow, two only, or at most three, and
those subordinate, Ogmore, Penlline, and Newcastle, exhibit decided
Norman features; but however this may be, neither Fitz-Hamon,
Newmarch, nor Arnulph of Montgomery were likely, in the face of foes so
formidable, to be satisfied with defences in any way inferior to the strongest
of that day.
The reign of Henry I. was prolific in castles. It is probable that to him is
due the greater number of our extant rectangular keeps, by the construction
of which he carried to completion the plans sketched out by his father,
which his brother had been too busy and too much pressed to take in hand.
In this reign, especially between 1114 and 1121, most of the Welsh castles
were completed. Bristol and Cardiff castles were the work of Robert Earl of
Gloucester. Bishop Roger of Salisbury built Sherborne, Salisbury, the
Devizes, and Malmesbury; and his brother, Alexander of Lincoln, Sleaford
and Newark. “Castella erant crebra per totam Angliam.” Most of these were
great and strong, very different from the hasty and unlicensed structures of
the succeeding reign.
Henry, like Rufus, commenced his reign with the taking of Winchester
with its treasures. Flambard, who had been entrusted with the great
episcopal castles of Durham and Norham, was imprisoned in the keep of
London. The outlawry of Robert Malet and Robert de Lacy, in 1101, gave
Henry their castles in Yorkshire and Suffolk; and in 1102 Ivo de
Graintmaisnel was driven from his mound at Hinckley, and forced to flee
the country. Also the King obtained, by forfeiture, the castles of William de
Warenne, though these were afterwards restored. Henry, in 1103, laid his

hands upon Arnulph de Montgomery’s castle of Pembroke, and on those of
Robert of Poitou, his brother, between the Ribble and the Mersey. The death
of William Earl of Moretaine brought in the almost impregnable hill-castle
of Montacute, with Trematon, Launceston, Tintagel, Boscastle, and
Restormel, and other Cornish fortresses. The fall of Robert de Belesme
gave the crown the castles of Arundel,—a lesser Windsor in its plan, and
scarcely inferior in its position; of Shrewsbury, the mound of which still
towers over the Severn, and dwarfs even the extensive and incongruous
railway-station at its foot; of Bridgenorth, where a fragment of the keep
shows what it must once have been; and of Carreghova, of which the very
traces are well-nigh effaced. Belesme retired to Normandy, where he is said
to have been lord of thirty-four castles; but the fragments of his power only
betrayed him into further rebellion, so that he ended his life a prisoner and
an exile on the castled mound of Wareham.
There still remained, indeed, in private hands a considerable number of
castles, the owners of which found it convenient to give way, and thus to
retain a portion of their influence. Such were Bourne in Lincolnshire;
Malton, held by Fitz-John, in Yorkshire; Beaudesert in Warwickshire; the
episcopal castles of Newark and Sleaford, and that of Oakham. There were
also Warblington in Hampshire; and in Cumberland, Egremont and
Cockermouth.
The rebellion of 1118 gave to Henry the castles of Hugh de Gournay in
the west, of Stephen of Albemarle at Scarborough, of Eustace of Breteuil, of
Richard de l’Aigle, and of Henry Earl of Eu; together with the Mowbray
castles of Thirsk, Malzeard, and Burton in Lonsdale. Nearly the whole of
the strongholds thus acquired were retained by Henry in his own hands, and
Suger states that in Normandy the principal castles were by him either
destroyed or held: “Fere omnes turres et quæcunque fortissima castra
Normanniæ ... aut eversum iri fecit ... aut si dirutæ essent propriæ voluntati
subjugavit.” In either country he laid hands on the castles; but where the
delinquents held in both, it was upon those in England that the forfeiture
was most rigidly enforced. Among the exceptions were William de
Roumare, who was allowed to hold Lincoln; and similar protection was
shown to Ralph de Conches, William de Tancarville, William de Warenne,
Walter Giffard, and William d’Albini. Among their castles were Ryegate,
Lewes, Coningsburgh, and Castle Rising, Buckingham and Arundel.

It has been said that Henry did not himself construct any new castles.
This is probable enough, as all the sites of importance had been occupied by
his father; but it is not improbable, judging from the internal evidence
afforded by their remains, that he completed such of his father’s castles as
were left unfinished. Of baronial castles, the grand fortress of Kenilworth,
by far the most important strong place in the midland counties, was
constructed in this reign, though very probably upon an English site, by the
founder of the house of Clinton. In this reign also were probably
constructed the masonry of Northampton Castle, by Simon de St. Liz, and
that of Old Sarum and Odiham by Bishop Roger. The keep of St. Briavel’s,
now destroyed, was reconstructed, or built of masonry; and Ralph Flambard
laid the foundations of and seems to have completed the keep of Norham.
The issue of the contest between Matilda and Stephen turned very much
upon the castles over which each had control. It was again by the seizure of
Winchester Castle and its treasure that Stephen was able to celebrate his
coronation in the adjacent cathedral. It was under the walls of Reading
Castle, strongly placed between the meeting of the Kennet and the Thames,
that he trusted himself to meet Matilda’s adherents, and with them to lay the
corpse of her father before the altar of the great Abbey that he had founded,
and the ruins of which have long survived those of its secular neighbour.
From Oxford, strong in its walled city and partially water-girdled keep,
Stephen issued his first charter, so full of promises to his new subjects; and
thence he went to Durham, one of the strongest castles of the North, to meet
David of Scotland, who had wasted the border from Carlisle to Newcastle,
and taken Alnwick and Norham, though foiled before Wark and
Bamborough. One of David’s principal concessions was the castle of
Newcastle. On the other hand, he obtained the confirmation to him of that
of Carlisle, long the gate of Scotland. The two, posted one at each end of
the lines of Severus and Hadrian, are still tolerably perfect, as is the
impregnable Bamburgh, the Norman keep of which, in Stephen’s time, was
new.
From Oxford, still his central stronghold, on his return to the South,
Stephen conceded his second charter, less distinct in its promises as the
danger of his position seemed less pressing. On the report of his death in
1136, it was trust in their strong castles of Exeter, Plympton, Okehampton,
Norwich, Framlingham, and Bungay, that encouraged Baldwin de Redvers

and Hugh Bigot to rise in arms. Bath had then a castle and was a walled
town. Stephen laid siege to and took the castle, and thence, with two
hundred horse, rode to Exeter, where Rougemont, its citadel, was strong and
well garrisoned. The siege was a remarkable one, and the warlike machines
employed both within and without were of a formidable character. The
citizens were with Stephen, so the attack was on the city front. The bridge
from the city, still standing, was one point of attack. A “malvoisin” was
constructed, whence stones were poured in upon the garrison; the walls
were ruined, and the towers much injured. Finally the well ran dry, and the
garrison surrendered upon terms. Plympton also capitulated, and Norwich
was taken.
On Stephen’s arrival from Normandy, in 1137, he secured the castles of
Bourne, Wareham, and Corfe, the two latter held by Fitz-Alured and
Redvers. A second rising, in 1138, timed with an invasion by the Scots,
turned in some degree upon the strength of the castle of Bedford, then
including a pair of moated mounds on the opposite banks of the Ouse, of
which one is entirely removed, and the other remains deprived of its
masonry, and shorn of its fair dimensions. This castle was held by the sons
of Milo de Beauchamp, its owner, and only surrendered after a long and
severe siege conducted by Stephen in person, which terminated in a
blockade. The defence was very able, and the surrender upon fair terms.
Meantime David, linking the interests of Matilda with his own claims to
the great earldom of Huntingdon, twice crossed the border in the spring of
1128, retiring as Stephen approached, but a third time returning in August.
He took Norham, and much injured its superb keep, built by Bishop
Flambard in 1121, a noble ruin which still frowns over the Tweed, and is
rich in historical recollections. Bamburgh, Alnwick, and Malton were held
for Stephen by Eustace Fitz-John. Parts of the wall and inner gate of
Alnwick are of about this date; but Malton has disappeared, though the
earlier Roman camp may still be traced. David’s progress was also checked
by Clitheroe, a very strong castle, of which the Norman keep, one of the
very smallest extant, crowns the top of an almost impregnable rock.
At this period Stephen’s position was most critical. Against him, on the
Welsh Marches, Talbot held Goderich and Hereford, while Ludlow and
Dudley, Shrewsbury and Whittington, were in the hands of Paganel, Fitz-
Alan, and William Peverel. Further south, the barons of Somerset were

encouraged against him by William de Mohun from his hold at Dunster,
strong naturally and by art; and by Fitz-John at Harptree, a castle in the
defiles of the Mendips; while Maminot both held and strongly augmented
Dover. Stephen, however, was active and he was brave. Leaving
Archbishop Thurstan to muster and encourage his northern supporters, he
himself marched south, strengthened the garrison of Bath, and threatened
Bristol. Thence he entered Somerset, and took by siege the Lovel seat of
Castle Cary, of which the earthworks cover a hillside; secured Harptree by
surprise, and thence doubled back upon Hereford, which won, he next
recovered the old British and English fortress of Pengwern or Shrewsbury.
Bristol alone held out, strong in its newly-built keep, and in the presence of
Robert Earl of Gloucester, its builder.
The “battle of the Standard,” a.d. 1138, was fought in the open field,
under the leadership of D’Aumâle; but it was also named from North
Allerton, where, intersected by the railway, are still seen formidable
earthworks far older than Bishop Puiset’s castle which surmounted them,
and which was afterwards entirely razed by Henry II. The victory of North
Allerton was enhanced by the capture of Dover by Stephen’s Queen. The
castle of Carlisle still remained in the possession of King David, and thence
he renewed the war, and in the following year obtained for his son Henry
the earldom of Northumberland; with the exception, however, of the castles
of Newcastle and Bamburgh.
When, in 1139, Stephen’s change of policy lost him the support of the
clergy, led by his ambitious brother the Bishop of Winchester, his first blow
was struck at the episcopal castles. Of these, the Devizes, Sherborne, and
Malmesbury belonged to Bishop Roger of Sarum. Malmesbury, an
episcopal encroachment upon the adjacent Abbey, was wholly the Bishop’s
work, and is now utterly destroyed. Sherborne, a very ancient episcopal
seat, still retains its early earthworks, and a keep and gatehouse, the work of
Bishop Roger; and although of the Devizes there remain but a few
fragments of its circular keep, the earthworks (the grandest in England)
show that it may well have deserved its great reputation. These Stephen
seized upon, and he also took Newark-upon-Trent, still admired for its lofty
and extended front, and for its magnificent Norman entrance. With Newark
fell Sleaford, both built by Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, nephew of Bishop
Roger, and also a great builder of castles. Sleaford is utterly demolished,

and being entirely post-conquestal, had scarcely any earthworks to preserve
its memory.
Among the events of this important year were the taking of Nottingham
and Marlborough Castles by Stephen; his attack on Ludlow; the appearance
on the scene of his rival, the Empress Matilda; and his siege of Arundel, in
which castle she took refuge with D’Albini and Queen Adeliza his wife.
Nottingham is gone. Of Marlborough only a fine mound remains, upon
which stood its circular keep. Much of Ludlow, especially its rectangular
keep, played a part in Stephen’s siege, as did a part of the existing exterior
wall, whence the grappling-hook was thrown by which the King was
hooked, and was being dragged up to its battlements, when he was rescued
by the Scottish Prince Henry. Arundel preserves its earthworks pretty much
as they must have appeared in the reign of the Confessor; and with its shell-
keep on its mound, and the original gatehouse at its foot, gives to the
modern visitor a fair notion of the appearance of the defences before which
Stephen pitched his camp. It was also in 1139 that De Redvers, returning to
England, landed under the Conqueror’s castle of Wareham, on the margin of
the Poole water. From Wareham he proceeded to Corfe, a seat of the Kings
of Mercia, where he was besieged by Stephen.
It was during this period of the war between Stephen, Matilda, and the
Church party, that were constructed the multitude of unlicensed castles
(“castra adulterina”) employed not merely for the security of the builders,
but to enable them to prey upon their neighbours with impunity. Nothing
could well be worse than the circumstances under which these castles were
built, and the purposes for which they were employed. “Stephen,” says John
of Tynemouth, quoted by Dugdale, “concessit ut quilibet procerum suorum
munitionem, seu castrum, in proprio fundo facere posset.” William of
Jumieges and Malmesbury compare the times to those of Normandy during
the minority of Duke William; and other writers declare the state of
England to have resembled that of Jerusalem during the Roman siege. There
was no rule and no responsibility. The unhappy peasants were forced to
labour in the construction of the strongholds of tyranny. It would seem that
these castles were built with great rapidity, and with but little expenditure of
labour upon earthworks, for in the next reign they were destroyed without
difficulty, and scarcely any of their sites are now to be recognised. They
were the work of the lesser barons, probably with the connivance of their

chief lords, or even of Stephen and Matilda, who were little scrupulous as to
the terms on which they accepted assistance. This multiplication of castles
without the licence of the sovereign was no novelty, and was forbidden on
the Continent by the celebrated “Edictum Pistense” of Charles the Bald in
864, already cited.
Another irregularity was the admission to the title of earl of several
persons unfitted to receive so great an honour, and whose only claim to
distinction was that they were leaders of mercenaries. Stephen was not in a
condition to endow all of them with the third penny of the revenues of a
county, the usual appanage of an earl. Many of the earls created by Stephen
stood, however, in a very different position. Such were Geoffrey de
Mandeville, Lord of Plessy and Walden, who accepted the Earldom of
Essex from both parties; Alberic de Vere, who built the noble keep of
Hedingham, and was the first of the long line of the Earls of Oxford; Hugh
Bigot, who held the Earldom of Norfolk; Richard de Clare, who held that of
Hertford; D’Aumâle, of Yorkshire; Gilbert de Clare, of Pembroke; Robert
de Ferrers, of Derby; and probably William de Ypres, the Earldom of Kent.
Stephen seems to have created, in all, eight; and the Empress six,—
Cambridge, Cornwall, Essex, Hereford, Salisbury, and Somerset.
From Arundel, Matilda, it is said by Stephen’s courtesy, moved to Bristol,
where her brother, Robert Earl of Gloucester, held his castle on the marshy
confluence of the Frome with the Avon. Robert also at that time held the
royal castle of Gloucester, long since destroyed, and a prison built on its
site; and he was probably builder also of the shell-keep still standing upon
the mound of Cardiff. At that time Matilda’s friends held Dover, with the
square keep of Canterbury, placed just within the enceinte of the yet older
city ditch, and almost within bowshot of the still more venerable mound of
Dane John. Mention is also made of the castles of Trowbridge and Cerne as
recently erected. The latter was taken by Stephen by storm, before the
attack on Malmesbury. Trowbridge held out with success.
The great event of 1141 was the siege, or rather the battle, of Lincoln.
The castle had been surprised, and was held by Ranulph Earl of Chester and
his half-brother William de Roumare. As Stephen approached, Earl Ranulph
left the place secretly to procure assistance from the Earl of Gloucester.
This was afforded, and the two earls, with 10,000 men, some of them Earl
Robert’s Welsh followers, crossed the Trent, and found Stephen drawn up to

receive them. The result of the battle was the capture of Stephen, and the
confirmation of Earl Ranulph in Lincoln Castle. On this Matilda went to her
royal castle at Winchester, a part of the defences of the old Venta Belgarum,
and characterised by a large mound, now removed. Here Bishop Henry, safe
in his rectangular keep of Wolvesey, still standing near the Cathedral, in the
opposite angle of the city, treated with her almost as equal with equal, but
acknowledged her as Lady of England. Their accord, however, was neither
cordial nor of long duration. Upon the Queen’s return, in some discredit,
from London, an open quarrel broke out. She attacked Wolvesey, and the
Bishop retaliated upon the royal castle with better success.
Under the escort of Brian Fitz-Count and Milo, to whom Matilda had
given the Earldom of Hereford and the “Castle and Mote” of that ancient
city, she fled from Winchester, Earl Robert guarding her rear. They were
pursued. Matilda reached Ludgershall Castle in safety, and then went to the
Devizes; but Earl Robert was taken on the way by William of Ypres, and
imprisoned in Rochester Castle. Stephen was then a prisoner in Bristol
Castle; and in November, 1141, the Earl and King were exchanged. A
month later, at the Synod of Westminster, the pains of excommunication
were denounced against all who built new castles, or offered violence to the
poor,—a significant conjunction.
Stephen’s illness and Earl Robert’s absence in Normandy checked for a
short time active hostilities, and meantime Stephen held the Tower of
London, and Matilda the castle of Oxford. Late in 1142, Stephen attacked
and took Oxford, and blockaded the castle until the winter set in, and the
stock of provisions fell short. The Thames was frozen, and the ground
covered with snow, by the aid of which Matilda, robed in white, escaped
across the river, and fled to Fitz-Count at Wallingford. The castle was then
surrendered. Its grand mound is yet untouched; and below it, upon the river,
is a large square tower of the eleventh century. Part of the city wall also
remains.
Before Reading, Stephen had taken several strong but less important
fortresses, such as Bow and Arrow Castle on the Cliff of Portland, which
still remains, and Carisbroke, the strength of the Isle of Wight. He took also
Lulworth, in Purbeck, represented by a far later residence. Cirencester,
which he burned, seems never to have been restored; and Farringdon, built
in haste by the Earl of Gloucester, was also swept away. Stephen’s strength,

however, lay in London and the east; and that of Matilda about Gloucester
and Bristol, and in the west. Stephen also held Pevensey. The great midland
barons stood aloof, biding their time. Thus Roger de Bellomont and his
brother Waleran, of Meulan, held Leicester with its Roman walls and
English earthworks, protected by the meads of the Soar; along the edge of
which, and at the foot of the mound, is still seen the Norman Hall, and hard
by the stately church of St. Mary de Castro, also in large part Norman. They
also held Mount Sorrell, at that time a strong castle built upon a rock of
syenite, but now quarried away, both rock and castle, to macadamise the
highways of the metropolis. Saher de Quincy was strong about Hinckley,
where the early mound, stripped of its masonry (if, indeed, it ever received
any), still guards the eastern entrance to the town. The Earl of Chester held
Lincoln as his own; and the hill of Belvoir, the cynosure of the Midland,
was guarded by the grand shell-keep of Trusbut and De Ros, burned down
and rebuilt after a tasteless fashion in our own days.
In 1146, death deprived Matilda of the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford.
She retired to Normandy; but her place was taken by the younger
Plantagenet, her son. In this year also Stephen availed himself of the
presence of the Earls of Chester and Essex at his court to seize their
persons, and to force them to render up, the one the castles of Lincoln and
Northampton, the other that of Plessy, of which the moated mound and
contained church are still seen, and Stansted Montfitchet, now almost
merged in a railway station, and which then vied with the old castle of the
Bishop of London at Stortford. Walden, also thus gained, is still famous for
its earthworks, and for the fragment of its Norman keep, composed, like
Bramber and Arques, of flint rubble deprived of its ashlar casing.
Earl Geoffrey having thus purchased his liberty, employed it in burning
the castle of Cambridge, the mound of which, sadly reduced in size, still,
from the interior of the Roman camp, overlooks the river. While in pursuit
of the Earl, Stephen is said to have built certain new and probably
temporary castles. More probably he refortified with timber some of the
moated mounds, such as Clare, Eye, and Bures, of which there are many in
Essex and Suffolk. Works in masonry he certainly had neither time nor
means then to construct. Soon afterwards the Bishop of Winchester ceased
to be papal legate, and found it convenient to support his brother’s party,
and persuaded him to refuse permission to Archbishop Theobald to attend

the new Pope at Rheims. Theobald, however, defied the King, and on his
return took shelter within the unusually lofty walls and strong earthworks of
Framlingham, a Bigot castle in Suffolk. About this time mention is made of
castles at Cricklade in Wilts, at Tetbury and at Winchcombe in
Gloucestershire. At Coventry also there was a castle, and another at
Downton in Wiltshire, still celebrated for its moot-hill.
In 1149, York opened its gates to young Henry of Anjou, who assembled
a considerable force, with which he met the royal army at Malmesbury,
though without an actual collision. Of 1151 is on record a curious
convention in which the Earls of Leicester and Chester were concerned,
under which no new castles were to be built between Hinckley and
Coventry, Coventry and Donnington, Donnington and Leicester; nor at
Gateham, nor at Kinoulton, nor between Kinoulton and Belvoir, Belvoir
and Oakham, Oakham and Rockingham. In 1152 occurred the celebrated
siege of Wallingford, held for Matilda by Brian Fitz-Count. Enough of
Wallingford remains to show how strong it must formerly have been; and
the temporal was fully equalled by the spiritual power, for the town, always
small, contained just twice as many churches as apostolic Asia. Stephen,
unable to approach the Castle from its landward side, threw up a work still
to be traced at Crowmarsh, on the left bank of the river, and there posted his
engines. Young Henry, holding Malmesbury, Warwick, and about thirty
other not very distant castles, marched to the relief of Wallingford, and
invested the lines of Crowmarsh, besieging the besiegers. Stephen advanced
to their aid from London, and Henry seems to have moved into the town,
holding the passage of the river at the bridge by a special work. Wallingford
was thus saved, and Henry, early in 1153, laid siege to Stamford, where, as
at York, Hertford, and Buckingham, two mounds commanded the river; and
stormed Nottingham, where were similar works upon the Trent. Stephen,
falling back into the eastern counties, took Ipswich, a castle of which even
the site is lost.
The death of Eustace, Stephen’s son, in August, 1153, paved the way to
an arrangement between the rivals. Stephen was to remain King, and Henry
became his acknowledged successor. William, Stephen’s surviving son, was
to retain the Warenne castles and estates, which included Ryegate, of which
traces remain; Castle-Acre, with its mound and other earthworks, placed
within a Roman encampment; Castle-Rising, one of the least injured and

most remarkable Norman keeps in England; Lewes, with its double mound
and strong natural position; and Coningsburgh, an English site of excessive
strength, though not then as yet celebrated for its noble tower. He also had
the castles of Wirmegay and Bungay, Norwich, and the castle and honour of
Pevensey. It was also agreed that the garrisons of the royal castles generally
should swear allegiance to Henry and to Stephen; and the castellans of
Lincoln, London, Oxford, Southampton, and Windsor gave hostages that on
Stephen’s death they would give them over to Henry. It was also agreed at a
conference at Dunstable in 1154, that all castles built since the death of
Henry I. should be destroyed (a clause which may be taken to show that no
absolutely new castles of very great importance had been built by Matilda
or Stephen); and that all mercenary troops should be sent back to their own
countries. The office of sheriff, as representing the crown in the counties,
was to be strengthened.
Stephen died in October, 1154, and his rival ascended the throne as
Henry II. without opposition.

CHAPTER V.
THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF CASTLES IN THE REIGN OF HENRY II.

HENRY II. was a great builder, and especially of military works. “In muris,
in propugnaculis, in munitionibus, in fossatis, ... nullus subtilior, nullus
magnificentior, invenitur.” This, however, does not so much refer to new
castles, of which he built but few, as to the completion or addition of new
keeps to the old ones, such, for example, as Dover.
A few days after his arrival in England he received the fealty of the
magnates of the realm at Winchester Castle, and was crowned at
Westminster, 19th December, immediately after which he granted to
William, Earl of Arundel, the castle and honour of Arundel and the third
penny of the county of Sussex. This was probably for life, for upon the
Earl’s death in 1176 the castle and county reverted to the Crown, and were
re-granted. Notwithstanding this beginning, Henry was fully determined to
carry out the policy agreed upon at Wallingford in the face of the nation. A
few days later he attended a council at Bermondsey, at which it was decided
to order all foreign mercenaries to quit the kingdom on pain of death, and to
raze all castles erected in the reign of Stephen. This decision was felt on all
sides to be absolutely required; and it was, to a great extent, at once acted
upon. Of these “castra adulterina” he destroyed, by some accounts, 375; by
others, 1,115. Unfortunately, their names and sites have rarely been
preserved, and can only be inferred where a castle played a part in the wars
of Stephen and Matilda, and is not afterwards mentioned. These castles
were, no doubt, built usually by men of limited means, and in haste; but
even a small and badly-built castle of masonry would require some labour
and outlay of money for its destruction. Possibly many of these buildings
were of timber, upon the existing mounds. Also there are found slight
earthworks of no great height or area, the plan of which seems that of a
Norman castle, and which not improbably belong to this period. At Eaton-
Socon, in Bedfordshire, and Lilbourne, in Northamptonshire, are such
earthworks. Farringdon and Mount Sorrel Castles, and those of Stansted
and Hinckley, Coventry, Cricklade,and Winchcombe, are thought to have

been dismantled at this time. Drax Castle, in Yorkshire, stood out, and was
destroyed, as, though far less completely, were Bungay and Tutbury, Thirsk,
Malzeard, and Groby. Under the pressure of the times even ecclesiastical
buildings had been occupied as castles. Ramsey and Coventry Abbeys were
so used by Geoffrey Glanville and Robert Marmion, and the fine church of
Bridlington by D’Aumâle.
Henry strove to carry out the new policy without respect for rank or
party; but when he threatened the strongholds of the great nobles his
difficulties began. Hugh Mortimer and Roger, son of Milo Earl of Hereford
and High Constable, old supporters of Matilda, refused to surrender
Wigmore, Cleobury, Bridgenorth, Hereford, and Gloucester. Henry at once
took action. Leaving Wallingford Castle in the spring of 1155, he laid siege
to Bridgenorth, whence one of his letters is dated “apud Brugiam in
obsidione.” He also took by siege Cleobury and Wigmore. This success
caused the Earl of Hereford to surrender Hereford and Gloucester, where
Henry had received much of his education; and on his protestation of
submission, the Earl was allowed to retain Hereford. Henry, Bishop of
Winchester, Stephen’s brother, was forced to flee the country, and his
castles were ordered to be destroyed; and that this order was executed
appears from the charge for the work entered in the Pipe Roll for 1155–6. In
like manner D’Aumâle, a baron of the house of Champagne, whose power
lay in Holderness, and who had commanded at Northallerton, was forced, in
January, 1155, after a short resistance, to give up Scarborough, the strongest
castle in Holderness, and Skipsea, not far its inferior. Henry also visited
Northampton, Nottingham, Lincoln, and York, and some of the western
castles and counties. At Windsor the “fermor” of the castle expended £4.
15s. 5d. in his reception “in corredio regis.” According to Mr. Eyton, 140
castles were destroyed in the course of 1155. William of Ypres, a turbulent
leader of Flemish mercenaries, who had been created Earl of Kent by
Stephen in 1141, was banished. He was one of the “pseudo Comites.”
A part of the new policy, though not at once enforced, was the
introduction, to a certain extent, of a money commutation for personal
military service. The new payment, under the name of “scutage,” became an
important branch of the revenue of the Crown. A rule was also established,
which, if not always acted upon, was well understood, that no man should

build a castle, or convert his dwelling into a “domus defensabilis,” without
a licence from the King.
In 1156 Henry went, by way of Dover, to the Continent, where he took
Mirabeau and Chinon, one of his charters being dated “Mirabel in
obsidione,” and another, “apud Chinon in exercitu”; nor did he return to
England till 1157, when he was at Southampton Castle, and went thence to
Ongar, Richard de Lacy’s Essex castle, and received from William Count of
Mortaine, King Stephen’s son, Pevensey and the Warenne castles, which
had fallen to him with the name and estates of that family. Hugh Bigot also
gave up Norwich, and made a general submission. Henry then visited
Colchester and other Essex castles, and thence proceeded to Northampton.
Malcolm of Scotland was fain to follow the example of his English friends,
and gave up Carlisle, Bamborough, and Newcastle, together with the three
northern counties. His personal submission was made to Henry at Peveril’s
Castle in the Peak, on which occasion the sheriff’s expenses on his behalf
were considerable. Malcolm was allowed to retain his grandmother’s
honour and castle of Huntingdon.
The destruction of so many smaller and later castles restored to their
former prominence those of greater strength and older date, which, being
for the most part necessary for the defence of the kingdom, were preserved
and strengthened, and entrusted to castellans of approved fidelity. Becket,
before his ecclesiastical promotion, thus received the castles of the Tower
and of Berkhampstead, and the castle and honour of Eye.
One of Henry’s chief difficulties arose out of the position of the marcher-
lords, such as the De Clares and the Mareschals, whose almost regal
powers, granted originally to enable them to hold the frontier against the
Welsh, were more frequently used, in conjunction with the Welsh, to coerce
the sovereign.
In 1157 Henry invaded North Wales, and while traversing Counsyth, a
Flintshire pass, was for a moment in great personal peril. It was on this
occasion that Henry de Essex threw down the standard and fled, and thus
forfeited his castle of Raleigh. On his way back Henry repaired the castles
of Basingwerk and Rhuddlan, and probably directed the construction of
Bere Castle, a very curious fortress with some ornamental details in the

Early English style, built upon a detached rock in a valley west of Cader
Idris.
In 1158 Henry visited various parts of England. At Carlisle, in January,
he knighted Earl Warenne, but refused that honour to Malcolm King of
Scotland. While there he fortified Wark Castle, the sheriff’s charge for
which was £21. 8s. 11d. At Nottingham he gave to Richard de Haia the
custody “castelli mei de Lincoln,” showing that he claimed it for the Crown.
In August he embarked at Portsmouth or Southampton for Normandy; and
while abroad took the castles of Thouars, Amboise, Fretevel, Moulins, and
Bon-Moulins. In 1159 he was occupied three months at the siege of
Thoulouse, which he failed to take. Other castles in Normandy he took and
repaired; others, again, he destroyed; and he built a few altogether new.
In January, 1163, Becket came to England with the King, and gave great
offence to the baronage by claiming Tonbridge Castle for his see. Towards
the close of the year Henry deprived him of the charge of the castles of Eye
and Berkhampstead; and in December admitted him to a personal interview
at Oxford Castle. In this year Henry was again at Peak Castle, and in
March, 1164, at Porchester. Soon afterwards the strong castle of Tickhill fell
to the Crown by escheat; and Henry spent Christmas at Marlborough, a
royal castle.
In 1165, after a short visit to Normandy, during which the Queen visited
Sherborne Castle, Henry was at Rhuddlan, and caused Basingwerk and the
Flintshire castles to be again put in order. This was fortunate, for the
campaign was unsuccessful. Expenses on that occasion were allowed at
Oswestry (then called Blancmont), Shrawardine, and Chirk Castles. This
was an assertion of ownership on the part of the Crown, although Oswestry
was part of the private estate of William Fitz-Alan, then a minor. Henry
retired to Shrewsbury, and soldiers were brought up from Worcester and
Abergavenny, some of whom were quartered in the Corbet Castle at Caus.
Grosmont, Llantilio or White Castle, and Scenfrith, the Monmouthshire
trilateral, also contributed soldiers. From Shrewsbury, Henry, reinforced,
advanced into Powis-land, and encamped on the Berwyn Mountain, where
he was near being cut off by the Welsh, and had to take refuge at Shotwick
Castle, a small fortress on the root of the peninsula of Wirrall, whence he
retired to Chester, and returned to London.

In February or March, 1166, was compiled the return of military fiefs and
tenants in chief, known as the Liber Niger, and which professes to represent
the feudal military force of the kingdom, though so far only as the division
of the land into military fees was then completed. The Liber Ruber states
the fees, in the reign of Richard I., to have been 32,000. Orderic gives them
at nearly double this, or 60,000. But there are no data for estimating, with
any approach to correctness, the force that the King could bring into the
field. Under Henry I. and Stephen, mercenaries were largely employed,
drawn mainly from Flanders. The Liber Niger has received very valuable
attention at the hands of Mr. Eyton and Professor Stubbs.
Early in Lent in this year Henry embarked at Southampton for
Normandy, where he reduced the castles of Alençon and La Roche Mabile,
and received a visit from the King of Scotland. Late in the year Geoffrey de
Mandeville and Richard de Lacy engaged in an unsuccessful expedition
into North Wales, and again strengthened Basingwerk Castle, during which
they were attacked by the Welsh. Henry remained absent in Normandy,
Gascony, and Brittany about four years, landing at Portsmouth in March,
1170; but he returned to Normandy in June. In October he wrote to Prince
Henry, directing him to restore the honour of Saltwood to the Archbishop.
On the 29th of December, Becket was murdered, the assassins having rested
at Saltwood the preceding night. After the murder they went to
Knaresborough Castle, then held by Hugh de Morville as castellan.
In August, 1171, Henry landed at Portsmouth, and early in September
was in South Wales, where he took Caerleon from Iorwerth ap Owen, and
went on to Pembroke Castle to meet Prince Rhys, to whom he made over a
large part of Cardigan. From Pembroke, or rather from Milford, he went, in
October, to Ireland, whence he returned, by St. David’s and by Cardiff, to
England in April, 1172, and thence embarked from Portsmouth for the
Continent in May.
In April, 1173, the confederacy between the King of France and Prince
Henry, who carried with him the discontented party among the English
barons, broke out into open war in both countries. Henry the elder remained
at Rouen, and with the doubtful exception of a short visit to England was
content to leave the conduct of the war there to the faithful and able Richard
de Lacy.

The English rebellion was of a very grave character. Among the rebels
were the Earls of Chester and Leicester, Ferrars Earl of Derby, Mowbray,
and Paganel. Ferrars held Groby, Tutbury, Burton, and some other castles;
Mowbray held Kinnard’s Ferry Castle in Axholm, Thirsk, and Malzeard,
which seem again to have been repaired or rebuilt; David of Scotland, Earl
of Huntingdon, held that castle; as did Bishop Puiset Norham and Durham.
These northern castles were strong, and supported by the Scottish levies;
but the great body of the baronage was with the king, and even in the North
his party preponderated. It included Umfraville of Prudhoe, De Vesci of
Alnwick, Ros of Hamlake, Bruce of Whorlton and Skelton; and in the south
almost all the great barons. Lacy laid siege to and burned Leicester town;
but the castle seems to have held out. He also, accompanied by Bohun,
marched into the North and wasted the border country and the Lothians.
The royal castles generally were ordered to be victualled and garrisoned.
In September, Robert, Earl of Leicester, landed at Walton in Suffolk with
a body of Flemish mercenaries. Suffolk was, no doubt, selected for the
landing as being opposite to the Flemish ports, and under the local influence
of the house of Bigot, who held the castles of Framlingham and Bungay,
and were hereditary Constables of Norwich, an office often forfeited, but
which gave them great influence in the city. Leicester and his Flemings
were at once received at Framlingham, and thence besieged Haganet Castle,
governed for the king by Ranulph de Broc. This they took; but failed before
the walls of Dunwich, and thence marched towards Leicester. Meantime
Lacy and Humphrey de Bohun had hurried back from the Scottish border,
were reinforced near Bury by the earls of Arundel, Cornwall, and
Gloucester, and in October came up with the Flemish army at Fornham St.
Geneviève. The invaders were routed, and Leicester and his countess taken
and sent prisoners to Normandy. Lacy’s work was, however, but half
completed. Mowbray still held Axholm, and Earl David, or probably for
him, Anketil Mallori, held Leicester Castle. The King of Scots laid siege to
Carlisle, while his brother took the castles of Knaresborough, Brough, and
Appleby. In May, 1174, Leicester Castle was still untaken, and the Scots
had reduced Warkworth and laid siege to Prudhoe and Alnwick. Lacy was
engaged in the siege of Huntingdon, aided by St. Liz, who claimed it. But a
second body of Flemings had landed, had attacked Norwich, and much
injured Nottingham and Northampton. The Bishop of Lincoln had,
however, taken Axholm.

In the midst of this critical state of affairs, Henry landed at Southampton
in July, 1174, with his prisoners, whom he sent to Devizes. His arrival
coincided with a sudden and material improvement in the state of his
affairs. While Henry was engaged in an act of penance at Becket’s tomb,
William, King of Scots, was taken before Alnwick. After a short illness in
London, Henry went to Huntingdon in time to receive the surrender of the
castle, and thence to Framlingham, which, with Bungay, was surrendered to
him by Hugh Bigot. Prince Rhys, then in alliance with Henry, besieged and
took Tutbury, and the Mowbray castle of Malzeard was also taken. At
Northampton, in July, Henry received the submission of the Bishop of
Durham, with the castles of Durham, Norham, and Northallerton. Thirsk
Castle was given up by Roger de Mowbray; Tutbury and Driffield by Earl
Ferrars, with Leicester, Mount Sorrell, and Groby.
Henry’s success was complete; but the rebellion showed how dangerous
were the great castles to public order, and how necessary it was to dismantle
a large number of them, and to keep the rest, as far as possible, in the hands
of the Crown. This policy he continued to act upon to the end of his reign,
treating all conquered rebels with great clemency as regarded their persons
and their estates, but retaining their castles in his own hands. Even Richard
de Lacy, to whom the hundred of Ongar was granted in 1174, was not
allowed to retain the castle.
In May, 1175, Henry was in England, and in June received the surrender
of Bristol Castle from William, Earl of Gloucester. In January, 1176, was
held the council at Northampton, at which the kingdom was divided into six
circuits, with three justiciaries for each circuit. Among the edicts which they
were to enforce were those relating to castles. A strict inquisition was to be
made into the tenure by castle-guard, and how far its duties were
discharged.
It does not appear to what extent the new regulations were carried out;
but the general effect of the new system was to check marauders, and to
render insurrections more difficult and less frequent. Northallerton, more
than once dismantled, was at last (1177) entirely destroyed; and the Bishop
of Durham, its owner, had to pay a fine of a thousand marcs for his share in
the last rebellion. Such castles as Durham, Norham, and Scarborough,
which it was expedient to preserve, were attached to the Crown, and placed
in the hands of faithful castellans. Bamburgh was entrusted to William de

Stuteville, and Norham to William de Neville, Scarborough to the
Archbishop of York, Berwick to Geoffrey de Neville, and Durham to Roger
de Coniers. The assize of arms, by which, in 1180, it became the duty of
each freeholder to provide himself with arms and armour according to his
means and condition, rendered the commonalty more capable of resisting
tyranny, and on the whole tended to strengthen the hands of any not very
unpopular sovereign against the barons.
The general result of Henry’s domestic policy was undoubtedly
successful, and his latter years were untroubled by any serious outbreak. In
1177, he returned to Normandy; but both there, and during his subsequent
visits to England, he paid great attention to the castles of each country,
visiting many of them, appointing and changing the castellans, and causing
the defences to be kept in proper order. In February, 1187, he visited the
very singular castle of Chilham by Canterbury. He died in the castle of
Chinon, July, 1189.

CHAPTER VI.
THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF THE
TWELFTH CENTURY.

HOWEVER numerous may have been the castles destroyed under the
Convention of Wallingford, or during the subsequent reign of Henry II.,
they seem to have been almost entirely fortresses of recent date, in private
hands, and of little importance as regarded the general defence or the
orderly administration of the kingdom. Among those that played at all an
important part in the internal wars of the sons or grandsons of Henry, there
are missing but very few known to have been built or restored by his
predecessors or by himself; and the names that occur in the chronicles of
the period, or are entered from time to time in the records of the realm,
show that the country continued to be amply provided with castles, and that
almost all of the first class were occasionally repaired at the cost of the
Crown, and were governed by castellans holding office during the king’s
pleasure, whom moreover it was the custom frequently to change. It is here
proposed, at some length, to enumerate the fortresses of England and in the
Marches of Wales, as they stood at the close of the reign of Henry II., so far
at least as their names and positions or any account of them can be
recovered.
Taking London as the centre, military and political, of the kingdom, we
have, upon the Thames, the Tower, the first and chief fortress founded by
the Conqueror, and which he considered sufficient to protect and overawe
the city. In the city itself, also upon the banks of the Thames, near the outlet
of the Flete, was Baynard’s Castle, the stronghold of the Barons Fitz-
Walter, standard-bearers to the City of London, and an important branch of
the House of Clare. At various distances from this centre, according to the
disposition of the ground, were posted within the northern and southern
passes of the chalk ridge, Berkhampstead, an appanage of the earldom of
Cornwall, and Guildford, the early keep of which stands in part upon an
artificial mound. Also, to the immediate south of London, were the
episcopal castle, still inhabited, of Farnham, and Earl Warenne’s castle on

the hill at Reigate, of which some traces remain. Higher up the Thames
were Windsor, Reading, Wallingford, and Oxford, all fortresses of high
antiquity and of the first rank. Between the Thames and the sea-coast the
country was well guarded, and the communications with Dover,
Portsmouth, and Southampton, so important to sovereigns with possessions
on the Continent, rendered secure. Dover, called by William the Conqueror,
according to Matthew Paris, “Clavis et repagulum,” the key and bolt of the
kingdom, was one of its oldest, largest, and strongest fortresses, and
covered a nearly impregnable area of thirty-five acres. It crowned the crest
of a chalk rock which seemed to rise out of the sea, and steep by nature was
rendered still more so by art, and bore traces of Norman, English, Roman,
and probably British occupation. Its well of water is particularly specified,
according to M. Paris, in Harold’s celebrated covenant with Duke William.
Indeed, there seem to have been two wells in the keep, besides another, no
doubt that of Harold, in the outer ward, probably a Roman work. The town
also was walled. In the rear of Dover lay the city of Canterbury, mentioned
in “Domesday” as fortified. It was strong to the landward, with a
formidable bank and ditch, revetted by a Norman wall, and towards the
water was covered by the marshes of the Stour, at one time navigable up to
the quays of the ancient city. At one angle and just within the area, was a
strong rectangular keep, a Norman addition, and near it was the Danejohn, a
far older moated mound, older even than the bank and ditch of the city,
which were laid out at an angle to include it. Near to Canterbury was
Chilham, a Norman tower of peculiar form, on the site of a work burned by
the Danes in 838–51; and at no great distance was Saltwood, given to the
see of Canterbury in 1036, and said to owe the formidable banks and
ditches which still surround it to a son of Hengist. West of Dover William
d’Abrincis had built the castle of Folkestone, now, with the cliff it stood
upon, swallowed up by the sea. It was preceded by an earlier work in earth
a little further inland; Sandwich, one of the cinque ports, was also
embanked and walled. Between Dover and London, upon the marshy
windings of the upper Medway, stood the mound of Tonbridge, with its
Norman walls and shell keep, a place of immense strength, and the subject
of a long contest between the archbishops and the earls of the race of De
Clare. Again, in the rear and upon the same road was the castle of Rochester
sharing its defensive strength with the oldest tower of the contiguous
cathedral and the walled city standing within or on the lines of a Roman

enclosure, and commanding the lowest bridge upon the deep and rapid
Medway. Many of the castles of Kent, especially those in private hands,
were founded in the thirteenth century, or later; but Horton, Eynsford, and
Lullingston, on the Darent, and that of Sheppy, on the Swale, are far more
ancient. Besides these Otford, an archiepiscopal castle, was the “caput” of
an Honour. Cowling is mentioned in Mercian charters in 808. The manor
belonged to Leofwin, brother of Harold, and was held by Bishop Odo.
Allington Castle was demolished by the Danes and afterwards held by Earl
Godwin, and later on by Odo. The Norman additions were probably the
work of Earl Warenne. Near to Maidstone is Malling, thought to be as early
a Norman keep as any in England, and tolerably perfect though small;
Thurnam or Godard’s Castle also has a square Norman keep and some early
earthworks, and near to it were the very perfect moated mounds of Binbury
and Stockbury. Ledes Castle, still inhabited, has a detached and water-
girdled keep and a very complete barbican. The keep of Sutton, afterwards
Sutton-Valence, seems to be Norman. Tong Castle, in Bapchild manor on
the Swale, attributed to Hengist, was built as a castle by the St. Johns.
Bayford Castle occurs in Sittingbourne; and Queenborough, in Sheppey,
though called from the queen of Edward III., is probably of much older
date. At Alfrington Alfred is said to have had a strong place, called
afterwards Burlow. At Verdley, and Castlefield in Hartfield, are vestiges
said to represent castles.
In Sussex each rape had its castle, founded probably by the Jutish
settlers. Of these under the Norman rule Hastings, almost equal to Dover in
its natural strength, though of smaller size, was the head of the barony of
the earls of Eu. It is first mentioned in the Bayeux tapestry, where in one of
the compartments is written, “Iste [comes Moretaine] jussit ut foderentur
castellum ad Hasteng.” This probably relates to the double line of ditches
by which the castle is cut off from the body of the hill. The town also was
walled. Pevensey, strong in its Roman wall and added English earthworks,
was the castle of De Aquila, the seat of the Honour called by the English of
“The Eagle.” Here, in 1118, the Custos of Windsor expended £118. 4s. in
repairing the palisades (“palicii”) of the castle. Lewes, with its mounds
crowning each end of an isolated hill, was the favourite strength of the
Warennes, Earls of Surrey. The natural platform, added ditches and mound,
and square keep of Bramber, on the Adur, rendered almost impregnable this
seat of the turbulent and powerful Barons Braose of Gower, who also

owned Knepp Castle, nearer the head of the river, where a mound and some
Norman masonry may still be seen. Knepp was afterwards held by King
John on the attainder of William de Braose, and in 1216 was ordered to be
destroyed. Arundel, the only castle named in “Domesday” as existing in the
reign of the Confessor, and the seat successively of Earl Roger of
Montgomery, of d’Albini, and the race of Fitz-Alan, still overlooks the dell
of the Arun, and wears many of its older features; and finally Chichester,
also a Montgomery castle, long since destroyed, or reduced to its primal
mound, stood within the fortified area of the Roman Regnum. Besides these
there seem to have been Norman castles at Eastbourne and Firle, all traces
of which have, however, disappeared. Mention is also made of Sedgewick
Castle, near Horsham.
More to the west in Hampshire, upon the Havant water, was Boseham, a
very famous castle long since swept away; and upon the inlet of
Portsmouth, Porchester, a noble combination of Roman and Norman
masonry. Within its area is contained a parish church and churchyard, and
here was the favourite muster-place for troops destined for Havre. On the
opposite side of the Solent, in the centre of the Isle of Wight, is Carisbroke,
celebrated for its keep and mound, and its wells of unusual depth, and on
the opposite mainland, at the marshy junction of the Stour and the Wiltshire
Avon, stands the ancient keep of Christchurch, placed exceptionally upon
the mound of the earlier Twynham. Here also is preserved the Castle Hall, a
late Norman building, almost a duplicate of a corresponding structure in
Fitzgerald’s castle at Adare, near Limerick. Upon the verge of Southampton
Water, between the Anton and the sea, occupying a strong peninsula, is the
town of that name, still preserving the remains of its Norman walls, and of
the keep of a very formidable castle once included within its area.
Inland of this line of castles from the sea northwards to the Thames, the
counties of Wilts and Berks showed with Hampshire an abundance of
strong places. There, though actually in Hampshire, was Winchester, the
British Caerwent and the Roman Venta Belgarum, which in its English days
contested with London the supremacy of the South. Strongly fortified with
broad and high earthworks and deep ditches, it contained, attached to one
angle, the royal castle, and within another, its diagonal, the episcopal keep
of Wolvesey, of which the one is now represented by its noble hall, and the
other by its rectangular Norman keep. The Hall at Winchester, though of

very early English date, is after the Norman type, having three aisles. The
castle was the prison of Archbishop Stigand in 1066. Before its gates, in
1075, Earl Waltheof was beheaded. Here, in 1102, was tried the memorable
dispute for precedence between York and Canterbury. In 1141 it was
defended by the Empress Maud, and here Henry II. held several
Parliaments, and Cœur de Lion paused when in the adjacent cathedral he
was a second time crowned on his return from captivity in 1189.
Scarcely second to Winchester in strength, and its equal in undefined
antiquity, is Old Sarum, a hold of mixed but uncertain origin, where the
concentric lines of masonry, girdling and crowning the central mound,
included the cathedral of the diocese, and to which, according to the
historians of Wiltshire, King Alfred caused an exterior bank and palisade to
be added. In Wilts was also the Devizes, reputed the finest castle on this
side the Alps. “Divisæ quod erat Salesberiensis Episcopi castellum, mirando
artificio, sed et munimine inexpugnabili firmatum,” but of which there now
remains little besides the gigantic mound and profound ditches. Of
Marlborough the burh alone remains, while of Malmesbury, an
encroachment of the secular upon the lands of the regular clergy, all traces
are removed. Over the Hampshire border is Old Basing, where the Saxons
were worsted by the Danes in a pitched battle in 871, which became the
“caput” of the fifty-five lordships held by Hugh de Port in “Domesday,” and
afterwards of the St. John’s oldest barony. Even in the time of Henry II. it
was called the old castle, and in a rather later reign Robert, Lord St. John,
had a licence to fix a pale along the base of his mote at Basing, and to
maintain it so fortified during the king’s pleasure. The original circle of
earthwork is nearly all that now remains. At no great distance is Odiham,
once a possession of the see of Winchester, where is an early tower, stripped
of its ashlar, and surrounded by marshy ground once famous for its forest
sport. Castle Coombe was a famous and very early Wiltshire castle, now
reduced nearly to an earthwork, and Warblington, a stronghold of the
Montacutes, and the castle of Cirencester are both gone, the latter destroyed
by Henry III.
Still further to the west are the castles of Dorset and Somerset, Devon
and Cornwall. Wareham, the ancient Frome-mouth, placed between the
Frome and the Piddle, once marked the limits of Poole harbour, and was a
place of great strength and fame. As early as 876 its west side, the root of

the twixt-waters peninsula, was criticised as weak. In one corner of its
rectangular and pseudo-Roman area, a moated mound has been thrown up,
as at Tamworth, by the river-side, and its earthworks and position justify its
reputation as the key of Purbeck, of which Corfe was the citadel. Corfe,
perched upon the summit and slope of a chalk hill between two clefts
whence it derives its name, is now a magnificent ruin. Half its noble
rectangular keep still stands, and incorporated into the wall of its middle
ward is a fragment of the palace of the old West Saxon kings, probably the
only material evidence extant that they ever employed masonry in their
military works. Of Sherborne, an ancient episcopal seat, the spacious
earthwork still contains much of a late Norman keep, and is still entered
through a Norman gatehouse. Ilchester and Shaftesbury Castles are gone,
and only a part of the earthworks of that of Dorchester remain. West of
Purbeck, in Portland, is Bow-and-Arrow Castle, upon the sea-cliff, a
curious and somewhat peculiar structure of early date, built or occupied by
the De Clares. From Portland to the mouth of the Exe there do not appear to
have been any strong places of importance.
Just within the mouth of the Exe is Powderham, the work of an Earl of
Eu and of De Redvers, and their Courtenay successors, and higher up and
opposite, Rougemont, the citadel of Exeter, which still exhibits the high
banks, deep ditches, and ancient gatehouse, fragments of the defences
behind which the citizens braved the fury of the Conqueror. Inland from the
Exe is Okehampton, the earliest of the English possessions of the great
family of Courtenay, and the work of Baldwin of Exeter, of the lineage but
not bearing the name of De Clare. He was the builder also of Tiverton
Castle which is now destroyed, as also is Bridgewater. Among the early
castles of the district was Stoke Courcy, now a ruin; Stowey, “pulchrum et
inexpugnabile in pelagi littore locatum”; and Dunster, the strongest place in
the west, the “Domesday” castle of the Mohuns, and after them, as now, of
the Luttrells. In the west of Devon there remains the mound of Plympton, a
Redvers castle, and the shell keep of Totnes, the work of Joel of that place,
and afterwards inherited by the Barons Braose. Barnstaple town was
probably walled, and certainly had four gates. At Taunton a Norman keep
and part of a Norman hall still stand on the banks of the Tone, and rise out
of earthworks attributed to King Ine. At Montacute, the high ground marked
by an immense Romano-British camp, ends in the sharp-pointed hill which
William Earl of Moretaine selected for his castle, of which the name,

appropriately transported from his Norman castle, alone remains, and but
little more of Castle-Carey, the Lovell seat, besieged and taken by Stephen,
or of the Norman keep of Harptree, in a pass in the Mendip range.
Of importance beyond all these more or less local castles was that of
Bristol, founded by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, but found too valuable to be
intrusted to his successors in the earldom. Its square Norman keep stood
between the Frome and the Avon, and was strong both in works and in
position. After centuries of contest for its possession between the earls of
Gloucester and the Crown, it ceased to be of military value and was taken
down. Upon and beyond the Tamar, as at Montacute, Wallingford, and
Berkhampstead, may be traced the footsteps of the powerful noble who held
the great earldom of Cornwall. Their principal Cornish castles,—Trematon,
Launceston, where the town also was walled, and Restormel,—were the
work originally of Robert, half-brother of the Conqueror. Their remains are
considerable, and their strength and position were such as to give them
immense influence in that wild and almost impenetrable district. St.
Michael’s Mount remains strongly fortified; Carnbrea, the work of Ralph de
Pomeroy, still marks the rocky ridge whence it derives its name, and there
are traces of Boscastle, the hold of the Barons Botreaux, and of the
Arthurian castle of Tintagel. There are besides in Cornwall a few fortified
houses, and a multitude of strong places,—camps rather than castles, very
peculiar in character, and probably the work of the native Cornish before
the arrival of the stranger.
It appears, then, that south of and upon the Thames and Bristol Avon
there stood, at the close of the twelfth century, at least eighty-nine more or
less considerable castles, a very large number of which were kept in repair
by the sheriffs of the counties and governed by castellans appointed by the
king and holding office during pleasure. Of these, at least thirty contained
shell keeps placed on moated mounds, and were in some form or other far
older than the Conquest; and about seventeen were characterised by
rectangular keeps, of which two only, Guildford and Christchurch, were
associated with mounds, and of these very few indeed were of pure Norman
foundation. Of the remaining forty-two the particulars are doubtful, so they
cannot be counted with one class or the other, but most of them are also
older than the Conquest.

Passing into the middle belt of country extending from the Thames and
Avon to the Tees and the Lune, and from the German Ocean to the Severn,
the provision for defence is found to be fully equal to that in the South. In
the East Anglian province, in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and
Cambridge, the chief strongholds were Colchester, Hedingham, Bungay,
Framlingham, Castle Acre, Castle Rising, Norwich, and Cambridge.
Colchester, the work of Hubert de Rye or his son, acting in some measure
for the Crown, is built of Roman, or quasi-Roman, material upon a Roman
site and within the area of a town mentioned in “Domesday” as fortified. It
commanded the inlet of Harwich and the Blackwater, and in its rear, higher
up the Coln, was the De Vere keep of Hedingham, still a very perfect
structure, and unusually though severely ornate. This keep stands upon a
natural mound, protected by a formidable ditch, and appended to it is an
outer enclosure, older evidently than the keep. In the same county is
Rayleigh, celebrated for the extent of its earthworks, and, with Clavering,
attributed to Swegen or Suenus, sheriff of Essex under the Confessor, and
ancestor of Henry de Essex, Henry I.’s disgraced standard-bearer. The
earthworks of both places are, however, probably much earlier than the
masonry. There also is Plessy, a Mandeville restoration in masonry, with the
parish church within its enclosure; Ongar, for the time the castle of Richard
de Lucy; and Stansted Montfichet, the remaining earthworks of which
indicate its site. Bishops Stortford, or Weytemore, was an early manor of
the Bishop of London, who there had a castle. These four last-named castles
all had moated mounds. At Bures also was a moated mound eighty feet
high, hence its name of Mount Bures; also at Birch Castle, near Colchester,
and at Benyngton were castles. Canewdon was either a castle or a very old
fortified house, dating from the time of Henry de Essex, and at Canfield,
called from its castle, “Canefield ad Castrum,” the De Veres had a fortress
of which the mound is still seen.
Framlingham is the chief castle of Suffolk. It is attributed originally to
Redwald, king of East Anglia, at the close of the sixth century. Here there is
at present no keep, but the Norman walls, of unusual height, forty to fifty
feet, and eight feet thick, still enclose the court, and are protected by
enormous earthworks, deep and high and of great extent. This was the chief
of the Bigot castles, said to have been built by Hugh Bigot in 1176, and to
the same powerful family belonged Bungay, “hard by the river Waveney,”
with grand earthworks, a mound, and the remains of a square keep. Walton,

another Bigot castle, was destroyed by Henry II. Clare, the manor whence
the earls of Gloucester and Hertford derived their family name, retains its
mound with part of a polygonal keep, and outworks in earth and masonry
on a scale commensurate with the power of their lords. The area is occupied
in part by a railway station. Eye, the mound of which remains, was a castle
at Domesday, the seat of Robert Malet, and afterwards was given by Henry
II. to Ranulph, Earl of Chester. Dunwich, though not a walled town, was
protected by a deep ditch and high bank, upon which as late as the reign of
Henry III. was a palisade.
The chief castle of Norfolk was Norwich, a place of immense strength
and high antiquity. Its rectangular keep of great size and more ornate than
usual, though much injured by injudicious repairs, and closed against the
antiquary by its conversion to the base uses of a prison, still predominates
grandly over the fine old city, of which it was long the glory and the dread.
Its deep, single ditch, far older than its works in masonry, is now for the
most part filled up and built over. The city also was strongly walled.
Haganet, a Norfolk castle taken by the Earl of Leicester and his invading
Flemings, is utterly destroyed. Mileham, of which the moated mound,
though low, and a fragment of a square keep remain, was the work of Alan,
son of Flaald, who held the manor from the Conqueror. To him also is
attributed the adjacent castle of Burghwood, of which large earthworks
remain. Orford, an almost solitary example of a Norman polygonal keep, is
tolerably perfect. The keep of Castle Rising, though smaller in dimensions
than Norwich, resembles it in type. It is the most highly-ornamented keep in
England, and, though a ruin, is well preserved and cared for. Here also is
that great rarity, a tolerably perfect and unaltered fore-building and
entrance. This keep stands within a lofty bank, beyond which, on one side,
is a spacious outwork, also heavily embanked. Castle Acre, best known for
its Norman priory, contains also the mound and other earthworks and part
of the shell keep of a large castle, and near to these is the town of Lynn,
once strongly fortified, and still possessing an early gatehouse. At Thetford,
girt by a double ditch, is the great mound thrown up by the Danes in 865–6
to command the then adjacent city, but this post, so important before the
Conquest, does not seem to have been occupied afterwards. Other Norfolk
castles were Buckenham and Tateshall, of which the date is doubtful, and
Marnham, of which it was reported in the reign of Edward I.—“Quod
erectio castri de Marnham est in præjudicium domini Regis.” Wirmegay, a

Warenne castle, strong in its marshy approaches, was certainly earlier. At
Weting, near the church, was a castle with a mound, on which a few years
ago was a fragment of the keep. It was the seat of De Plaiz, who represented
Mont Fitchet, and whose heiress married the ancestor of the house of
Howard. There was also a castle at Kenningdale, near Diss.
Cambridgeshire contained but a few castles, the fens presenting little to
attract the spoiler, and being in themselves a secure defence. At Cambridge,
upon the banks of the sluggish and winding Cam, a prison has taken the
place of the castle ordered by the Conqueror; but a part of the mound and a
fragment of its subsidiary banks remain, and are not to be confounded with
the still earlier Roman enclosure. At Ely a large mound with appended earth
banks is thought to have been the site of the ancient castle of the bishop of
that see. All traces of masonry are gone, as at Wisbeach. The camp at Castle
Camps, the seat of the Saxon Wolfwin, once held a Norman castle, the work
of the De Veres. Of Chevely, an episcopal castle, a fragment remains.
Burwell, the masonry of which belonged to one of Stephen’s improvised
castles, is remembered as that before which Geoffrey de Mandeville
received his fatal wound. A fragment of its wall and the mound remain.
Swavesey and Bassingbourne were early castles.
Hertford, Bedford, and Buckingham, the inland positions of which were
insufficient to secure them from invasions from a foe beyond the sea, were
not unprovided with castles. Hertford, visited by the Danes in 894, was
fortified by Edward the Elder in 914, who there threw up a burh between
the rivers Lea, Mineran, and Bean, and in the year following a second burh
on the opposite bank of the Lea. Hertford, says Smith in 1588, has two
castles, one on each bank of the Lea. These corresponded to the two banks
already mentioned. Upon the still existing mound Peter de Valoines placed
the keep ordered by the Conqueror. The Magnavilles next held it, and Henry
of Huntingdon calls it, “castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum.”
Berkhampstead, as old, and a far more considerable fortress, and the head
of a great Honour, has been mentioned as one of the northern defences of
the metropolis. Its mound, wholly artificial, still supports the foundations of
a Norman shell keep, and appended to it is a large oval platform, the walls
and entrances to which remain. The whole is partially encircled by several
concentric lines of bank and ditch, the character of which shows that they

were protected by stockades instead of walls of masonry. Here the Black
Prince spent his latter days, and here he died.
The chief castle of Bedfordshire, the head of the Beauchamp barony, was
at Bedford, where the Ouse, menaced by the Danish galleys, was protected
early in the tenth century by a mound upon each bank, one of which is now
removed and the other was crowned by the keep of the Norman castle.
Bedford Castle is famous for two memorable sieges in the reigns of Stephen
and Henry III. Of its works, once extensive, the masonry has been removed,
the fosse has also been filled up, and the mound somewhat reduced in size.
Risinghoe, The Giants hill, on the Ouse below Bedford, seems to have had a
shell keep, and at Tempsford is to be seen a curious but small earthwork
thrown up by the Danes in 921, and taken by Edward the Elder late in the
year. Whether this was the site of the subsequent Norman castle is very
doubtful. There was also a castle at Odell or Wahull, the seat of the barons
of that name. It is uncertain when was founded Bletsoe, a castle and the
head of a Beauchamp barony. Below Bedford, on the Ouse, are the
earthworks of Eaton-Socon, also a Beauchamp castle, but dismantled at an
early period.
The remains of the castle of Huntingdon, though reduced to banks,
ditches, and a mound, nevertheless show how spacious and how strong
must have been this chief seat of the broad earldom of Countess Judith and
her descendants the kings of Scotland, earls also of Huntingdon. The Danes
were encamped here in 921, and the burh which had been ruined was
restored by Eadward in the same year. The ditches were fed from the Ouse,
which expanded before the castle as a broad marsh, now a fertile meadow.
Of the early military history of the castles of Connington, Kimbolton, and
Bruck, but little is recorded.
The castle of the Giffards, earls of Buckingham, included one of the two
burhs which were thrown up on opposite sides of the Ouse, in 915, to
command the river and protect the town. The castle was probably destroyed
in the reign of Stephen, and the further mound levelled. The Paganels had a
castle at Newport; the Hanslapes at Castlethorpe; the Barons Bolbec at
Bolbec, now Bullbanks, in Medmenham; and there seem to have been
castles at Winslow, Lavendon, and Whitchurch.

West of this district came Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire.
Windsor, Wallingford and Reading have been mentioned. The keep of
Windsor has a late Norman base, and the foundation of a gateway is of that
date, as is the entrance to a very curious gallery in the chalk, which ran
from the interior of the place beneath the buildings and the wall and opened
as a postern upon the scarp of the main ditch. The mound upon which the
round tower is placed is artificial and was surrounded by banks and ditches
much on the plan of Arundel. Reading was an early castle and strongly
posted between the Thames and the Kennet, upon an earthwork long before
contested between the Danes and the Saxons. The castle is supposed to have
been demolished by Henry III., in pursuance of the treaty of Wallingford:
no trace of it remains. Wallingford has had better fortune: its mound and
enclosure, the seat of the English Wigod, occupy one corner of the
rectangular earthworks of the town, and rest upon the river. It was attached
to the earldom of Cornwall, and was a place of great strength and splendour.
A few fragments of masonry still remain, and some traces of Stephen’s
camp on the opposite bank at Crowmarsh. There were also castles, though
of small consequence and doubtful age, at Newbury, Brightwell,
Farringdon, and Aldworth, the latter the seat of the Barons de la Beche.
Oxford Castle was a place of great antiquity and very strong, and formed
a part of the defences of the city. The mound remains and a crypt within it,
but the keep is gone. There is seen, however, above the river bank a rude
and early square tower of Norman work, now a prison. At Banbury,
Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, built a castle in 1125, which was held by the
Crown under Edward II. At Middleton was a strong castle, held by Richard
de Camville in the reign of John, and there were others, smaller buildings,
at Bampton, Bedington, Dedington, and Watlington, possibly demolished
by Henry II. Broughton, the castle of the Lords Say, is in this county.
Woodstock, though a royal manor, does not seem to have been fortified.
The castles at Ardley and Chipping-Norton were destroyed by Stephen. The
latter had a moated mound.
In Gloucestershire, besides Bristol, which was more connected with
Somerset, is Berkeley Castle, mentioned in the survey, but in its present
form built for its lord by Henry II. in acknowledgment of services rendered
to the Duke of Anjou, which remains marvellously little altered to the
present day. Gloucester, a royal castle, stood on the Severn bank at one

angle of the Roman city. It had a mound and a shell keep, now utterly
levelled, and the site partially built over. It was the muster-place and
starting-point for expeditions against South Wales, and the not infrequent
residence of the Norman sovereigns. Sudeley and Winchcombe were early
castles; the latter stood near St. Peter’s Church, and was the seat of
Kenulph, a Mercian king. There were also castles at Dursley and at
Brimpsfield, built by Osbert Giffard. The only Gloucestershire castle of any
consequence beyond the Severn was St. Briavels, built by Milo, Earl of
Hereford, probably about 1130, upon or near the site of an earlier work,
represented by an artificial mound. In the reign of Henry I. it was in the
hands of the Crown. It is the special head of Dene Forest, of which the
constable of the castle was warden. Here were held the miners’ courts, the
usages of which were very peculiar. St. Briavels formed the connecting link
between Gloucester and such of the Monmouthshire castles as were in the
hands of the Crown. Of smaller castles in this district may be mentioned
one at Aylesmore near Dymock, one near Huntley, and others at Ruardean
and Penyard.
North of Gloucestershire came the castles of the more purely midland
shires of Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, Northampton, Leicester, and
towards the eastern seaboard, Lincoln. The castle of Worcester stood on the
bank of the Severn, hard by the cathedral. The mound, now removed, was
occupied with masonry by Urso d’Abitot, who, however, did not always get
the best of it in his conflicts with the bishop. Also on the Severn was
Hanley, long since destroyed, and Emly, also a Beauchamp seat. Hartlebury,
the episcopal castle, is further inland, as is Dudley, the seat of the Barons
Somery, a place of high antiquity and great natural strength.
Warwick was one of the greatest, and by far the most famous of the
midland castles, famous not merely for its early strength and later
magnificence but for the long line of powerful earls, culminating in the
king-maker, who possessed it and bore its name. It was founded as a burh
early in the tenth century, and the keep, said to have resembled Clifford’s
Tower at York, stood upon the mound: both are now removed. The castle as
usual formed a part of the enceinte of the town, and the wall from the west
gate to the castle stood upon an early earth bank. Near to Warwick is
Kenilworth, the chief fortress of the midland, including a large area, and
strongly though artificially fortified. Of the English Kenelm nothing is

recorded, but the founder of its Norman work was the first of the house of
Clinton, one of Henry I.’s new earls, probably the only extant family
descended in a direct male line from the builder of a Norman keep of the
first class. The square keep and much of the existing wall are original, but
the broad lake, which added so much to its strength and is now drained and
converted into meadow, was probably a rather later addition, of the age of
the gatehouse on the dam, and of the curious earthwork covering its head.
The central earthworks are probably very early. Of Maxtoke, also a Clinton
castle, there are remains. Of the castle at Fillongley, the chief seat of the
Lords Hastings till they married the heiress of Cantelupe, and removed to
Abergavenny, only a few fragments remain. Ralph Gernon had a castle at
Coventry. Brownsover, Sekington, and Fullbrook castles were probably
adulterine, and are known only by vague tradition, and it is doubtful
whether the castle of the De Castellos included the burh at Castle
Bromwich or was on the site of the later manor house. The burh at
Sekington is very perfect. The Limesis had a castle at Solihull, of which the
moat long remained, as had the Coleshills at that place. The Birminghams
had a castle in the manor of that name, near the church; there were early
castles at Erdington, at Studley on the Arrow, and at Oversley, long the seat
of the Butlers, whose ancestor was “Pincerna” to the Earls of Leicester.
Beldesert, built by Thurstan de Montfort soon after the Conquest, received a
market from the Empress Maud, and Dugdale mentions Simili Castle,
probably the seat of a family of that name. Ragley was a later castle.
Coventry was strongly walled.
The line of the Trent on its passage through Staffordshire was amply
fortified. Stafford, otherwise Chebsey castle, constructed by the Conqueror,
probably upon the burh thrown up by Eathelflaeda in 913, was destroyed
before the date of the Survey, and was, therefore, probably not a work in
masonry. The town was fortified. The castle of the Barons Stafford was near
the town, but outside it. Its foundations are original. Of the Ferrers castles
Chartley is only indicated by a mound. Beaudesert and Burton are
destroyed. Tamworth, their chief seat, as that of the Marmions before them,
still retains its shell keep and part of the curtain wall, remarkable for its
herringbone masonry. It was a royal Saxon residence in the eighth century,
and the mound on which stands the keep was thrown up in 931. As at
Wareham and Wallingford, it is placed near the river in one corner of a
rectangular earthwork open on that side. Tutbury, also a Ferrers castle,

occupied a natural knoll above the Trent, raised on one side by an artificial
burh, and covered on the other by extensive works in earth of early date,
probably original. The present masonry is chiefly the work of John of
Gaunt, but the fine old Priory church, founded by the early lords, still stands
just outside the ditch. Lichfield is reputed to have had a castle at the south
end of the town. At the north end is the cathedral, “Lichfield’s moated pile,”
defended by a broad and deep ditch, and on one side by a lake or pool. It is
not improbable that these works, which are rectangular in plan, were
executed by the Romanised Britons, and that their existence caused the
selection of this spot as the seat of the bishopric. The Bishop’s castle of
Eccleshall has lately been alienated. There was a castle at Heley, and at
Alton, now Alton Towers, and at Stourton. Of the castle of Newcastle-
under-Lyne, held by the Earl of Chester for John, all trace is lost.
The Northamptonshire castles stood mostly upon the lines of the Nene
and the Welland. Northampton, built by Simon de St. Liz, certainly upon an
earlier site, was a strongly walled and celebrated place, the scene of
important events in English history. Its castle has long been reduced to a
few earthworks and a fragment of masonry, and very recently these also
have been destroyed. Of Fotheringay, a very ancient fortress, the scene of a
siege by Henry III., there remains little in masonry, although the bank and
mound are perfect. It was dismantled by James as the scene of his mother’s
execution. Barnwell Castle is probably late, as is the fine fortified gatehouse
of the Sapcote family, at Elton. At Castle Ashby, all trace of the castle is lost
in the grand old house which has succeeded to it. Of Lilbourne, a moderate
mound and a rectangular earthwork are the sole remains of the castle. Near
Towcester at Moor End in Potterspury, and at Alderton, were castles,
probably built and destroyed in the reigns of Stephen and Henry II.
Towcester itself does not appear to have been fortified by the Normans, nor
the curious burh at Earls Barton, the moot hill for the earldom of Countess
Judith. But of all the Northamptonshire castles the most interesting, both
from its history and its remains, is undoubtedly Rockingham, founded by
the Conqueror upon an old site, standing in its old shire and forest, and
which has been always inhabited and cared for. Near to Rockingham, but in
Rutland, is Oakham, built by Walkelin de Ferrars in 1180, where the keep is
gone, but the original late Norman hall is quite perfect and still in use. Of
the defences of this remarkable fortress there remain ditches and banks,
with a part of the curtain wall and a large outwork of earth. Belvoir, well

deserving of the name, the only other Rutland castle, was the seat of the
Todenis, ancestors of the D’Albini and Ros families, and of its present
lords. Like Windsor, its circular keep, rebuilt nearly from its foundations,
crowns a detached hill, and from its terrace is one of the richest views in
England.
In Leicestershire, Leicester Castle, the seat of its powerful and turbulent
Norman earls, stood, and in part still stands, between the Soar and the
Roman Ratæ, the walls of which are said to have been destroyed in 1173.
Of Hinckley, the seat of the Grantmaisnils, and the “caput” of their Honour,
the mound alone remains by the side of the Roman way. The castle was
probably dismantled by Henry II. Groby, a Ferrers castle, has long been
reduced to a small mound, and Mount Sorrel, once so strong, is utterly
destroyed. By a convention at Mount Sorrel in the reign of Stephen,
between Robert, Earl of Leicester, and Ralph, Earl of Chester, already cited,
it was agreed that Ralph Gernon’s castle of Raunston should be destroyed
and Whitwick strengthened, but that no new castle should be built between
Hinckley, Donnington, Leicester, Belvoir, Okeham, and Rockingham.
Should any be so built, the two earls agreed to demolish the works. Sauvey
Castle was an early work. Of Castle Donnington, the house of the Zouches
of Ashby, the early history is obscure.
The main castles of Lincolnshire were Lincoln and Axholme. Axholme,
built in the fens of that name, was a place of immense strength, and the
head of a barony of the Mowbrays, a race always on the side of disorder.
The castle has long been destroyed, and the fen, to which it owed much of
its strength, is drained. Lincoln Castle has been more fortunate. The hill of
Lincoln has been thought to retain traces of British occupation, and its
Roman buildings and English earthworks are very remarkable. Soon after
the Conquest 166 houses were destroyed to make room for the castle itself,
and 74 more to give space around it. Its enormous banks occupy an angle of
the Roman station, and contain parts of the ruined wall and gate, both
Roman. The great mound, the larger of two, is occupied by the original
shell keep, which, placed at the foot of the cathedral, towers high above the
city, and overlooks the broad plain beyond. Often visited by the Norman
kings, Lincoln Castle is specially famous for the great battle fought beneath
its walls in 1141, in which Stephen was taken prisoner by Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, and his men from Glamorgan.

There was a Mowbray Castle at Epworth, now destroyed, and one at
Kenefar, laid level by Henry, Bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry II.
Bourne or Brun was in 870 the seat of a Saxon Thane, whose mound, after
the Conquest, was occupied by the Lords Wake. It was at one time an
important place, and the remaining earthworks show its area to have been
considerable. Bolingbroke Castle, once the “caput” of an Honour, is now
destroyed. Stamford-on-the-Welland was guarded by two mounds, thrown
up in 922, of which one has disappeared, but the other, as at Bedford and
Buckingham, was saved by its incorporation into a Norman castle, to be
seen no longer. Sleaford, an episcopal castle, occasionally mentioned in the
twelfth century, is now gone, as is the castle of Horncastle, restored to
Adelais de Condie in 1151, but at the same time ordered to be demolished,
and which probably stood within the walls of the Roman station, of which
large fragments remain. Bitham also is gone, taken by siege and levelled by
Henry III. in 1218. Folkingham, the “Mansio capitalis” of Ulf the constable,
was held by Gilbert de Garod, and long afterwards fell to the Lords
Beaumont. Boothby was a fortified house of the Paynells or Paganels, and
is of late Norman date. Topclyve Castle was built by Geoffrey, bishop-elect
of Lincoln, in 1174.

CHAPTER VII.
THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF THE
TWELFTH CENTURY (continued).

THE castles of the shires of Nottingham and Derby, of Yorkshire,
Lancashire, and Cheshire, complete the tale of the fortresses south of the
Tees and Lune. Nottingham, one of the castles ordered and possibly built by
the Conqueror, on a rock high above the Trent, contained one of the
grandest of the rectangular keeps. It was removed in the seventeenth
century, and replaced by a building of about the same dimensions, but of
very different character. At the foot of the rock were the two mounds
thrown up in the tenth century to command the passage of the Trent, but
these also have been removed. Another castle upon the Trent was that of
Newark, the work of Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, in the twelfth century.
The very considerable remains include the front towards the river, an
imposing mass of masonry, the effect of which is heightened by the great
gatehouse upon its flank, a Norman work of very unusual size and
splendour. The ground plan of this castle is nearly square, and may
represent a Roman encampment. There was a castle at Worksop.
The oldest and most remarkable of the Derbyshire castles is that of
Castleton or Peveril in the Peak, with its small but strong rectangular keep,
built on the edge of the precipice, at the base of which is the celebrated
cavern, one of the marvels of the Peak. Bolsover, now nearly all rebuilt, was
also a Peveril castle. Of Sheffield, the castle of the Furnivals and Talbots,
placed upon the junction of the Sheaf and the Don, nothing now remains.
There seem to have been early castles, or perhaps fortified houses, at
Codnor, a Zouch seat, Melbourne, and Gresley. Also Bogis and Hareston
were Derbyshire castles in the reign of Henry II.
The wide expanse of Yorkshire contained much worthy of defence, and
was inhabited by a race of men not indisposed to provide it. The mounds of
York, both of the first class in bulk and elevation, were posted on either
bank of the Ouse, here a deep and broad stream. Of these mounds, one
stands on the junction of the Foss with the Ouse, above a tract of marshy

ground, between it and the wall of the Roman Eboracum. Here the
Conqueror placed his first castle, and in the keep and within the spacious
area below he posted William Malet and his 500 knights and their
followers. Amidst much of modern work the old walls may still be traced,
and a very fine shell, though of Early English date, still stands on the
summit of the mound. The other mound, the Bayle Hill, south of the river,
and connected with the earthworks of the later city, was also fortified by
William, but in haste and with timber only, which does not appear ever to
have been replaced with masonry. The city is strongly fortified with walls
and a ditch, and the celebrated gateways or bars contain each a nucleus or
core of Norman masonry. Next to York in importance is Scarborough, the
stronghold of William le Gros, Earl of Aumarle, and the citadel of
Holderness. The castle may be said to contain the whole table top of a rocky
promontory, defended on three sides by a precipitous cliff, at the foot of
which is the German Ocean, while towards the land is a deep natural
depression. The approach was over a narrow causeway, raised upon arches,
broken in the centre by a drawbridge and bridge tower, covered at the outer
end by a strong barbican, and terminating below a lofty rectangular keep,
much of which still remains, and by the side of which was the final
entrance, and probably another drawbridge. In the words of Robert de
Brunne—
“Was there none entree
That to the castle gan ligge
But a straight causee
At the end a drawbrigge.”

Scarborough is not only a strong castle by nature and by art, but is
capable of containing several thousand men,—in fact, a small army. South
of Scarborough, also upon the coast, but where the natural advantages of
the cliff had to be supplied by enormous earthworks, was Skipsea, held and
strengthened by Drogo, William’s Flemish lieutenant in that country.
Aldbrough was also a Holderness castle, built by Odo of Aumarle, of which
there remain only the mound and the wall.
Between Scarborough and York stood Malton, a seat of Earl Siward, and
held by David of Scotland against King Stephen. The masonry is now gone,
but the site is still marked by the Roman camp within or upon the edge of
which the castle stood. North of Malton is Pickering, once the burh of the
English Morcar, where are the remains of a shell keep upon the mound.

Here the mound is central between and common to both wards. The general
enclosing curtain is tolerably perfect, and the whole affords an excellent
example of the manner in which the Norman architects dealt with an
earthwork when the mound stood in the centre of an enclosure, instead of as
usual upon one side of it. On the edge of the Honour of Pickering is
Hamlake or Helmsley, the seat of the Barons de Ros before they inherited
Belvoir, and where the remains of a very late rectangular keep stand on one
side of a rectangular court, having two regular gatehouses, walls built
against lofty banks, and beyond them strong and extensive outworks in
earth and masonry. It is difficult to form an opinion upon the age of these
earthworks. They impinge upon and are certainly later than a small Roman
camp. At Mulgrave and Normanby were castles; at the latter are still parts
of a rectangular Norman keep. Mulgrave stands on the sea cliff. It was the
seat of the Saxon Wada and afterwards the Castle of Nigel Fossard and the
Mowbrays. At Gilling some early vaults and walls are worked into the later
castle of the Fairfaxes. Thirsk, Black Bourton in Lonsdale, and Malzeard,
the “capita” of three Mowbray Baronies, all contained castles of some
importance in the twelfth century. Of Malzeard and Bourton the earthworks
are considerable. Tadcaster, a place of strength both in Roman and Danish
times, possessed also a Norman castle, of which, however, only the mounds
remain; and there is even less of Hugh Puisèt’s work of Northallerton,
surrendered to Henry II. in 1174, and ordered to be destroyed in 1177. Its
earthworks are intersected by a railway. Of Tanfield, a Fitz-Hugh and
Marmion castle, there are still some small remains.
The great castle of North Yorkshire is Richmond, so called by Earl Alan,
who obtained in 1070 the possessions of the English Edwin, and removed
the seat from the adjacent Gilling, where the earthworks long remained, to a
stronger position on the Swale. The Norman Castle was built in 1071: it
includes a large area, most part of which is defended by a natural cliff. The
containing wall is mostly original, and within its substance is a curious
small Norman chapel. The rectangular keep is placed at the weakest part of
the circuit next to the town, and in front of it are the remains of a barbican.
The well-known “Registrum Honoris de Richmond” specifies to which part
of the castle the castle guard of each great tenant was due, and the Hall
which the family of Scolland were bound to maintain and guard to this day
bears their name. The town was also walled. Near Richmond are the scanty
and late remains of Ravenswath, a Fitz-Hugh castle, and lower down the

Swale was Bedale, the castle of “Le beau Bryan de Fitz-Aleyne,” now
entirely gone, though the site is still pointed out. The warlike habits of the
Lords are, however, represented by a curious portcullis closing the door of
the belfry in the parish church. Middleham Castle, on the edge of its
celebrated moor, was founded by Ribald, brother to Earl Alan, and ancestor
in the female line of the great family of Neville, under whom the Norman
keep received its handsome addition and gained its fame. Masham, a castle
of the Scropes, is now a mere ruin. Drax seems to have been held by Ralph
Paganel as early as the reign of Stephen. Merhall, in Weston, a castle of the
Barons Lancaster, is reputed to have been demolished by King John.
Killarby, Albruck-on-Tees, and Cawdwell were early castles, as were
Armanthwaite, Bowes, Hatlesey, Sigston, and Whorlton. Of Gleaston, the
moot-hill remains, which is thought to have been surmounted by a keep;
and Hornby was also a Lonsdale castle. The passes of the Lune were,
however, more celebrated for their defensive earthworks, due to the Danes
or the English, than for Norman castles.
Coningsborough, on the Don, is no less from its position than its
architecture one of the most remarkable of Yorkshire castles. Its grand
cylindrical tower, supported by buttresses of great depth and height, is
superior in design and workmanship to that of Pembroke, and almost rivals
Coucy. It stands on the summit of a steep rocky knoll, and has been inserted
into an earlier Norman wall, which is built upon the steep edge of the rock
and encloses a court of moderate area. Upon the slope are the remains of the
entrance and fortified approach, and at the base of the hill is a ditch, or
rather a ravine, and on one side beyond it an outwork in earth. Probably the
hill has been occupied as a place of strength from a very early time, but the
masonry is the work of the Warrens Earls of Surrey, and is worthy of their
greatness. Knaresborough Castle, on the Nidd, visited by Henry II. in 1181,
occupies the top of a rocky promontory. Here the keep, though of Norman
form and dimensions, is of Decorated date, and remarkable for the
excellence of its details. The adjacent town has also been fortified, though
apparently by a ditch and bank only. Pontefract, another celebrated
Yorkshire castle, is also peculiar. Here the castle encloses a large and
elevated platform of rock, scarped and revetted all round, and at one end of
which, enclosing an earthen mound, is the circular keep. Much of its
masonry is of the eleventh or the early part of the twelfth century. Its
subterranean passages and chambers, of Norman date, are curious. Besides

these, Yorkshire contains many other castles connected for the most part
with great baronial families, and playing their part in the defence of the
country against the Scots. Harewood, reputed a Danish seat, was the castle
of Robert de Romeli; Skipton, also built by that family, contains some early
parts, and has always been inhabited. Kilton was a castle of Cleveland, as
was Castleton, where the Bruces fortified a moated mound. Burton was
granted by the Conqueror to the same family, having been a seat of Earl
Morcar; Danby was also a Bruce castle, and Skelton Castle, built in 1140,
was the head of their barony. There was also the Archbishop’s castle of
Cawood, and Crake, a castle of the Bishops of Durham, said to be
mentioned in the seventh century. Baynard was a castle of the Lords Wake
of Cottingham; Leeds Castle was besieged by Stephen in 1139; Wilton was
an early castle of the Bulmers; Guisborough was founded in 1120; Sandal
Castle, under the walls of which was fought the battle of Wakefield, was a
late Warren castle, but the mound and earthworks are on a large scale and
old. Yorkshire contained also a considerable number of fortified houses,
some of which bore the names of castles, though whether of early date is
uncertain; such were Ryther and Slingsby. There is said to have been a
castle at Upsal, and one at Hilderskelf, in the grounds of Castle-Howard.
Wressill and Sheriff Hutton in their present forms are very late, but the
latter has an early history, and near the parish church are some remarkable
earthworks, which it is thought mark the site of an early castle.
Yorkshire is rich in earthworks, and especially in moated mounds. Many
have already been mentioned as having been incorporated into later castles;
there are others of at least equal age and strength which do not seem ever to
have been connected with masonry: such are Mexbrough, Castleton,
Wakefield, Levington on the Leven, and others on the Lune. Some of these
are known to have been the seats of English Earls and Thanes, and after the
Conquest fell into disuse and decay, though at that period they were
probably formidable.
Lancashire, in the castle-building age, was not recognised as a county,
but was divided between the part then included in Yorkshire and the tract
between the Mersey and the Ribble. This latter formed the great Barony of
Roger of Poitou, a younger son of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury. His castle of
Penverdant or Penwortham is named in “Domesday,” and its colossal
mound is still called the Castle Hill, but the “caput” of the barony was the

Castle of Clitheroe, the small but strong square keep of which stands on the
point of a steep promontory of rock, and must have been nearly inaccessible
to assault. Upon Earl Roger’s fall, Clitheroe came to the Lacys. The great
castle of Lancashire is at Lancaster, well placed high above the broad water
of the Lune, and within the area of a Roman castrum, whence it derives its
name. Here, as at Carlisle, the railway is so laid out as to show the castle to
great advantage. The castle is attributed to Roger of Poitou, but the Norman
keep, a grand structure, ninety feet high, appears somewhat later, as is the
Edwardian gateway, also a superb specimen of military architecture.
Unfortunately, being a prison, the whole is closed against antiquarian
visitors. There was a castle at Liverpool said to have been built by the same
Roger in 1076. Merhull and Kirkby are Lancashire castles attributed to
Gilbert Fitz-Reinfrid. There seems to have been a castle at Manchester, on
the Irwell, just outside the old town, in Leland’s time, and one at
Greenhalgh, and one near Rochdale, probably at Castleton, where was the
burh of the English lord. At Halton is also a lofty burh, as usual near the
church, indicating the site of the “aula” of the English lord, and of the keep
of his Norman successor. Castlehead in Atterpole, near Cartmel, is also
reputed an early castle. The castles of Holland, Hornby, Peel, Thurland,
Ulverston, and Glaiston are probably of later date.
Cheshire, the palatine earldom of Hugh, named, probably by his
posterity, “the Wolf,” standing upon the Welsh border, demanded and was
supplied by many strong places. Chester, the seat of the earldom, represents
the Roman Deva, the Castra Legionum; and the Norman castle, with a small
and early rectangular keep occupying one corner of the area, stands on the
verge of the river Dee. Near to Chester in Wirrall was Shotwick, of which
the earthworks remain, and higher up upon the Dee was Holt. Beeston is
almost the only remarkable fortress in the county. It stands on the platform
of an inaccessible rock. The masonry is probably late, but the deep well
may be a part of the Norman castle. All the fifteen barons of the palatinate,
feudatories of Earl Hugh, had castles, but these, representing private estates,
mostly continued to be occupied and became fortified houses. The sites and
more or less of the remains are to be seen of Halton and Kinderton, the
castles of William Fitz-Hugh and Venables; Shipbrook of the Vernons;
Nantwich of Piers Malbanke; Malpas of Robert Fitz-Hugh; and Dunham of
Hamo de Massy. There were also castles at Frodsham, Oldcastle,
Uttersford, Pulford, Dodleston, Shockleach, Nantwich, Stockport, Burton,

Ullerwood, Runcorn, West Derby, Northwick, Castle Cob, and probably
some others. A large number of these sites are marked by moated mounds,
and there are besides many similar mounds in the county to which masonry
does not appear to have been added.
Thus, between the Thames and the Tees, the Bristol Avon and the Lune,
the central parts of England contained at the close of the reign of Henry II.
at the least 214 castles, of which about 17 had rectangular and 44 shell
keeps. As to the remaining 153, nothing is accurately known, or they are
found not to have belonged to either of the great types. Of these castles
probably at least 180 stood on old English sites, and very few indeed can be
said with certainty to have stood upon altogether new foundations.
There remain to be considered the castles of the northern counties,
Westmoreland and Cumberland, Durham and Northumberland, for centuries
exposed to invasions from beyond the Tweed, and fortified accordingly. In
this tract were at least four castles of the first class,—Durham, Bamburgh,
Norham, and the strongly-posted town and castle of Berwick; and of the
second class Brough, Appleby and Brougham, Cockermouth, Carlisle,
Prudhoe and Newcastle, Ford and Alnwick, and Warkworth. Besides these
were others, some perhaps at times almost their equals in importance, but
the continued incursions of the Scots were fatal to the English fortresses, as
were those of the English to the Scotch, and thus many on both sides the
border were again and again burned and levelled, until they were either not
rebuilt or only represented by peel towers and castellets, which again were
destroyed, so that of very many castles the names only are preserved.
The lake country of Westmoreland was strong and contained little to
attract plunderers; but on its edge on the winding Eamont is Brougham
Castle, with a pure Norman keep, bearing testimony to the power of the
Barons Vipont, its early lords. It stands upon the side of a well-preserved
Roman camp, as does Brough, another Norman castle, also with a
rectangular keep. A similar keep at Appleby is still inhabited. Kendal Castle
is probably an early fortress, though nothing remains of it but an encircling
and not very early wall. Westmoreland is peculiarly rich in fortified manor-
houses, some of which may be on old sites, though the greater number, like
the castle of Penrith, belong to a later period. There were peels or castellets
at Bewly, Hartley, Howgill, and Pendragon.

Carlisle is the citadel of Cumberland, and was for centuries the most
important fortress in the North, playing a considerable part in every Scottish
war. The name proclaims it to be of British origin, and its position led to its
adoption by the Romans; and, indeed, it is said that the ditch of the southern
of the two great lines of defence thrown up by that people divides the castle
from the town. Cumberland bears many marks of Danish invasions, and in
one of these in the ninth century Carlisle was laid waste, and so remained,
until in 1093 William Rufus founded the castle and added the town to his
kingdom. His successor raised the town into an episcopal city and
completed what was needed in the castle. Patched and neglected as is the
keep, still the principal features of the castle and the encircling walls are for
the most part original. Rose Castle, the episcopal seat, higher up the river, is
on an old site and in part old. Cockermouth, a castle of William de
Meschines and the Lords Lucy, remains, and near it, towards St. Bees, is a
fragment of Egremont, also built by De Meschines. Scaleby, on the most
exposed frontier, a De Tilliol castle—though not of the eleventh century—is
perfect; which cannot be said of Bewcastle, built by the Lords de Vaux.
Naworth, still inhabited, was inherited by the Howards from the Dacres,
who also probably gave name to Dacre, rather a strong house than a castle.
Besides these there are or were strong places at St. Andrews, Askerton,
Blencraik, St. Bees, Castle-Corrock, Corby, Cannonby, Dalby, Dilston,
Down Hall, Dunvalloght, Drawdykes, Greystock, Horton, Harington, Hay-
Castle, Heton, Highgate, Irton, St. John’s, Featherstone, Kirk-Oswald,
Kyloe tower, Liddell Strength, Linstock, Lorton, Millom, Ousby, Rowcliffe,
Shank, Triermain, and Wolsty. Many of these are dotted about the more
exposed parts of the county; others are in the rear of the Roman wall.
The castle of Durham, taken alone, is rivalled both in position and
grandeur by Bamburgh, but taken in conjunction with the cathedral and
attendant buildings,
“Half church of God, half fortress ’gainst the Scot,”

the group is without an equal. The main feature of the castle is the circular
keep, a rebuilding of probably the oldest and most complete of that type in
Britain. The lower ward also is spacious, and includes many buildings,
some of them of early Norman date. The castle is posted upon the root of
the rocky peninsula included by a fold of the Tees, and stands between the
city and the grand old shrine and final resting place of St. Cuthbert. The

older parts were probably built in the reign of the Conqueror, about 1088,
when William, having banished Carileph, held the temporalities of the see;
other authorities attribute the work to Bishop Comyn in 1072. The two chief
castles of the Bishopric are Raby and Barnard Castle, for Norham is
virtually in Northumberland. Raby, the celebrated seat of the Nevilles, is of
Norman origin, as is Barnard Castle, though its fine round tower is later. In
plan this castle much resembles Ludlow, to which its position is not inferior.
It is named from Barnard de Baliol. Branspeth, also a Neville castle, is a
noble structure, but of later date than Raby. Bowes has a late Norman keep.
Besides these may be mentioned Lumley, Staindrop, Streatlam, Witton,
Stockton, and Bishop Auckland. In the local quarrels the names also occur
of Evenwood Castle, near Auckland, Hilton, Holy Island, and, better known
from its later possessors, Ravensworth. The Bishopric was well fortified,
and was besides intersected by the deep ravines of the Tees, and possessed
the Tyne for a frontier.
“Foremost,”—the quotation is drawn from the writings of an author who,
beyond any other of the present day, makes his own mark upon what he
writes,—“in interest among the monuments of Northumberland, in the
narrower sense of the earldom beyond the Tyne, stand the castles; the
castles of every size and shape, from Bamburgh, where the castle occupies
the whole site of a royal city, to the smallest pele-tower, where the pettiest
squire or parson sought shelter for himself in the upper stage, and for his
cows in the lower. For the pele-towers of the Border-land, like the endless
small square towers of Ireland, are essentially castles. They show the type
of the Norman keep continued on a small scale to a very late time. Perhaps
many of the adulterine castles which arose in every time of anarchy, and
were overthrown at every return of order, many of the eleven hundred and
odd castles which overspread the land during the anarchy of Stephen, may
not have been of much greater pretensions. At any rate, from the great keep
of Newcastle,—were we not in Northumberland we should speak of the far
greater keep of Colchester,—to the smallest pele-tower which survives as a
small part of a modern house, the idea which runs through all is exactly the
same. The castles and towers then, great and small, are the most marked
feature of the county. They distinguish it from those shires where castles of
any kind are rare; and the employment of the type of the great keeps on a
very small scale distinguishes it from the other land of castles. In Wales the
Norman keep is not usual; the castles are, for the most part, later in date and

more complex in plan; and the small square private tower, the distinctive
feature of the North, is there hardly to be found. Northumberland has much
to show the traveller in many ways, from the Roman wall onward, but the
feature which is especially characteristic is that it is the land of castles.”
Northumberland is said to have contained sixty castles, but this must
include many fortified houses and castles of the private gentry. Alnwick,
better known as the seat of the earls of Northumberland than from its
builder and early lords, is a very fine example of a baronial castle. The keep
or central ward includes an open court, entered by a Norman gateway
encrusted by a Decorated gatehouse, and round which, incorporated with
the curtain, were the hall, kitchen, chapel, and the lord’s lodgings. Most of
the court has been rebuilt, but the old lines and much of the old foundations
have been preserved, and the effect is probably not unlike that of the
original Norman court. The concentric defences, walls, towers, and
barbican are old, though not original. The castle stands between the town
and the Alne, beyond which is the park. The builder seems to have been
Eustace de Vesci in the late Norman period, before 1157. Three miles to the
north is the tower of Highfarland. Warkworth, built by one of the Fitz-
Richard family in the reign of Henry II., was much injured by William the
Lion, who laid siege to it in 1176, but still retains large remains of the
original work. Tynemouth, an island fortress, seems to have been a seat of
Earl Waltheof; it was long afterwards a Percy castle. Prudhoe, a castle of the
Umfravilles, built in the middle of the eleventh century, has a small Norman
keep, and most of the original curtain wall. The additions include a barbican
and a curious chapel over the gateway. The original castle was attacked
without success by William of Scotland in 1174. The castle of Newcastle,
high upon the bank of the Tyne and included within the walls of the town,
was built by Robert Curthose in 1080, and is a very perfect example of a
rectangular Norman keep, with a curious oratory within the fore-building
and a great number of mural passages and chambers, so that in many
respects it has the appearance of being half a century later than its recorded
date. It is also well preserved, saving some injudicious alterations made
many years since, and it is accessible to every visitor, being in the hands of
the local antiquarian society, and under the safe and skilful protection of the
historian of the Roman wall.

Bamburgh is probably the oldest, and in all respects the noblest and most
historical of the Northumbrian fortresses. It was founded by the flame-
bearing Ida in the sixth century, when it was enclosed by a hedge and
afterwards by a wall, but most of its circuit was already fortified by a
natural cliff of great height. The castle occupies the whole of this elevated
platform of basalt, one side of which is upon the sea beach. The wall is built
along the edge of the precipice, and rising above all is a magnificent square
Norman keep of rather late date, somewhat altered indeed within and still
inhabited, but retaining most of its original features, and altogether
presenting a very grand appearance. Bamburgh, like Alnwick, has come
under the wand of the enchanter, and any reference to it would indeed be
incomplete which took no notice of the following passage drawn from the
Saturday Review:—“At Bamburgh, above all, we feel that we are pilgrims
come to do our service at one of the great cradles of our national life. It is
the one spot in northern England around which the same interest gathers
which belongs to the landing-places of Hengest, of Ælle, and of Cerdic, in
the southern lands. It is to the Angle what these spots are to the Jute and the
Saxon. The beginnings of the Anglian kingdoms are less rich in romantic
and personal lore than are those of their Jutish and Saxon neighbours.
Unless we chose to accept the tale about Octa and Ebussa, we have no
record of the actual leaders of the first Teutonic settlements in the Anglian
parts of Britain. The earliest kingdoms seem not to have been founded by
new comers from beyond the sea, but to have been formed by the fusing
together of smaller independent settlements. Yet around Bamburgh and its
founder, Ida, all Northumbrian history gathers. Though its keep is more
than five hundred years later than Ida’s time,—though it is only here and
there that we see fragments of masonry which we even guess may be older
than the keep,—it is still a perfectly allowable figure when the poet of
northern Britain speaks of Bamburgh as ‘King Ida’s fortress.’ The founder
of the Northumbrian kingdom, the first who bore the kingly name in
Bamburgh, the warrior whom the trembling Briton spoke of as the ‘flame-
bearer,’ appears, in the one slight authentic notice of him, not as the leader
of a new colony from the older England, but rather as the man who gathered
together a number of scattered independent settlements into a nation and a
kingdom. The chronicler records of him that in 547 ‘he took to the
kingdom’; but nothing is said of his coming, like Hengest or Cerdic, from
beyond sea. And all the other accounts fall in with the same notion. Henry

of Huntingdon, though he has no story to tell, no ballad to translate, was
doubtless following some old tradition when he described the Anglian
chiefs, after a series of victories over the Welsh, joining together to set a
king over them. And all agree in speaking of Bamburgh, called, so the story
ran, from the Queen Bebbe, as a special work of Ida. Whatever may be the
origin of the name, it suggests the kindred name of the East Frankish
Babenberg, which has been cut short into Bamberg by the same process
which has cut short Bebbanburh into Bamburgh. Yet Bamburgh was a
fortress by nature, even before Ida had fenced it in, first with a hedge and
then with a wall. Here we see the succession of the early stages of
fortification, the palisade first and then the earthen wall, the vallum, not the
murus, of the Roman art of defence. But, whether hedge or wall, the site of
Bamburgh was already a castle before it had been fenced in by the simplest
forms of art. That mass of isolated basaltic rock frowning over the sea on
one side, over the land on the other, was indeed a spot marked out by nature
for dominion. Here was the dwelling-place of successive Bernician kings,
ealdormen, and earls; here they took shelter as in an impregnable refuge
from the inroads of Scot and Dane. Here the elder Waltheof shut himself up
in terror, while his valiant son Uhtred sent forth and rescued the newly-
founded church and city of Durham from the invader. Here Gospatric the
Earl held his head-quarters, while he and Malcolm of Scotland were
ravaging each other’s lands in turn. In earlier days a banished Northumbrian
king, flying from his own people to seek shelter with the Picts, defended
himself for a while at Bamburgh, and gave the native chronicler of
Northumberland an opportunity of giving us our earliest picture of the spot.
Baeda, without mentioning the name, had spoken of Bamburgh as a royal
city, and it is not only as a fortress, but as a city, that Bamburgh appears in
the Northumbrian chronicler. He speaks of ‘Bebba civitas’ as ‘Urbs
munitissima non admodum magna.’ It did not take in more than the space of
two or three fields; still it was a city, though a city approached by lofty
steps, and with a single entrance hollowed in the rock. Its highest point was
crowned, not as yet by the keep of the Norman, but by a church, which,
according to the standard of the eighth century, was a goodly one. This
church contained a precious chest, which sheltered a yet more precious
relic, the wonder-working right hand of the martyred King Oswald. We
read, too, how the city, perched on its ocean rock, was yet, unlike the inland
hill of the elder Salisbury, well furnished with water, clear to the eye and

sweet to the taste. We see, then, what the royal city of the Bernician realm
really was. It simply took in the present circuit of the castle. The present
village, with its stately church, is, even in its origin, of later date. But by the
time that we reach the event in the history of Bamburgh which is told us in
the most striking detail, the keep had already arisen; the English city had
become the Norman castle. In the days of Rufus, when the fierce Robert of
Mowbray had risen a second time in rebellion, the keep of Bamburgh, safe
on its rock and guarded by surrounding waves and marshes, was deemed
beyond the power even of the Red King to subdue by force of arms. The
building of another fortress to hold it in check, the ἐπιτειχισμὁς, as a Greek
would have called it, which bore the mocking name of Malvoisin, was all
that could be done while the rebel earl kept himself within the impregnable
walls. It was only when he risked himself without those walls, when he was
led up to them as a captive, with his eyes to be seared out if his valiant wife
refused to surrender, that Bamburgh came into the royal hands.”
At Mitford is a very peculiar Norman keep still held by the descendants
of its early lords. Bothal, the Ogle Castle, may be old, but its present
remains are scarcely so, and this is also the case with Morpeth, a castle of
the De Maulays.
Of Berwick Castle the remains are inconsiderable and are encroached
upon by the railway station, but the adjacent town has a bank and ditch and
a low tower or two or bastion, of its ancient defences, and within these is a
citadel of the age of Vauban. Higher up and on the opposite or English bank
of the Tweed is the grand episcopal castle of Norham, the special care of the
bishops of Durham. Its rectangular keep is of unusual size, and though
entirely Norman, of two periods. Parts of its containing wall are also
original, as is the gatehouse, and about it are various earthworks, remains
apparently of some of the sieges which it has undergone, and beyond these
are the lines of a large Roman camp.
Norham, attributed to Bishop Flambard in 1121, was surrendered to
Henry II. by Bishop Puisèt in 1174, and was entrusted to William de Neville
in 1177. Beneath the walls and within the adjacent parish church Edward
entertained and decided upon the claims to the Scottish throne. Among the
more considerable of Northumbrian castles were Ford, Chillingham, Wark,
and the Umfraville castle of Harbottle. There should also be mentioned as
occurring in border story, Aydon, Bavington, Belsay, Bellister, Birtley,

Blenkinsop, Bywell tower, Burraden tower, Capheaton, Carlington,
Chipchase, Cornhill, Cockle Park tower, Coupland, Dale, Duddon tower,
Edlingham, Errington, Elsdon, Etal, Eskott, Farne, Fenwick tower, Horton,
Houghton, Heaton, Hirst, Hemmell, Kyloe, Langley, Littleharle and Lilburn
towers, Lemington, Newton tower, Ogle, Pontland, Simonsburn, Spylaw,
Swinbourne, Shortflatt tower, Tarot, Tynemouth, Thirlwall, Wallington,
Widdrington, Witton, Williesmotewick, and a few more peels and castellets
and early moats, showing where strong houses formerly stood. The fact
was, that for many centuries no owner of land near the Scottish border
could live without some kind of defence, and a careful survey, while it
might fail to discover traces of some of the above, would probably establish
those of many as yet unrecorded.
It appears, then, that in the four northern counties there are at least 103
strong places, of which ten boast rectangular Norman, and one or perhaps
two, shell, keeps, while of ninety-one little is known.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF THE
TWELFTH CENTURY (concluded).

THERE remain to be enumerated the castles west of the Severn and the Dee
up to the Dyke of Offa. To this tract must be added on the one hand the half
of Shropshire, which was on the English side of the Severn; on the other,
one or two valleys like those of the upper Severn and the Wye, penetrating
into the heart of Wales; and to the north and south a tract of seaboard,
reaching in the one case to the Conwy, and in the other to Pembroke and
including Aberystwith. Of this border-land, divided between the northern,
middle, and western Marches, the first was given in charge by the
Conqueror to Hugh Earl of Chester; the second to Roger Earl of
Shrewsbury, Arundel, and Montgomery; and opposite to the last, most of
which was as yet unconquered, was placed William FitzOsbern, Earl of
Hereford. In the north and middle Marches the opposing parts of Wales
were mountainous and strong, exceedingly dangerous to invade, and of
little value to a conqueror; but in the south the country was far more open
and more fertile, far less dangerous to the invader, and offering far greater
attraction to the cupidity of the settler. The general policy was to penetrate
the country by the open valleys and the seaboard, and at certain frequent
points to erect castles strong enough to resist a sudden attack, and
occasionally capacious enough to contain men and stores sufficient to
reinforce troops in the field, or to receive and rally them when worsted.
The three principal fortresses which, placed upon English territory,
formed in a military point of view the base for operations in Wales, were
Chester on the Dee, Shrewsbury upon the Severn, and Gloucester at the
mouth of the same river, the last being under the Mercian kings a place of
great strength and importance. Chester and Gloucester were of Roman,
Shrewsbury of British origin. In advance of Chester, and beyond the estuary
of the Dee, were the castles of Hawarden, Ewloe, Halkin, Flint, Diserth,
Rhuddlan, and Diganwy, extending upon or at no great distance from the
sea coast as far as the Conwy river. More inland and south of these are

Caergwrle, Mold, Ruthyn, Denbigh, and Basingwerk, the last nearly upon
Watt’s Dyke. Hope Castle is mentioned, but is probably the same with
Caergwrle, and Overton, which, though on the Cheshire side of the Dee,
was held by the Princes of Powis. It seems to have been founded by
William Peverel, and was by him defended against Stephen in 1138. Most
of these castles are mere ruins; of others the extant buildings are Edwardian
additions. Hawarden, however, has a tolerably perfect circular keep, with a
small mural oratory, and an exceedingly complex but later arrangement for
defending the approach.
Considerably south of these castles, where the Dee has ceased to be the
dividing stream of England and Wales, is the hill castle of Dinas Brân, an
early and strong place, by whom built is uncertain, but which was held for
long periods by the Welsh Princes. Again, south, upon the Ceiriog river, and
a few yards east of Offa’s Dyke, is Chirk Castle, inhabited and much
altered, but of early date.
The western side of Shropshire and the adjacent part of Montgomery
formed nearly the whole of the Middle March. Earl Roger, its custos under
the Conqueror with powers which William only delegated from absolute
necessity, and which it took his successors centuries to resume, was the
only Norman lord who gave name to a county in the conquered land. Under
him and his lieutenants, Roger Corbet and Roger Mortimer, the March was
feued out to a number of knights and lesser barons, all of whom built
castles, and thus defended the common territory, while protecting their own
private estates. The task of construction probably was not so onerous as at
first sight might appear. Shropshire and Herefordshire, and especially their
most exposed parts, were already studded over thickly with strong places
constructed after their own fashion by the Mercian invaders and settlers,
and of these it is evident that the new lords availed themselves until they
were able to make additions to them in masonry.
Of Shrewsbury Castle, the citadel of the Middle March, and the “caput”
of Earl Roger’s earldom, enough remains to show that, though small in
area, it was a place of excessive strength. The mound upon which the Earl
placed his keep in 1080 still rises to a great height direct from the river, and
of the works to make room for which 51 English burgages were swept away
there still remain parts of the wall, a gatehouse, and the foundations of a
later hall. In the Hundred roll, in the reign of Edward I., occurs the

following very curious entry:—“Quod unus magnus turris ligneus qui
edificatur in castro Salop corruit in terram tempore domini Uriani de St.
Petro tum vicecomitis et meremium ejusdem turris tempore suo et
temporibus aliorum vicecomitum preterea existencium ita consummatur et
destruitur quod nichil de illo remansit in magnum dampnum domini Regis
et deteracionem ejusdem castri.” Was this a wooden keep upon the mound?
“Quoddam Barbican” is also mentioned, and we are told the “dampnum
mote” amounted to 60 marcs, which damage the jurors do not attribute
altogether to the Abbot’s Mill, for thirty years earlier the mote of the castle
was injured. This can scarcely mean the ditch, for which “fossa” is the word
used. It is evidently the mound. The castle formed part of the town wall,
and occupied an angle of its area. Both castle and town were included
within the foldings of the deep and broad Severn, and indeed often needed
its protection.
In advance of Shrewsbury and placed along the most exposed border of
the county, and sometimes a little beyond it, were seventeen castles, all
strong and of early foundation, though not all of equal importance. Of these,
to the south, the principal were Cleobury, Ludlow, Richard’s Castle,
Wigmore, Knighton, and Knucklas or Heyhope, some within and others a
little to the outside of the dyke. To the west were Clun, Bishop’s Castle,
Montgomery, Cause, Abberbury, and Knockyn, and to the north Oswestry,
Whittington, Ellesmere, and Whitchurch.
Of these castles Ludlow stood next to Shrewsbury in importance, and
was fully its equal in strength, and far its superior in dimensions and
architectural display. It was, indeed, a superb Norman castle, the work of
Roger de Lacy, in the reign of Rufus, and before it Stephen was foiled and
very nearly captured in 1139. The rectangular keep, some of the mural
towers, and most of the lower part of the containing wall are original. The
curious circular chapel, though Norman, is rather later, and the magnificent
hall, kitchen, and lodgings are later still. The castle is built on the eastern
bank of the Lug, which here flows down a deep rocky ravine; the town also
was strongly walled. Cleobury, to the east of Ludlow, attributed to Roger de
Mortimer in 1074, is more probably the work of a later lord in the reign of
Stephen. It was taken by Henry II. in 1155. Wigmore, of which the castelry
is mentioned in “Domesday,” the chief seat of the great border family of
Mortimer, is actually in Herefordshire, but belongs to the Shropshire

fortresses. It occupies a rocky ridge, defended by a natural ravine and steep
slopes. The small mound that bore its keep remains, and below is a Norman
tower, and more or less of ancient masonry. The outworks seem to have
been strong. Richard’s Castle, the Auretone of “Domesday,” founded by
Richard Fitz Scrob in the reign of the Confessor, though also in Hereford,
lies between Wigmore and Ludlow, and was closely associated with
Shropshire. It retains its ancient mound near the church, and a part of its
shell keep, and is still defended by a very formidable ditch. There is,
however, no masonry of the age of the Confessor, nor is it probable that the
keep was constructed before the reign of Stephen, if so early. Wigmore and
Richard’s Castle were the advanced posts of Ludlow. Cleobury Mortimer
was held by Ralph Mortimer at the Survey, and probably came to him from
the forfeiture of Earl Roger de Britolio. Knighton and Knucklas are on the
right bank of the Teme, just outside the Shropshire border. Their exposed
position made them very important posts. In 1180 Randulf Puher, Sheriff of
Herefordshire, accounted for the expenses of works at the castles of
Knighton and Camerino, and a little later, while employed in building a
border castle, he was slain by the Welsh. Of Knighton only the mound
remains. The masonry, now removed, has been attributed to one of the
Lords of Clun. Of Knucklas or Cnoclâs Castle there are scarcely any
vestiges. It was probably built by Roger Mortimer soon after the Conquest,
its mound, known as Castle Hill, being of course older. Clun Castle is three
miles within the dyke, but the intervening country is very rugged, and
exceedingly favourable to the operations of undisciplined troops such as the
Welsh. Clun was held under Earl Roger by Picot de Say, and became
afterwards the castle of Alan the son of Flaald, and the cradle of the House
of Stewart. There remains a rough but grand square keep, a mound, strong
circumscribing earthworks, and beyond the church an advanced bank and
ditch of formidable dimensions. It is evident that those who laid out these
earthworks were well aware of the peril of the position. Bishop’s Castle or
Lydbury is well within the frontier. It was the residence of the bishops of
Hereford from 1085 to 1154, and was taken by storm in 1235. By their
possession of this castle the bishops became Lords Marchers. Montgomery
was the centre and one of the most exposed castles of the frontier. It
occupied the summit of a steep rock, and was almost impregnable. It has,
however, been taken, destroyed, and re-built at least twice, so that little, if

any, of its masonry is of the time of Earl Roger. It stands just within the
dyke.
North of Montgomery, and protected by the well-known Long Mountain,
is Cause Castle or Alreton, the earliest seat of the Corbets, who named it
from the Pays de Caux, whence they came. It was built towards the close of
the reign of the Conqueror, and is remarkable for its massive keep and
capacious well, and for the rare example of the substitution of a Norman for
a native name. North of Cause is Abberbury, the seat of the Fitz Warines
before they held Whittington. It was held under Cause. Knockin Castle, the
head of the Barony of Strange, was probably built by Guido le Strange in
the reign of Henry II. Far more exposed, and having the mountainous
ground of Denbigh in its front, is Oswestry, supposed by Mr. Eyton to be
the Castel Luare (L’Ouvre) of “Domesday,” the work of Rainald de
Ballieul, and long celebrated as a seat of the Earls of Arundel. It is now
reduced to a mound and the foundations of a keep. The outworks have been
levelled and built over by the encroaching town, and the ditches filled up.
The town walls are also removed. Very near to Oswestry is Whittington,
founded as a Norman work by William Peverel in 1138, but better known
from its later lords the Fitz Warines. This is the castle that defied the Welsh
in 1223, and the strength of which lay not only in its shell keep, towers, and
gatehouse, parts of all which remain, but in a curious arrangement of
outworks in earth, with several broad and deep ditches connected with a
morass, the limits of which may still be traced. The original mound, scarped
and enclosed like Bungay in a revetment wall by the Norman engineer, is a
good example of the manner in which those early fortifications were
adapted to the masonry of later times. Ellesmere is a Peveril castle, but was
held by the Welsh Princes as late as the reign of Henry III. Whitchurch was
founded probably by William de Warren, whose wife was stepdaughter to
the Conqueror. It was the Weston of “Domesday,” and by a singular
inversion became widely known afterwards as Blackmere. These complete
the outer line of defence of the Middle March.
Connected with these were a large number of other castles, mostly,
though not always, held by men of lesser rank and power. Wem, now
entirely destroyed, was founded by William Pantulf, holding under Earl
Roger. Middle Castle was held of the Fitz Alans by the Lords Strange, as
was Ruyton. At High Ercal is a moated mound, but whether masonry was

ever added to it is doubtful. Srawrthin or Sharwardine had a castle,
probably before 1165. There seem also to have been castles at Charlton,
Howgate, Braincroft, Corshall, Shipton, Ryton, and Le Botwood.
Pulverbach was the castle of Robert Venator in the eleventh century. Tonge
was Earl Roger’s private demesne, but the castle achieved its fame under
the Pembrugge family. Church Stretton or Brockhurst Castle was held direct
by the Crown, but was demolished at an early period. At Broymeron, near
Tugford, there seems to have been a castle. Corfham was held by Fitz
Ponce, the ancestor of the Cliffords. Wattlesborough, an early Corbet castle,
still preserves a small but tolerably perfect rectangular keep. Stone has
some traces of a castle, and at Hopton is a square keep of Decorated date,
on a slightly raised knoll, with some extensive and marshy outworks.
Besides these may be mentioned Castle Holgate, thought by Mr. Eyton to
be one of the four earliest castles built under Earl Roger, the others being
Shrewsbury, Montgomery, and Oswestry, all in some shape of earlier date
than the great Survey. Holgate was built by Helgot de Stanton, and used by
Henry II. in 1109. Bryn Castle was an early seat of the Gerards; Bromfield
and Cainham are destroyed; of Shiffnall little is known; Stottesden was
granted in 1159 by Henry II. to Godfrey de Gamaches or Gamage; Stokesay
is said originally to have been built by Picot le Say; Tirley, near Market
Drayton, was the work of Roger de Corcelle, but taken by Ralph le Botiler
of Wem, who left it unfinished in 1281. The Fitz Alans seem to have had a
castle at Wroxeter, the Lords Strange at Cheswardine, and at Morton Soret,
now Corbet, the Sorets built a castle. West of Ludlow was a castle at
Stapleton-en-le-Harness, built probably by the lords of Richard’s Castle.
Kinnerley Castle, taken by Llewelyn in 1223, has long since disappeared.
Alveton was held by Theobald de Verdon in 1389.
Robert de Belesme, the son of Roger and the third Earl of Shrewsbury,
built two castles which played a part in the struggles of the time, and are
mentioned by historians. One, Carregchova, was in advance of the frontier,
and in Montgomery. It is said to have been built about 1101–2 in great
haste. In 1160 it was held and garrisoned by Henry II. It has long been
utterly destroyed. The other, Bruges or Bridgenorth Castle, was upon the
Severn below and inland of Shrewsbury. Earl Roger had built a castle not
far off upon the ancient earthworks of Quatford, opposite to Oldbury, one of
the burhs thrown up by Queen Æthelflæda. This castle, of which there
remain a mound and a deep well, Earl Robert removed in 1102 to the top of

a steep rocky platform above the Severn. It was strong and spacious, and
had the church of St. Mary Magdalen for its chapel, and within its area
accommodation for some thousands of men. Of all this there remains now
little save a fragment of the keep and parts of the containing wall. It was
besieged by Henry II. in 1155, and was surrendered for political rather than
for military reasons.
In advance of the borders of Shropshire are two or three castles of
doubtful origin, and which were frequently held by the Welsh. Such were
Powis or Pool Castle, attributed to Bleddyn ap Cynfin about 1109;
Mathraval, on the Vyrnwy, the residence of the Welsh Princes, but fortified
by Robert de Vipont. This was one of the few local castles that resisted the
Welsh outbreak of 1212, soon after which it was destroyed. Dolforwin is a
small hill-castle on the left bank of the Upper Severn, much resembling
Dinas Brân, and far to the west. Deep in the defiles upon the western flank
of Cader Idris is the castle of Bere, the remains of which fell into the
friendly hands of the late Mr. Wynn of Peniarth, who has shown that the
building was of the Early English period of architecture, and unusually
ornate in its details. How an early castle came to be placed so far from the
border, and in a position by no means abounding in the means of
subsistence, is a mystery.
The plain of the Upper Severn, open and fertile, outside the Shropshire
border, was contested from a very remote period between the Mercians and
the Welsh, and was at times completely and permanently occupied by the
former. The Mercian fortresses of this very perilous district were moated
mounds similar to those thrown up in England in the ninth and tenth
centuries. Of these there are very many along the course of the river or in its
tributary valleys, of which the chief are Keri, Hên-domen near
Montgomery, Nantcribba a fortified natural knoll, Guilsfield, a burh at
Chirbury thrown up by Æthelflæda and now removed, Welsh Pool
designated in 1299 as Mota de Pola, a mound on the Luggy, Winsbury,
Dudston, Brynderwen, several mounds about Llanidloes and Moat-lane,
Tafolwern, a fine mound upon the junction of two streams with the Afon
Lwymyn, and whence some of the charters of the Welsh Princes are dated,
and a remarkable mound at Talybont near Towyn, whence Llewelyn dated a
letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and which was visited by Edward I.
Very few of these “Mottes” were surmounted by works in masonry, and the

accompanying extract from the Close Roll shows that even as late as the
reign of Henry III. timber was the recognised material for their defences:—
“Rex etc dilecto et fideli suo Godescallo de Maghelins salutem.
Recipimus tibi quod ex parte nostra firmiter precipias omnibus illis qui
motas habent in valle de Muntgumery quod sine dilatione motas suas bonis
bretaschiis firmari faciant ad securitatem et defensionem suam et parcium
illarum. Teste Rege apud Weston xxx die maii, 9 H iii, 1225.” (Close Roll.)
The Brut y Tysogion says that the castles of Llandwnyl, Trevuverw, and
Cynfig were begun in 1092 to be built stronger than before; for before that
time castles were of wood, and before long the Frenchmen had built their
castles over the whole country. Although it is evident that the moated
mound was an English and not a Welsh fortification, yet many of these
mounds are found in situations where no English household could have
lived, and others, like Tafolwern and Talybont, are known to have been
Welsh residences, so that it would seem that the Welsh, finding this form of
fortification both simple and strong, easily thrown up, and when burned
easy to repair, had recourse to it in imitation of their foes. Almost all the
castles in Shropshire on the border were held of Earl Roger, or some Lord
Marcher by the tenure of castle guard, and many of the lesser castles had
lands attached to them held by the same honourable service. The usual
condition was attendance upon the lord in time of war, armed, for a period
of forty days, or an engagement to defend and sometimes to repair a
particular part of the lord’s castle. Lord Coke indeed speaks of tenure by
castle guard as always attached to some specific part of a castle. The manor
of Hodnet was held by the service of seneschal, and in war by attendance in
the outer bailey of Shrewsbury Castle. The inquest on William de Bollers in
1299 shows that he held a tenement in Mariton by the tenure of providing
one soldier in war time at the Mote of Poole with a bow and arrow and a
bolt for a night and a day. Mr. Eyton takes the Mote of Pool to be Powis
Castle, but may it not more probably be the mote which is seen, or was
recently to be seen, near the Welshpool railway station? In an old map in
1610 this mound is lettered, “Domine Castell,” and a mill near it the Domen
(Tomen, Tumulus, Tump) Mill.
The Southern, commonly called the Western March, from its extension in
that direction, included the counties of Radnor, Hereford, and Monmouth,
the eastern part of Brecknock, much of Caermarthen and Cardigan,

Pembroke and the whole of Glamorgan; that is to say, the country from the
Teme to the Bristol Channel, and the whole seaboard of South Wales from
Chepstow to Aberystwith, all which territory was thickly set with castles,
the footprints of the Norman, and before him to some extent of the
Englishman.
Included in South Wales, but in a military point of view more connected
with Shropshire and the Middle March, was the county of Radnor. This was
a mountainous tract, very Welsh, and but a small strip of which was on the
English side of the dyke, but the imminence of the danger seems to have led
to great encroachments upon the Welsh territory, and to the establishment of
a considerable number of castles along the lines specially exposed to attack.
Knighton, the chief castle of Radnor, and Knucklas, both upon the Teme
and bordering Shropshire, have been mentioned. South of Knighton was
Norton, and again south Old Radnor, Cruker or Pen-y-Craig destroyed by
Rhys ap Griffith in the reign of King John, and New Radnor, of which there
remains a large mound with concentric entrenchments, and parts of the
walls of the town are still to be seen. The castle is said to have been
founded by Harold in 1064. Pains Castle or Llanbedr, in Elvet, near the
southern border of the county, was so called from Pagan or Payne de
Cadurces, Cahors, or Chaworth, Lord of Kidwelly, who built it about 1130,
possibly to secure his passage into Caermarthenshire. A few fragments of
masonry still remain. Pains Castle was taken by Rhys in 1196, and
subsequently besieged by Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Powis, in 1198. Near to
Pains Castle, on the left bank of the Wye, was Boughrood Castle, said to
have been held by Eineon Clydd in 1140. Fragments of its masonry long
remained visible. The passage of the Wye is commanded in this district by
the strong castle of Builth. Just outside the county and higher up the river,
which here divides Radnor from Brecknock, was Aberedw Castle, built by
Ralph de Baskerville, one of the Norman invaders, but speedily taken and
held by the Welsh. Still higher up is Rhyader-Gwy, founded it is said by
Prince Rhys in the twelfth century, but better known as a castle of the
Mortimers. It was taken by assault by the Welsh in the reign of Henry III.
The outline of the works may still be traced. Nearer the centre of the county,
upon the Ython and the Aran, were other castles. Moelynaidd and Castell
Colwyn or Mauds Castle, fortified by the Earl of Chester in 1143, were on
the former river, and near them was Cefn-Lys or Castell-glyn-Ython, a

rather celebrated Norman castle, but often taken by the Welsh. It was held
latterly by the Mortimers, and rebuilt by them in 1142. Dwybod Timpath or
Tilloedd, also on the Ython, was a place of great strength of which many
fragments of masonry remain. The name has been said to be a corruption of
Talbot. This castle was levelled by Llewellyn in 1260. Cwm Aron, on the
Aron river, was an early Norman castle, destroyed by the Welsh and
restored by Hugh Earl of Chester in 1143. This also came to the Mortimers.
There are considerable remains of the earthworks. Near to Presteign were
Warden and Stapleton Castles, the latter built by Chandos the founder of
Goldcliff Priory. There was also a castle at Clyro, and one upon the Lug at
Castell Haled or Vallet; and at Clâs Cwm on the Arrow is some masonry
said to represent Brynllys Castle.
The remaining parts of South and West Wales containing much open and
tolerably fertile land, and having a long and exposed frontier towards the
purely Welsh districts of Brecknock, Caermarthen and Cardigan, were the
scene of perpetual inbreaks from the Welsh, and required more than usual
strength in the defences. The castle of Gloucester, already mentioned, was
the base of all extended operations in South Wales. Here the kings of
England often held their court, and here their troops were mustered.
Brichtric had a castle at Gloucester, but his mound has long been removed,
and with it all traces of the Norman building.
Next to Gloucester in strength and importance and far more exposed
came Hereford, strongly posted on the Wye, and surrounded by a very
fertile territory. Unlike most other cities Hereford is of purely English
foundation, though by whom founded is not precisely clear. It was fortified
by Harold, and probably received the Norman additions to its castle from
Osborne soon after the Conquest. The castle was attacked by Edric the Wild
in 1067. Part of the defences of the city remain, and of those of the castle an
immense bank and deep wet ditch, now in part being filled up, and formerly
communicating with the river Wye. The keep stood upon a large mound
now levelled. Herefordshire contained many castles, mostly, however,
intended for the protection of private estates, and placed accordingly.
Goderich on the Wye is one of the chief. It is large, well built, protected by
the river, and has a small but early rectangular keep. It was long held by the
Talbots. Ewias Harold and Kilpeck commanded from either side the valley
of Irchenfield. Both were strong and had shell keeps built upon mounds of

large size. Of Kilpeck parts of the wall remain, and a small Norman church.
In 1134 Hugh, son of William Norman, gave to Gloucester Abbey the
church of St. David at Kilpeck and the chapel of St. Mary in the castle.
Ewias was a stronger place, but nearly all the masonry is now gone. The
Harold from whom it derives its distinctive name was an English proprietor
before the Conquest. Of the lesser castles were Croft, for centuries the seat
of a still extant family of that name; Lingen, an early castle built by Turstine
de Wigmore; Lyonshall, an early D’Evereux castle; Kingston, of which no
trace remains; Almley, reduced to its original mound; Kingsland, reputed a
Saxon seat; Weobley, a De Lacy castle in the reign of Stephen; Castle
Frome, also built by the Lacys, and now a mound only. Asperton, a
Grandison castle built on the edge of the Roman way, is now destroyed, as
are Ellington and Mortimer’s Castle at Much Marcle. Of Huntingdon, on
the Radnor border, a De Braose castle, the mound remains, as of Eardisley,
called in “Domesday” a “domus defensabilis.” Cubbington was a castle of
the De la Fields, and Bredwardine of a family of that name who gave place
to the Baskervilles. Whitney Castle stood on the Wye, as a little higher up
did Clifford, of which the masonry was the work of Ralph de Todeni and his
successor Fitz Pons, ancestor of the great house of Clifford, who hence
derived their name. The Castelry of Clifford was held at “Domesday” by
Roger de Lacy. Wilton Castle on the Wye, the seat of a well-known barony,
was built by Longchamp in the reign of Henry I., and of that age were
Pembridge and probably Tretire, a Fitz Warine castle now destroyed.
Besides these there are others of which less is known; Longtown or Ewias
Lacy, built in part of Roman material; Snodhill, probably Norman; Twyford,
and Urishay in Peterchurch, a De la Hay work; Eccleswall and Castle
Comfort reduced to their mounds; the bank and ditches of the latter seen on
a hill-side half a mile from Leominster, are the reputed remains of the
palace of Werewald, King of Mercia, late in the seventh century. Mention is
also made of Mouse Castle, near Hay; Dorston, a Soler’s castle; Cusop, a
mere tower; Bransil, on the Worcestershire border, now a ruin; Kinnersley;
Eaton Tregoz, a Baskerville seat in 1251; Moccas, of which the moat
remains; and Penyard, probably Norman. It is to be remembered that most
of the castles in masonry in Hereford and Radnor were built upon
earthworks of far earlier date.
Brecknock, though a wild and mountainous and therefore strongly Welsh
county, is penetrated both by the Usk and in some measure by the Wye, of

which Bernard Newmarch and his invading followers well knew how to
take advantage. The castles on the Wye being common to Radnor and
Brecknock, have duly been enumerated. The strongest of them all, Builth,
which played an important part in the local wars, was held by the Barons de
Braose, the successors of Newmarch. Of masonry there remains but little,
but the mound and annexed ditches and platforms are of a very formidable
character, and justify the reputation of the fortress for strength.
Builth was placed near the junction of the Yrfon with the Wye, and thus
commanded the entrance of an important pass leading into Caermarthen. It
was, however, by the Usk that Bernard Newmarch marched in 1096 against
Bleddyn ap Maenarch, and it was at Brecknock, not far from the Roman
Bannium, that he established the strong and spacious castle of which the
earlier mound and much of the masonry can still be seen. The possession of
Brecknock, Builth, and Abergavenny castles secured the district, which
Newmarch parcelled out among about fifteen of his chief followers, some
of whom built castles which they continued to hold under his son-in-law,
Milo Earl of Hereford, and their successors the Barons de Braose and
Cantelupe. Next above Abergavenny was Crickhowell, of which the mound,
ditches, and a tower remain. This was the castle of the Turbervilles. Near it
is Tretower, an early and very curious structure, where a rectangular keep
has been gutted and an early English round tower erected in its centre.
Tretower stands in the marshes of the Rhiangol, higher up which stream is
Dinas, a hill castle now in ruins, in form much resembling Morlais in
Glamorgan, and commanding the pass from Abergavenny to Talgarth and
the Wye. Higher up the Wye, upon a pass by which the road cuts off an
inaccessible bend of the river, was Blaenllyfni, a large and strong castle
usually held by the chief lord himself. Near it towards Brecknock was
Pencelli Castle. At Devynock was the tower of Rhyd-yr-Briew, and some
miles above Brecknock, near the head of the Usk, a tower at Trecastle, of
which the mound remains, was placed at the summit of the regular road
between Brecknock and Caermarthen. On the Honddu above Brecknock
was Castell Madoc, probably a Welsh fortress, and on the Llyfni between
Brecknock and Hereford the Peel of Talgarth and the very remarkable
cylindrical tower of Bronllys. The remains of the castle of Hay stand upon
the Wye at the north-eastern angle of the county. It was built by Sir Philip
Walwyn, destroyed by Henry III. in 1231, and probably rebuilt soon

afterwards. A part of it is still standing. The town was walled and had three
gates.
Besides these were Scethrog, the tower of Sir Miles Pichard; Burghill,
built by Sir Humphrey of that name; Langoed and some others, fortified
houses rather than castles, and of which in most cases nothing remains but
the moated mounds, only a few of which have been occupied by the
Normans.
Monmouthshire, though exposed to occasional inbreaks, was, in the
eleventh century, and especially after Harold’s Welsh war of 1063, as
completely a part of England as Hereford or the contiguous parts of
Gloucester. Its western border was the Rhymny, but by much its more
important part lay between two very deep and rapid rivers, the Wye and the
Usk, and upon each were posted formidable castles; those of Monmouth
and Chepstow upon the one river, and those of Newport, Usk, and
Abergavenny upon the other. Chepstow is placed upon a cliff on the
western or right bank of the river, evidently, like Newport, intended as a
“tête du pont” to cover the passage of troops, the river not being there
fordable. As the name imports, the settlement is of English origin, though
its Domesday designation, Estrighoil, corrupted into Striguil, is Welsh. The
castle is divided from the town by a deep ravine, and is altogether outside
the wall, which was unusual. The keep, of Norman masonry, may be the
work of William Fitz Osborne, Earl of Hereford, or at latest of Roger de
Britolio, his son and successor. As early as in the reign of Henry I.,
Chepstow had come into the possession of the De Clares of the Strongbow
line, often called Earls of Striguil. Its possession enabled the Mareschals,
successors to the De Clares, to hold their earldom against Henry III.
Monmouth Castle occupied the top of a promontory of rock between the
Wye and the Monnow, and was long held by a line of border barons to
whom it gave a name.
Upon the Usk, the old castle of Newport has long been replaced by a later
structure, but parts of Usk Castle, some miles higher up, are old, and
Abergavenny, which descended from De Braose through Cantelupe and
Hastings to the Nevilles, is still held by the chief of that family, though little
remains of it save the original mound. It was at Abergavenny Castle that
William de Braose slaughtered, in 1175, a number of unarmed Welshmen,
in revenge for the murder of his uncle, Henry of Hereford. Caerleon,

between Newport and Usk, though founded by a Norman upon an earlier
English site connected with very celebrated Roman remains, was the
heritage of a Welsh family, and continued long in their occupation. Between
the Usk and the Wye the ground, in itself strong, was strongly occupied.
Upon the Monnow were placed Scenfrith and Grosmont, which with
Whitecastle formed the famous trilateral, so important in the war between
Henry III. and the Earl of Pembroke. The keep of Scenfrith is a round tower
of early date placed within a right-lined enclosure. Though small, it was
very strong, and its remains are tolerably perfect. Grosmont, also of early
date, is somewhat larger, and its remains are also considerable. White Castle
is an enormous shell of lofty walls and mural towers placed within a most
formidable ditch, beyond which are very extensive outworks both of
masonry and earth. It stands very high, commands a most extensive view,
and its defences are wholly artificial. All these three castles are reported to
have been originally Welsh seats; but their earthworks have an English
aspect. They were obviously intended for the general defence of the
country, and, as usual, were always in the hands of the great Lords or of the
Crown; there were besides several smaller castles or fortified houses, the
centre of private estates. Of these were the castles bordering the chase of
Wentwood: Dinham, long since a ruin; Penhow, the cradle of the House of
Seymour; Pencoed, which still retains some early masonry; Llanvair, built
by the Pain or Pagan family; and Castroggy, where is seen a part of the hall
and some other masonry. Upon the Ebbw, west of Newport, stood the small
castles of Greenfield and Rogeston, and at Castleton is a mound, said at one
time to have been accompanied by masonry. On the hill above Ruperra is a
very large and very perfect moated mound, but without any trace or
tradition of masonry. Llangibby is an old Monmouthshire castle.
The occupation by the Normans of the valleys of the Wye and the Usk no
doubt served to protect the exposed flank of Monmouthshire, but beyond
the Rhymny in Glamorgan this protection ceased, and the hill territory of
Glamorgan contained a native population ever ready to assist their
countrymen, who frequently invaded that Lordship from the north-west.
The Norman settlers all dwelt in the strip of open and more fertile land from
six to twelve miles in breadth that intervened, like the Concan of Western
India, between the mountains and the sea, where the remains of their castles
are placed so near together as to raise a question as to whence the

inhabitants derived their means of subsistence. The chief castle of the
Lordship was that of Cardiff on the Taff; but the lord also held castles at
Dinas Powis, Llantrissant, Kenfig, and by an early acquisition, at Neath, all
which may be presumed to have been intended for the general protection.
Cardiff, upon the “via maritima” of the Romans, is a very remarkable
fortification. It is rectangular, protected on three sides by a very high bank
and ditch, and on the fourth, towards the river, by a very strong wall. In one
corner at the river end is a large moated mound still bearing the Norman
keep, and which stood upon the line of a second wall now destroyed, by
which that end of the area was cut off and protected from the rest. The
analogy of this work with those of Tamworth, Wareham, and Wallingford,
and in some degree with Leicester, is remarkable. It also has some points of
resemblance to Hereford. Dinas Powis is a small oblong enclosure of the
type of Dinas Brân and Dolforwin, probably of Norman date. It occupies
the top of a rock in the gorge of a deep valley, and must have been strong
against any mere assault. Llantrissant Castle was of rather larger
dimensions. It stood, and indeed a fragment of it still stands, in a notch in
the hill high above the plain and many miles from the sea. Kenfig, which
stood upon a brook near the sea coast, has been completely swallowed up
by blown sand, “consumptum per sabulonem,” and only a fragment is now
visible. Neath, the most exposed castle in the whole county, was founded by
De Granville, said to be the brother of Robert Fitz Hamon. Save those of
the Lord the only castle in the Lordship held by a public functionary was
that of the Bishop at Llandaff, which seems to have been always a place of
strength, though the gatehouse and enclosing wall still remaining are
probably as late as the reign of Henry III. or Edward I.
Proceeding westward, the nearest castles to Cardiff were Sully and Barry,
held by families from whom the manors derived their names, as did
Bonvileston or Tre-Simon and its castle from Sir Simon de Bonville.
Penmark was the seat of the Umfravilles; Fonmon, with its rectangular
keep, of the St. Johns; Wrinston, of the De Reignys and Raleighs; Wenvoe,
of Le Fleming; and St. Fagan’s, of the Le Sore family. Of Peterston and St.
George’s there remain fragments of masonry. East Orchard, the seat of the
Berkerolles family, and Beaupré, of the Bassets, probably were originally
castles; but the one shows the ruins of a fortified house, the other of a
manor-house of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Part of Castleton
Castle is old; of Liege Castle there remains a light earthwork only.

Llandough was built by the Welsh family, and Llanquian, a round tower, by
the De Wintons. Llanblethian Castle was the seat of the St. Quintins,
Talavan of the Siwards: at Penlline is a part of a rectangular keep with
herring-bone masonry, built by the Norrises. Cowbridge town was an
appanage of the chief Lord, and was walled and strongly fortified. St.
Donat’s, in its present form, is very late, and it is doubtful whether the
Haweys, the early lords, had a castle in this county. Part of Dunraven is old.
It was built by the Butlers, who held it under Ogmore. Ogmore, the chief
seat in this lordship of the De Londres, lords of Kidwelly, has a square
keep. It stands on the river whence it is named. Near it are the remains of a
small castle of the Cantelupes, known as Cantelupe’s-ton or Cantleston. At
Bridgend is a late Norman gateway, the entrance to a small walled
enclosure, also probably Norman. It bears the name of Newcastle. Near it is
Coyty, a famous Welsh seat, but built or rebuilt by the Turbervilles. The
buildings are considerable and tolerably perfect. The adjacent priory of
Ewenny was fortified. The Welsh Barons of Avan had a castle upon the
Avon river at Aberavan.
The Lordship of Cilvae extends from near the Neath to the Tawe, upon
which is posted the castle of Abertawe or Swansea, a structure remarkable
for its open parapet with a rampart wall above the arches, the work of
Bishop Gower. Swansea was the “caput” of Gower under the Earls of
Warwick and the De Braoses, and subsidiary to it were the castles of
Oystermouth, still standing, and Lwchwr on the Burry river, called the keys
of Gower. Lwchwr is now but a small square tower standing upon a small
mound connected with a large Roman camp. Within the peninsula are
Penrice, an early castle of that family with a good round keep, and in the
same parish, and near the church, a moated mound; Oxwich, a late building
of the Mansels, a good example of the transition from the castle to the
fortified house; Pennard, a quadrangular castle of the Edwardian type;
Weobley and Llanrhidian. At Scurlage and Llandewi were castles, and at
Llandimor. Mr. Freeman has remarked that twelve of the sixteen churches
of Gower have towers evidently built for defence. The exterior doors, where
they occur, are usually insertions. The low country beyond the Burry is
protected by Kidwelly, a tolerably perfect early castle built by the De
Londres family, and inherited from them by the Chaworths. It stands upon
the Gwendreath, and to its north is the strong castle of Carreg-Cennen. But
the real defence of Caermarthen is the river Towy, strengthened by the four

castles on its banks, Llanstephan, Caermarthen, Dynevor, and Drysllwyn, to
which may be added Laugharne, upon an adjacent inlet of the sea, and the
tower at Llangattock, which commanded the end of the pass from
Brecknock. Near to Llandeilo was Llanymdhyfri, which in 1113 belonged
to Richard de Pons. Most of these castles seem to have been established by
the De Clares of the Strongbow line, but strong as they were, and usually
well defended, they had to bear the brunt of the border war, and were often
taken and retaken by and from the Welsh, who at times permanently
occupied them.
This was much or even more the case with the castles of Cardigan,
which, though usually small, and with two or three exceptions not
individually of great importance, were very numerous, and collectively
served sufficiently well for the ordinary defence of the territory. They were
almost all founded by the De Clares and their followers early in the twelfth
century. At the head of them and exceptionally strong stood Aberystwith
near the north of the county, upon the shore of Cardigan Bay, and partly
covered by the junction of the Ystwith with the Rheidol. Its position on the
sea and in the rear of the strongest parts of South Wales made it particularly
obnoxious to the Welsh; it was exposed to the full fury of the attacks from
both North and South Wales, and strong as it was both by art and nature,
was often taken and retaken, destroyed and rebuilt. Between it and the
extreme limit of the county, the Dyfy, were the lesser castles of Geneur-glyn
and Glan-Dyfi, and near it was Stradpythyll Castle, built by Ralph, steward
to Earl Gilbert. It was besieged in 1122. Cardigan is traversed obliquely by
the Teivi, and near the head of that stream was the great castle of Ystrad-
Meyric founded by Gilbert de Clare, of which the ruins remain. Tregaron
was lower down, as were a number of other strong places, such as
Llanllwyni, Llanfihangel, Llandissul, Llangollen, of which it is difficult to
say whether they were castles of the de Clare period or earlier residences.
Blaen-porth-gwythian Castle was built by Earl Gilbert before 1112. At
Newcastle was a strong castle also on the Teivi, and nearer to the mouth of
the river, on the Cardigan bank, the castle of the town of Cardigan. Besides
these there occur in local histories the names of Castell-Gwynionydd or
Coedvon near Llampeter; Castell Abereinon; Humphrey’s Castle in
Llandissil; Blaen Porth near Cardigan; Iscoed, where the mound seems to
have had a keep in masonry; Llanven; Llampeter, where the mound remains
but the masonry has been removed; Dinerth, the mound of which is called

Danish, but where Roger de Clare founded a castle in 1135; Castel Rhos in
Llanyrysted, built in 1158; Caerwedro, taken by the Welsh in 1135; and
Llanyondri.
Pembroke, far less exposed than Cardigan to the common enemy, is
divided by the Haven of Milford, owing to which the southern part of the
county, partially peopled by a colony of Flemings, was completely sheltered
from the Welsh incursions, and became in fact a purely English territory. It
was protected but also dominated by the grand castle of Pembroke, founded
by Arnulph de Montgomery, the first Norman invader, but better known as
the seat of Strongbow and the Mareschals, who thence took the title of their
earldom. Pembroke Castle, though a ruin, retains much of its ancient
magnificence. The hall, gatehouse, curtain wall, and mural towers still
remain, and the grand round keep continues to give mass and character to
the whole group. The town also was strongly walled, the castle forming part
of the circuit. At the other end of the root of the peninsula, on the sea, was
the Castle of Tenby, also attached to the earldom, strong in its position, and
also, as its remains show, well fortified. The town of Tenby was walled, and
still retains a portion of the wall and one of its gates. Near Tenby was
Manorbeer, an early castle, though in its present form probably of the date
of Henry III. There is no keep, and the hall is vaulted. The gatehouse
remains. The ruins show it to have been strong. It is celebrated as the
birthplace of Giraldus Cambrensis or de Barri. Carew Castle no doubt
represents an early fortress, and hence sprung, as is supposed, the families
of Fitz-Gerald and Windsor, and most certainly that of Carew. Lamphey
was a castle of the Bishops of St. David’s and has an arcaded parapet, a
poor imitation of that of Bishop Gower at Swansea; and Castle Martin was
the residence of the Barons Martin. At Nangle was a fortified house of the
Sherbornes, and it is very probable that Stackpole Court was preceded by an
early castle built by the founder of the family of that name. North of the
Haven, that great fiord which gives its distinctive feature to the name of
Haverford, is the strong rectangular keep of Haverford-West, the present
state of which reflects utter discredit on the county. It was the work
probably of Gilbert de Clare early in the twelfth century, and around it,
scattered over the whole face of the county, are an unusually great number
of small castles and strong houses, built and inhabited by the Norman
knights who followed Arnulph and Strongbow, and whose descendants
continued to hold them by military service under the succeeding earls. Such

was Upton, the castle of the Malefaunts, of which remain the chapel and the
gatehouse; Dale, placed on the root of the peninsula of St. Ann’s Head,
belonged to the De Vales; Narberth was founded by the Perrotts; Lawhaden
was the chief seat of the Bishop of St. David’s and the “caput” of the
Episcopal Barony (of it there remain a fine gateway and some other
buildings); Wiston, the castle of Sir Philip Gwys, and afterwards of the
Wogans, is mentioned as taken by the Welsh in 1146; Picton is thought to
have been founded in the reign of Rufus. Besides these are Wallwyn’s
Castle, of which only the mound remains; Castle Byth; Little Newcastle;
Castell Hendre or Henry’s Moat; Roche Castle, a square keep perched upon
a rugged rock, and built by Adam de Rupe, founder of the De la Roche
family; Cilgerran, on the Teivi, a very considerable castle, of which much
remains: it was held by the chief lords; Nevern, the chief castle of the old
barony of Cemaes, afterwards replaced by Newport, of which the remains
are considerable. Mention is also made of Benton Castle; of Castle Coning,
near St. Dogmell’s; Castleton, built by the family of Castle; and Punch or
Poyntz Castle, a grange of the bishops of St. David’s, where there is a large
moated mound. Probably there are many other castellets and fortified
houses in the northern and more exposed half of Pembrokeshire, the sites of
which are confounded with the earlier Raths and circular earthworks of a
period preceding the Norman Conquest. The term Rath, and the pattern of
the fortification also, are probably imported from Ireland, where a circular
bank and ditch surrounded the dwelling-place of almost every landed
proprietor, differing from that in use in England and Normandy by the
absence of the mound. The Irish enclosure was little if at all raised above
the exterior ground, and therefore, though perhaps more convenient,
certainly less strong than the moated mound. Of these Raths there are
several in Pembrokeshire. Here also is another rather peculiar feature. Many
of the church towers, as in Gower, are evidently constructed for defence,
intended no doubt as a ready refuge against a sudden and temporary
incursion of the Welsh, or a descent upon the coast by the Scandinavian
pirates. Such a post, like the Irish round towers, could be held safely for a
few hours until the alarm brought relief.
The castles of the Welsh border have not been critically examined, and it
is, therefore, difficult to give a list of them that shall at all approach
accuracy; it may, however, be stated roughly that there were in Wales at the
close of the reign of Henry II. 251 castles and castellets, of which 21 had

rectangular keeps, and 20 shell keeps. Of castles of which little is accurately
known, or which do not admit of classification, there were about 220.
According to the preceding enumeration, there were at the close of the
reign of Henry II. in England and upon the Marches of Wales about 657
castles, of which 55 had rectangular and 96 shell keeps, while of 506 little
is known, or else they do not come under one or the other of the regular
Norman types. Considering the difficulties which stand in the way of
accuracy in obtaining these figures, the above total does not differ very
widely from Moore, the only authority on the subject, who gives a list of
about 568 of the earlier castles, including therein those of the reign of
Henry III. and the three Edwards.

With the reign of Henry II. may be said to close the principal castle-
building period of English history. Cœur de Lion was scarcely an English
sovereign. He designed, it is said, and certainly built, the great fortress of
Château Gaillard upon the Seine; but he built no castle in England, nor does
any castle of consequence appear to have been founded in his reign. John,
his successor, was always moving from one castle to another, exercising in
a very unpopular degree the royal prerogative of purveyance. He introduced
the Writ known as “Commissimus,” by which castellans were appointed to
the royal castles, and he showed his distrust even of his supporters, by
continually transferring these officers from one castle to another, lest they
should establish any local interest. The siege of Rochester Castle was the
great military engineering operation of the reign, in which the outer wall
was undermined near one angle, and the gallery carried on beneath the
keep, which stood but a few feet within the enclosure. The result was to
bring down the wall and the lower part of one angle of the keep, and the
place and extent of the mischief may still be traced, owing to the angle
having been rebuilt with very indifferent masonry. Almost the last event of
his reign was the siege of Dover by Louis of France, who set up a
“malvoisin” to overtop the walls, but failed to take the place, though before
it for four months. John died at Newark, which, if not the finest castle of the
Midlands, contains certainly the grandest Norman gatehouse in England.
From his accession in May, 1199, to his death in June, 1207, John dated
public instruments from 131 castles in different parts of England, and must
have visited a great many more.

Henry III. found his realm over-built with castles, and amongst the
vigorous exertions by which William Marshall and Hubert de Burgh
restored the royal authority should specially be recorded the sieges of
Biham and Bedford castles, two very strong places. The Close Rolls show
the extent of the preparations for these sieges. The sheriffs of the whole
Midland and westward to the Forest of Dean are directed to provide and
forward materials and munitions of war. Carpenters, smiths, quarrymen to
dress stone bullets, miners and engineers, are placed under requisition, and
from all sides are ordered timber, stone, lead, cord, cable, chain, iron bars,
balistæ, catapults, mangonels, crossbows of wood and horn, targets,
quarrels, arrows, slings, hides to cover the malvoisins, and mining tools.
Both castles were stiffly defended, and both were taken. Of Biham no trace
remains; of Bedford a fragment of wall and a mound, reduced almost to a
mole-hill, still shows that Henry’s work was not done negligently. Towards
the end of the reign occurred a still more famous siege, that of Kenilworth.
Here, as on the former occasion, Henry commanded in person, and the
celebrated “Ban of Kenilworth” shows how complete was his victory.
Henry also conducted a campaign in South Wales in which the castles of
Monmouth, Usk, Chepstow, Caerleon, and Cardiff played important parts—
castles calculated to prove a sharp thorn in the side of an English prince,
and to render a uniform and just government impracticable. Henry is not
certainly known as the founder of any important English castle, but he
added to and restored very many. Skenfrith near Monmouth dates from a
little before his time; but Grosmont and White Castle, the two other
members of the great border trilateral, may be of that reign. Henry, no
doubt, was a great builder, and very princely in his operations; but his
works as regards castles were chiefly shown in building, repairing, and
adorning the walls and windows of the royal lodgings, halls, and chapels in
the royal castles, works which were in all cases carried on outside the keep,
within the middle or outer wards, and which in most cases have long since
been swept away. Henry found his castles built to his hands, and had no
opportunity of introducing any specific style or type of military work.
White Castle is a mere pen or enclosure, with high walls and mural towers,
though its earthworks, probably of earlier date, are on a great scale.
Castles of the type known as Edwardian or concentric, though taking
their name from Edward I., were, as a chronological fact, introduced in the
reign of his father, and Caerphilly, one of the earliest, probably the very

earliest, of the concentric type, and curiously enough one of the most
complete, was constructed by the Lord of Glamorgan in the very last year of
Henry’s reign. Caerphilly is second only to Windsor in extent, and second
to no mediæval fortress whatever in the skill with which it is laid out, and
the natural features of the ground turned to advantage. It was executed, and
probably planned, with great rapidity. Its cost must have been enormous,
and must have taxed to the utmost the resources of even so wealthy a noble
as the Earl of Gloucester and Hertford.
The type thus introduced was adopted by Edward I., and is exemplified
in the castles of Harlech and Beaumaris. Conway and Caernarvon, though
superior in magnificence to these and less symmetrical, are chiefly
remarkable because they form a part of the defences of the towns attached
to them, the whole being of one date and parts of one plan. The reign of
Edward much diminished the value of English castles. Even the fortresses
erected by him in North Wales, when their end was attained and the
province reduced to subjection, ceased to be of value and gradually fell into
decay, and in England when once his rule was established and his power
realised, the lords even of the strongest castles did not venture to garrison
them against him.

CHAPTER IX.
THE RECTANGULAR KEEP OF A NORMAN CASTLE.

IN a preceding chapter an attempt was made to describe the appearance and
to give an outline of the history of those earthworks in England and
Normandy upon which the Norman and Anglo-Norman barons founded
their chief strongholds, and which, therefore, are connected with the
military architecture of either country. It is now proposed to describe the
buildings themselves, whether placed within the ancient earthworks or
altogether of original foundation, which constituted the fortresses of
England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, through the periods known in
ecclesiastical architecture as the Norman and Transition, and which, in
military architecture, include the Norman form of castle. What is known as
the Norman style of architecture prevailed in England from the Conquest to
the close of the reign of Stephen,—that is, from 1066 to 1154; but this latter
is necessarily an arbitrary date, since it was by degrees only that one style
of architecture passed into another, and the Norman features, though found
in all buildings, and especially in castles, down to the end of the reign of
Henry II., or 1189, became more and more mixed up with those of the
succeeding style.
The castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, whether in Normandy
or in England, were of two distinct types,—those with the rectangular and
those with the shell keep. The former type was almost always employed
when the site selected was a new one, the latter where the site was old, and
where there existed a “motte” or mound. There are exceptions to this; that is
to say, the rectangular keep is occasionally found on an old site, but the
shell keep is never found on a new one. The distinction was mainly due to
the fact that the massive heavy tower could only be safely founded upon
solid ground, whereas the lighter and more widely-distributed weight of the
shell keep was better suited to that which was artificial. The shell keep was
the most numerous of the two; but the tower type, being of a more solid and
more durable character, has lasted longest, and is at this time so much the
most common that it has been designated by writers of authority as the type,

instead of as but one of the two types of a Norman keep. The rectangular
and the shell keep never occur in the same castle; and, as a rule, where there
is a mound there is no rectangular keep. The only known exceptions to this
rule are at Christchurch, Guildford, Clun, Saffron Walden, Mileham,
Bungay, and Bramber. At Christchurch and Mileham the mound is low, and
the keep walls seem to be carried through it to the solid ground. At
Guildford, as at Clun, where the mound is large, the keep is built on its
slope, so that the lower end and one-third of the contiguous sides are seen to
rest on the solid ground, and thus effectually counteract the tendency of the
upper part to slide down. Walden has not been carefully examined, nor is it
known whether the foundations at Bungay are carried down to the solid
earth. At Bramber there is an oblong natural hill, surrounded by a very deep
ditch, in part artificial, while at one end of the hill is a square keep, and near
the other a small mound. At Llwchwr, in South Wales, a small square tower
stands upon a low and small mound, mixed up with the bank of a Roman
camp. The tower, indeed, is not actually Norman, though no doubt early,
and it most probably descends to the natural ground. The large rectangular
tower at Oxford is not the keep, but a mural tower, though of unusual bulk.
The keep there was a shell, and crowned the mound. At Kenilworth there
seems to have been a small mound, which has been included within the
keep, the walls of which rest upon the natural rock. The mound in this way
fills up the basement of the keep, the ground-floor of which is thus raised
12 feet to 15 feet above the exterior level, as in the shell keep of Berkeley
and in some degree at Pontefract.
The rectangular keep is, of all military structures, the simplest in form,
the grandest in outline and dimensions, the sternest in passive strength, the
most durable in design and workmanship, and in most cases by some years
the earliest in date. Of the five great fortresses which covered the road from
Dover to London, Dover itself, Canterbury, Rochester, and London have
square keeps; the fifth, Tonbridge, having an earlier mound, has a shell
keep. Farnham and Berkhampstead, Windsor, Wallingford, and Oxford,—
fortresses guarding London from the west,—having mounds, have not
square keeps. Hedingham and Colchester to the east, having square keeps,
are without the mound, though Hedingham, like Corfe and Bramber, stands
on a natural hill. Northwards, Warwick and Kenilworth confirm the rule,
one having had a mound and no square keep; the other a square keep which
has absorbed the mound, if mound there was. At Belvoir, the mound, a

natural hill, is capped by a shell, as were the artificial mounds of Bedford,
Cambridge, Clare, Eye, and Ongar, while rectangular keeps are, or were,
found at Chepstow, Ludlow, Bristol and Wattlesborough, Lancaster and
Newcastle, and on the moundless sites of Bamburgh, Carlisle, Corfe,
Norham, Norwich, Nottingham, Porchester, Scarborough, Knaresborough,
Helmsley, and Richmond, and in the less distinguished lordships, some of
Norman foundation, of Appleby, Brough, Brougham, Bowes, Castle Rising,
Clitheroe, Castleton, Goderich, and Prudhoe. Where there is a rectangular
keep it rises high over every part of the fortress, and gives, as at Bamburgh,
unity and grandeur to the architectural composition. It is usually, as at
Rochester, Dover, Richmond, and Scarborough, placed upon the highest
ground within the enclosure, and very rarely indeed in or near the centre,
although, as in London, it may have been rendered central by the removal
of its original enceinte and the substitution of new and extended lines. At
Malling, perhaps the earliest in England of these keeps, and at Helmsley,
probably the latest,—for that of Knaresborough, though square, is of
Decorated date,—the keep stands on one side of, and forms a part of the
enceinte. At Bamburgh, Bramber, Canterbury, Carlisle, Clitheroe, and
Rochester, the keep stands clear of, but very near to, the outer wall, of
which, at Porchester, it forms one angle. At Kenilworth and Bridgenorth the
keep forms an angle of the inner wall; at Norham one face ranges with the
outer and one with the inner wall; and at Ludlow the keep is placed on the
inner wall, close to the main gateway. At Ogmore it occupies an angle,
having one face on the outer and one on the cross or inner wall. Dover
stands detached in the middle of what appears to be its original enclosure,
and so, probably, did Hedingham and Castle Rising. At Mitford, near
Morpeth, is a singular example of a rectangular keep, of which three angles
are right-angled, and the fourth face is broken into two planes meeting at a
low salient. It is probably late in the period.
These keeps vary in dimensions from 25 feet to 80 feet and even 100 feet
in the side, and they are usually from one and a half to two diameters in
height to the base of the parapet. Many, perhaps most, have been raised a
stage, as Porchester, Bridgenorth, Richmond, Brough, Brougham,
Kenilworth, and Norham. In most of these cases the addition was made
within the Norman period, and possibly contemporaneous with the
substitution of a covering of lead for one of shingles or stone tiles.

Usually the flat exterior faces are relieved by broad pilaster strips of
slight projection from 5 feet to 10 feet wide, by 6 inches in depth, one at the
end of and flanking each face, and in the larger keeps one, or even two,
between them. The flanking pilasters are commonly placed so as to cover
the angle, the two meeting; sometimes, however, they do not quite meet,
and the solid angle is replaced by a hollow nook, occasionally, in late keeps,
as at Castle Rising and Scarborough, occupied by a bold bead or engaged
shaft. In all but the very small keeps these flanking pilasters are continued 8
feet to 10 feet clear above the parapet as the outer faces of square turrets,
now usually ruined. At Hedingham one, partly perfect, remains. Those on
the White Tower and at Rochester are in part original, and certainly
represent, very closely, original structures. At Bowes there seems to have
been but one turret, covering the stairhead. The intermediate pilasters
usually stop either just below the base of the parapet or below an upper
window. At Dover they are carried into the parapet and support slight
internal recesses there, but this is very rare. The pilasters usually are divided
by strings into stages, marking the levels of the different floors, and all rise
from a common plinth, sometimes slight, but sometimes, as at Malling,
Kenilworth, Guildford, Scarborough, and Norham, where one side rises
from lower ground, the plinth is on that side 8 feet to 10 feet high, and has
at Kenilworth and Norham a very bold base. The set-off and string-course
are sometimes carried along both wall and pilasters. At Colchester and at
the White Tower a projecting half-round forms the apse of the chapel, and
the pilasters appear upon it; at Rochester a rounded corner is solid, save at
one story, but this is probably due to a reconstruction. The pilasters are one
of the most marked features of the Norman style, and their presence at once
distinguishes a keep of that period from the fine fourteenth-century towers,
as Borthwick and Lochleven, found in Scotland, as well as from towers of
Early English date, where the pilasters are bolder and narrower, and often,
as at Exeter Castle, chamfered at the angles.
The keep wall is from 7 feet to 14 feet thick, and at the base of the
foundation sometimes 20 feet. That of Colchester is reputed to be 30 feet.
That of the Tower of London is said to have taken six weeks to pierce, with
all modern tools and appliances. The lower 14 feet of the keep of Newcastle
is thought to be solid. The wall usually diminishes in thickness as it rises,
sometimes by external sets-off of 6 inches, more commonly by an internal
step of 1 foot at each floor level. Occasionally the exterior face slopes

inward or batters, but this is unusual. The summit at the level of the allure
or battlement walk is seldom less than 6 feet, and often 7 feet or 8 feet
thick. Within, the larger keeps are divided by a cross wall, usually
ascending to the summit, and pierced in each floor. Sometimes this wall is
confined to the basement and first floor. Kenilworth, a large keep, had no
cross wall; Norwich and Canterbury had two, and some have chambers
walled off at the ends by secondary cross walls, as Castle Rising, Wolvesey,
Colchester, and the White Tower. At Bowes two walls divided the basement
into three chambers. Usually these dividing-walls were pierced by
doorways, but the openings in the main floor were larger. At Scarborough
was, and at Hedingham still is, a single large arch; at Rochester and at
Middleham are several arches. At Porchester are only small doorways.
Where there is no cross wall its place was, no doubt, supplied by posts of
timber. The smaller keeps have a basement and a first floor; the larger, a
second and third floor,—the latter being often an early addition.
The basement chamber is almost always at the exterior ground level, and
never much below it; it is commonly from 12 feet to 15 feet high, aired,
rather than lighted, by one or more narrow loops in each face, splayed and
stepped up to within: Richmond has not even these. The basement was
evidently always a storeroom. Now and then, as at Scarborough, but not
often, its walls contain chambers; more commonly they are solid. In small
keeps, as Ludlow and Carlisle, the first was the main floor, or room of state;
in the larger, as Rochester, it seems to have been a barrack. The apertures
were rather larger than those below, but not much. In the walls were
commonly chambers. In the large keeps the main floor, usually the second,
was from 25 feet to 30 feet high, generally with windows 2 feet or so broad,
and often coupled under a single arch outside. Inside, the recess was
splayed, and sometimes descended to the floor level, while in the jambs
were door-openings into mural chambers. Some of these castle halls must
have been noble rooms. Where there was a cross wall, as at Rochester,
Norham, and Middleham, there were two rooms; at Kenilworth the large
open space was probably subdivided by a brattice. Usually, in the larger
castles, the wall of the main floor is pierced, high up, by a sort of triforium
gallery, into which the outer windows open, and which opens into the
chamber by lofty and larger arches of 3 feet to 4 feet opening. Possibly
these galleries and their windows were intended to give another line of
defence; but they must have destroyed the privacy of the hall and made it

very cold. Above the main floor was an upper floor, probably occupied as
private rooms, bratticed off by partitions of wood. Where this floor was not
a part of the original building, to gain it seems to have been one object of
the addition. It was placed immediately below the roof. The original roof
seems to have been inclined at a moderate pitch, such as was necessary to
carry off the water from a covering of shingles. The gables did not rise
above the parapet, so that there was thus a great loss of space. In the smaller
keeps the roof was a simple ridge with lateral gutters; where there was a
cross wall the roof was double, with a central as well as lateral gutters. That
this was the usual arrangement is clear from the old weather mouldings,
which remain in the end walls wherever these have been raised. The
original roof having its ridge rather below the parapet, had its side gutters in
deep hollows. Of course, no military engine could have been placed on such
a roof. Where the walls have been raised the roof has been replaced by a
floor, and an upper story introduced with either a flat, or nearly flat, and
leaded roof. These additions are almost always late Norman; but at
Brougham they are Decorated. At Ludlow, where there was a central ridge
with two lateral gutters, the interior has been re-arranged, and a flat roof
laid at the ridge level of the old one, gaining a floor without raising the
walls. The gables never seem, as in the Scottish towers, to have risen above
the parapet. Probably one reason why the Norman roofs were lifted and
flattened was to allow of military engines being placed upon them, and the
use of lead must have come in rather suddenly just before the close of the
Norman period.
The floors of these keeps are almost always of timber; thick rough
planks, resting upon stout balks 12 inches or 14 inches square, placed about
2 feet or 3 feet apart, and resting either on a ledge or in regular joist-holes.
Such floors exposed the keep to be burned, and once well on fire it would
certainly burn till it was gutted. The basement is now and then vaulted, but
the vaulting is very rarely original, and when it is so the keep is late. The
vaulting at the Tower and at Dover is modern brickwork; the Ludlow vault
seems Early English; that at the lower part of Carlisle, that of Porchester,
Brougham, Bowes, and Richmond, Decorated; the vaulting at Middleham,
Newcastle, and Mitford may be original. The vaulting at Norham, a late
keep, may be original, but was more probably inserted at an early period by
Bishop Puisèt. That of Bamburgh is an insertion. The basement of Bowes
was vaulted, but what remains of one rib is either Decorated or later. In a

few examples where guns have been mounted on a Norman keep, a brick
vault has been sprung over the upper chamber, and the roof filled up and
paved. At Dover, Carlisle, and Newcastle, where this has been done, the
upper openings of the hall are closed, and the interior of the fabric utterly
disfigured. There is certainly no original vaulting of a great chamber higher
than the basement.
In most keeps there is a well-stair in one angle, which commences at the
ground-level, supplies every floor, and terminates on the roof under the
turret-head, but has no communication below with the exterior. This was so
originally at the White Tower. There are also other staircases at other levels,
beginning on the first, or even the second, floor, and not always reaching
the roof. As a rule, one stair, descending to the storeroom, seems to have
been enough; but it was thought an advantage to have two or three
ascending from the hall or upper floor to the ramparts, for readiness during
a siege. At Canterbury there are also two well-staircases in the side walls;
and there is one in London. These well-staircases are from 8 feet to 12 feet
in diameter, and lighted with loops. Usually they communicate with each
floor through a sort of lobby. The stairs are always of stone. As the steps at
each angle do not suit the same level of the mural gallery, these latter are
coaxed and accommodated, usually very clumsily. Now and then the
arrangement is different, the stair stops at the first floor, and is continued at
the opposite diagonal. Sometimes, as at Carlisle, Ludlow, and Bamburgh,
where the outer door is at the ground-level, the staircase commences in the
side of the doorway, and ascends straight in the wall, and, on reaching the
next angle proceeds as a well-stair. This is so at Chepstow, where the upper
ascent is probably an addition. At Carlisle and Ludlow the staircase stops at
the first floor, and is continued at another angle. At Brough, where the outer
door is on the first floor, a narrow straight stair rises in the wall to the
second. At Prudhoe, it is continued round two sides, and at Richmond. The
direction of the staircases may be always detected by the position of the
exterior loops, and the general rule seems to be to limit the approach to the
stores and main floor, and from the latter to give a free access to the
ramparts. The curves and angles in those narrow staircases facilitated the
defence of them.
The immense thickness of the walls is usually taken advantage of for the
formation of mural chambers. These are rectangular, and sometimes placed

in an angle, and ∟-shaped. They are vaulted, usually in a plain barrel, or
equally plain groining, lighted by external loops, and now and then, though
very rarely, have, as at Bowes, a fireplace. In breadth they vary from 4 feet
to 6 feet, and they are of all lengths. Usually they are more abundant and
larger, in the main and upper floors. They were intended for sleeping-
rooms, garderobes, oratories, and well-chambers. At Guildford is a very
remarkable oratory, at the first-floor level, ∟-shaped, with a mural arcade.
At Brougham the oratory is on the upper floor. At Rochester and Dover the
upper gallery does not run all round; and in the latter ends in a prison cell.
Some keeps, even with thick walls, contain but few chambers. The two
remaining sides of Norham, a late keep, have none, or, at most, one. Dover,
also late, is honeycombed with chambers at every level, and even the cross-
wall above is threaded by a gallery, a singular example. Newcastle, built in
1080, has very many chambers. Where there are garderobes they have stone
seats, and the vent is usually a vertical shaft in the wall, though sometimes
there is a shoot upon the exterior surface of it, or, though more rarely, it is
corbelled out. At Kenilworth, a fine but late keep, one angle contained a
well-stair, and the three others chambers. They are turrets from the ground,
and in size larger than usual. They are floored with timber. One angle turret
seems to have been wholly occupied by garderobes, and the lower part, at
present filled with light soil, was evidently a large cesspool. At Corfe a very
large garderobe tower,—perhaps a Norman addition,—is appended to one
side of the keep.
Most keeps, even early ones, contain fireplaces. One has been discovered
in the Tower, long supposed to be without them. At Dover they are in the
cross-wall; at Rochester, where they are very handsome, in the sides.
Usually the funnel ascends in the wall; at Rochester and Colchester it forks,
and the two flues open a little way up on the face of the wall, concealed in
the hollow angle of a pilaster. It is not easy to tell whether a flue is original
when the fittings of the fireplace have been inserted; thus, in the Tower
closets, where the fireplaces are Tudor, there are no marks in the wall as
though it had been cut into to construct a flue, so these may represent
original fireplaces, though this is not probable. No doubt open hearths were
much used, and fireplaces of iron with flues of wood and plaster, which
would leave no trace when removed. The fireplaces in the mural chambers
at Dover seem all to be of Tudor date. No fireplace has been discovered in
Richmond keep; there is an original one in a mural chamber at Bowes.

These keeps, built mainly for security, have but few external openings,
and those rarely of any size. Sometimes the narrowest part of the loop is in
the centre of the wall, with a splay each way, having the section of an hour-
glass. This is seen at Kenilworth and Porchester, late keeps. The
arrangement seems a bad one, much aiding the entrance of an arrow. The
larger windows, sometimes of 3 ft. or 4 ft. opening, were closed with
shutters.
A well was an important accessory to a Norman keep. In Dover there are
two—one being in the forebuilding. Sometimes, as at Bamburgh and Castle
Rising, its mouth is at the ground level. More frequently its pipe is
contained within the wall, and opens into a special well-chamber, as at
Dover, Newcastle, and Kenilworth. At Carlisle it is in the wall, and was
reached by an internal lateral opening, now converted into an external one.
At Rochester it is in the cross-wall; the pipe there ascends to the summit,
and has an opening at each floor, and there are traces of some such
arrangement at Canterbury. At Porchester the well occupies one angle of the
wall, and opens on each floor. At Colchester the well, long closed, has been
discovered. It is in the basement, near the entrance. At Hedingham there is
known to be a well, but its place is lost. At Bamburgh, one of the most
remarkable wells in the country, carried down 145 ft. in whin rock, was
only discovered in the last century. At Richmond a hollow octagonal pier,
carrying the vault, has been built exactly over the well, which is reached
through it. At Arques, in Normandy, where the well is near one angle, a pipe
has been built over it, raising the mouth to the first floor. At Bowes,
Brough, Brougham, Guildford, Castleton, and Corfe, no well has been
discovered, and it is only very recently that one has been laid open in the
White Tower, in London.
Great pains were usually taken to cover the entrances of these keeps by a
forebuilding, the details of which have been but little studied. Upon one
side of the keep, but a part of its structure, was placed a smaller tower, also
rectangular, of the length—that is, covering one side—and about one third
of the breadth, of the keep, and two thirds of its height. At one end, at the
ground level, commenced a straight staircase which rose to near the other
end when it stopped at a landing which was the vestibule of the actual
entrance to the keep. Above the lowest part of the staircase was a low tower
and a strong doorway. Halfway up the staircase was often a second

doorway, and sometimes, as at Dover, a second tower. Over the landing at
the stair-head was a larger and taller tower, also with a strong doorway.
Outside this doorway the staircase was often broken by a drawbridge, as at
Rochester. The staircase was not always covered over, but was protected by
an exterior parapet of some height, as at Berkeley, where the shell keep has
a forebuilding, a very unusual example. The battlements of the lower or
entrance tower were reached by a little door in the adjacent angle of the
keep high up. This is seen at Rochester, and at Middleham and Brougham,
where the tower itself is removed. In the keep-wall by the side of the
staircase was often a recess for the guard, as at Middleham. The bridge-pit
had an exterior parapet concealing those who used the bridge. At Castle
Rising where the middle gate is perfect, its battlements are reached by a
small door from the keep.
The vestibule at the stair-head was usually a good-sized chamber, often
vaulted. In it was the main doorway of the keep, of not less than 6 feet
opening, with flanking shafts and moulded architrave. At Castle Rising this
ante-chamber is arcaded, and very handsome; at Rochester it is plain, or
nearly so. At Dover it contains a guard-chamber, at Newcastle and at
Middleham a chapel. The basement below the vestibule was usually a
prison, and had a small door into the corresponding basement of the keep.
At Rochester are two floors below the vestibule and two above it. The
forebuilding is perfect only at Castle Rising, Norwich, Dover, and
Newcastle; there are large remains of it at Rochester, Porchester, and
Middleham, and some at Hedingham, Corfe, and Kenilworth. At
Scarborough, Brougham, Bramber, Canterbury, and Helmsley there are
traces only. At Dover there are vaults below the staircase and lower tower,
above which is a vestibule and a chapel, and in the first or upper floor a
second chapel. Sometimes there is a way from the foot of the staircase of
the forebuilding into the basement of the keep, but probably this is not
original. It is seen at Dover, Newcastle, and Castle Rising. The White
Tower has been so pulled about that it is difficult to say how it was
originally entered. The forebuilding is essentially a Norman appendage,
and, with the exception of Berkeley, and, perhaps, Chilham and Orford,
confined to keeps of the rectangular pattern. It has been supposed to mark a
late keep, but there is a forebuilding at Arques usually regarded as a very
early one.

In the smaller keeps, and some few of the larger ones, there is no
forebuilding, and the entrance is by a plain arch, as at Clitheroe, Goderich,
Bowes, Guildford, and Malling. This entrance was on the first floor. In the
latter case it is, indeed, in the basement, but nevertheless 10 feet above the
ground level. The approach in these cases seems to have been by an
external staircase of timber. At Chepstow, Carlisle, Bamburgh, and Ludlow,
the entrance was by a single doorway at the ground level. In almost all the
larger keeps it has been found convenient—probably when they ceased to
be used solely as military buildings—to have a large direct entrance at the
ground level. Such have been made at London, Rochester, Norham,
Kenilworth, Porchester, Guildford, Clitheroe, Hedingham, Colchester,
Goderich, Canterbury, Brough, and Malling, and probably Chepstow. Some
of these are evidently insertions, taking the place of a loop; others seem to
have been original doors opening from the basement of the keep into that of
the forebuilding, made external on its destruction, as at Corfe and, perhaps,
Kenilworth. At Richmond the removal of the forebuilding has laid open a
large Norman arch in the basement which opened into it. Besides these
main doors, Ludlow has two doors opening from the keep upon the
ramparts of the curtain; and at Rochester is a small door whence probably a
plank drawbridge, six feet or eight feet long, dropped upon the adjacent
curtain. There is something like this at Helmsley, and in the Norman keep
of Adare, in Ireland.
Most keeps contain an oratory; some a regular chapel. Dover is peculiar
in having two, both in the forebuilding, in its lower tower. Newcastle has
one in its forebuilding, under the staircase and upper tower. Middleham has
the remains of a very handsome one at the head of the outer staircase. At
Rochester the chapel seems to have been in the forebuilding, high up,
beneath the kitchen. At Castle Rising it is on the first floor of the keep, at
one end of one of the large rooms. At Guildford and Brougham it was in the
wall. The finest and earliest castle-chapel in England is that in the White
Tower. It is large, has a nave, aisles, and semi-circular apse, all vaulted.
This chapel occupies two stories, and below it are two floors of vaulted
crypts, intended for prisons. The chapel at Colchester, though smaller and
ruder, resembles in position that in the White Tower.
Of the three drawings here given, the first gives the plan of the White
Tower, London, at the second or chapel floor. The three well staircases are

there seen, and the outer and cross walls. Here also is shown, in the south
wall, the small mural staircase which ends at this level, and affords the only
communication with the main floor of the chapel.

The next drawing shows a plan of the third or uppermost floor, at the
level of the clerestory of the chapel. Here the outer wall is shown perforated
all round by a mural gallery, which communicates with the three well
staircases and with the chapel.

Finally follows a vertical section of the whole keep from east to west, in
which is shown the chapel with its clerestory above and its two tiers of
crypts below. These drawings, which more especially belong to the detailed
description of the Tower of London which follows in its place, are here
inserted as illustrating what is written of Norman rectangular keeps in
general.

The kitchen, though a necessary appendage to a keep, is not often to be
discovered. Probably the cooking was of a simple character, mostly carried
on before an open fire, or by boiling, or broiling over a brazier. There is a
kitchen in the forebuilding at Rochester, high up; and one at the first-floor

level in a mural chamber, at Castle Rising and at Norwich. The kitchen
when it was in a distinct chamber was at the level of the hall, or even above
it.
The defences of the outer doorway in a Norman keep were usually one or
two stout doors of oak, strengthened with iron, and held close by one or two
bars, also of oak, which ran back into deep holes in the wall about four
inches square. The herse or portcullis, though used in other parts of castles,
was rare in the keep. It is a very old method of defence, formed of stone in
the Great Pyramid, and the groove for which remains in the city gate of
Pompeii. When employed, as in the keeps of Scarborough, Hedingham, and
Rochester, it was a single grate, probably of oak spiked and plated with
iron, and it was worked from a mural chamber over the archway.
Sometimes, from the narrow dimensions of the groove, the grate seems to
have been wholly of iron. It was worked by chains or cords wrapped round
a cylinder or windlass, such as is still in use in the main gate-house of the
Tower. Norman keeps very seldom retain their original parapets or turrets.
The parapet was about two feet thick and five feet high. It was either plain
or had broad merlons and narrow embrasures. Usually it was a mere
continuation of the wall, without corbels or any contrivance to widen the
rampart walls, which were of sufficient thickness for the walk. At
Rochester, holes are seen at the base of the parapet for beams to carry a
brétasche or external gallery, but these probably are not original. The angle
turrets are usually mere places of arms, the rampart walks passing through
them. Sometimes they have an upper floor reached by a stone stair or a
movable ladder.
Much has been said of Norman dungeons, oubliettes, and subterranean
vaults, damp and wretched, appliances of Norman tyranny. So far as these
keeps are concerned in the matter, they never contain underground
chambers of any kind. The basement floor is usually at the ground level, or
at most two feet or three feet below it. Where the keep is built on rising
ground it may happen that a chamber, the door of which is at the ground
level, may have one wall half buried beneath the soil, but there is nothing
beyond this. Prisoners of the common sort were not shut up in the keep,
space there was too valuable. The basement could scarce have been used as
a prison where it contained the castle well, and the mural chambers usually
are barred inside. The rooms under the vestibule, and some of the lower

vaults at Dover, and the crypts of the Tower of London, and at Colchester,
probably were used as prisons. In the upper gallery at Dover there is a very
evident prison. At Carlisle, where the basement has recently been used as a
prison, it probably was not one originally. Large as some of the keeps were,
they were not calculated to be held against a long siege or a blockade, and
all the spare room would then be needed for provisions and stores. The
earlier keeps are very plain. The Tower has not even a moulding save in the
chapel, and an exterior blocking over its main tier of windows. No doubt it
has been much mutilated, but, had the ornaments been cut off, the courses
of freestone that carried them would still be distinguishable from the
ordinary rubble masonry. Some of the later keeps exhibit rather rich details,
though usually marked by much simplicity, about the doors, windows, and
fireplaces. Such is the case at Rochester, Hedingham, Dover and Newcastle,
and specially at Castle Rising, one of the most highly ornamented of keeps.
Bamburgh has a fine doorway early in the twelfth century; Ludlow and
Guildford some arcades; Porchester some good windows. The exterior of
Norwich is, or rather was, rudely panelled in tiers of arches. Goderich,
otherwise very plain, has an exterior string of hatched or chevron work. In
these keeps the arches are usually full-centred, but sometimes segmental,
and where flat there is commonly above the lintel a relieving arch with a
recessed tympanum, as at Chepstow. At Malling, though there are no
mouldings, the first-floor window on one side is the centre of five deep
plain full-centred niches in the exterior face, which cannot have been meant
for use, and in another face, also outside, are five other niches, all
unpierced. Occasionally false arches are turned in the walls, as though a
door had been closed up, or the possibility of a new opening provided for.
Such are seen at Dover, Norwich, and Guildford. They are thought, but
scarcely on good grounds, to be intended to invite an attack where the wall
is specially thick.
One or two keeps have buttresses of bold projection, greatly in contrast to
the usual flat pilaster. This is so at Colchester and at Arques, where the
exterior stair passes through one of them. At Arques also these buttresses
are turned to account in the upper story, arches being thrown across from
buttress to buttress, upon which are built chambers, and on one face a
chapel, through the floor of which missiles could be dropped upon the
assailants below. Arques, unfortunately, is built of chalk and flint with little

or no original ashlar, and it is, in consequence, difficult to decide between
what is original and what has been added.
Norman keeps differ in workmanship as in material. The White Tower,
built in great haste, is of rubble, rudely coursed, with very open joints; but
the plinth, quoins, and pilasters seem to have been of Kentish rag, dressed
as ashlar, and also open jointed. Malling is an excellent example of very
early Norman rubble, with open joints, and this may also be said of a part of
the adjacent abbey church, and perhaps of the tower of the parish church.
Guildford contains a good deal of herring-bone work; Chepstow and
Penllyne a little. Colchester is partly built of old Roman materials, chiefly
brick, and contains some herring-bone work. In the chalk districts flint was
largely used, as at Bramber, Dover, Hastings, Canterbury, Thurnham,
Berkhamsted, Bungay, and Walden. In the south, or near the sea, the ashlar
is often in small blocks from Caen. Corfe is of excellent local ashlar, as is
most of Kenilworth. Porchester is of chalk and flint rubble, faced with
ashlar outside and partially inside. Hedingham is all ashlar, and altogether
the finest keep in England. Bowes is a fine example of ashlar, in a local
stone. Whatever Norman masonry may be in church towers, in keeps it is
always sound, though often rough, and is very durable. Now and then chain
courses of timber are inserted in the heart of the walls, to hold the work
together till the mortar shall have set, and it has happened that the wall has
been breached and the exposed timbers have been found to have rotted
away, leaving cavities, as at Rochester, concerning the use of which much
nonsense has been written.
In considering the limited and very inconvenient accommodation
afforded by a Norman keep, it should be remembered that it was not meant
for a residence, save during an actual siege, and that at such times it often
only received the baron’s armed tenants, and not his mercenaries. Indeed,
the builders of some of these keeps seem to have mistrusted their own
troops as much as they feared those of the enemy. The staircases and
galleries are often contrived quite as much to check free communication
between the several parts of the building as between its inside and its
outside. Further, the excessive jealousy in guarding the entrance, the
multiplied doors, the steep and winding staircases, the sharp turns in the
passages, although they helped to keep out an enemy, or, if he got in, placed
him at a disadvantage, also rendered impracticable the rapid re-entry of the

garrison, so that if the court or outer ward were taken by assault, the
defenders had scant time to retire into the keep, which was thus liable to a
coup de main. Otherwise, with a sufficient and faithful garrison, and ample
provision and military stores, a Norman rectangular keep was almost
impregnable, so great was its passive strength. Its windows were too small
or too high for their shutters to be reached by fire-balls, and its walls were
too thick to be breached or mined, if properly defended from the summit.
This, indeed, was the true method of defence. An ordinary loop in a thick
wall, however widely splayed, admitted of but little scope for an archer, or
space to draw his bow. The lower loops were entirely for air, not for
defence. Higher up, with larger windows, a bow could be used with
advantage, but there were no flanking defences, for the angles had no
considerable projection, and the shoulders, or lateral faces of the pilasters,
were not pierced. With military engines for throwing heavy stones and
masses of rock from the roof much might have been effected, but in the
early keeps this was not contemplated, and probably not to any great extent
in the later ones. An arrow shot from a battlement 50 feet or 70 feet high
would lose some of its force in the descent. Of the siege of Rochester
certain particulars are on record, and the account of the operations of the
besiegers is confirmed by the evidence afforded by the existing keep.
Rochester keep stands but 10 feet or 12 feet from the south-east angle of the
outer wall, the angle of the keep corresponding with that of the wall. The
angle of the wall and part of the adjacent curtain have evidently been
removed and rebuilt, with the capping tower, in a later style. Opposite and
behind this newer work, the lower part of the angle of the keep has also, at
some remote time, fallen away, and with it a few yards of the adjacent sides.
These parts have been rebuilt in a rude and slovenly manner, and the
junction of the old and new work is very evident. This keep was built about
1130, and besieged by King John for three months in 1215. Military engines
produced little effect upon it, but a mine was opened which, says Wendover,
first brought down the walls and then a part of the tower. This is what we
now see. The keep seems to have been repaired in haste at once, the outer
wall probably not till 1225, when Henry III. spent considerable sums upon
the castle, and the capping-tower of the curtain is of that date. The attack by
sap was the only one to be employed against a rectangular keep, and was
rarely practicable. Where, as was often the case, the keep stood upon a rock,
the running a mine below it would produce no effect. Where this was not

the case, the foundations of the wall were so broad and so solidified as to
stand even when much of the soil beneath them was removed. At the White
Tower, for example, when it was found convenient to bring a railway from
the river quay into the base of the keep for the shipment of stores, about 20
feet of solid masonry had to be cut through, and much earth removed, and
this, with every aid, was found to be a very tedious and expensive
operation. The defence of such a keep was its passive strength alone. The
loops were nothing in its defence; the roof being on a slope and of shingle
would support no military engine and no great store of stones or heavy
missiles. The narrow doorway did not allow of a sally in force, and when
seriously attacked the garrison had no resource but to trust to the thickness
of their walls, their ample supply of water, their magazines of provisions,
and thus patiently to await relief.
Such are the details of the rectangular Norman keeps, of which we have
in England about fifty extant or well-recorded examples, dating from the
year 1078, when the White Tower was begun, to about the year 1180, to
which may be attributed the keep of Helmsley.

LIST (APPROXIMATIVE) OF RECTANGULAR KEEPS IN ENGLAND.

Cheshire.—Chester.
Cornwall.—Carnbrè (?).
Cumberland.—Carlisle.
Derbyshire.—Castleton.
Devon.—Okehampton (?).
Dorset.—Corfe, Sherborne.
Durham.—Norham.
Essex.—Colchester, Hedingham, Walden.
Gloucestershire.—Bristol (destroyed).
Hants.—Christchurch, Porchester, Wolvesey.
Hereford.—Goderich.
Kent.—Canterbury, Dover, Malling, Rochester, Thurnham.
Lancashire.—Clitheroe, Lancaster.
Middlesex.—The Tower.
Monmouth.—Chepstow.
Norfolk.—Bungay, Castle Rising, Mileham, Norwich.
Northumberland.—Bamburgh, Mitford, Newcastle, Prudhoe.
Nottingham.—Nottingham (destroyed).
Salop.—Bridgnorth, Clun, Ludlow, Wattlesborough.
Somerset.—Taunton.
Surrey.—Guildford.
Sussex.—Bramber.
Wales.—Ogmore, Penllyne.
Warwickshire.—Kenilworth.
Westmoreland.—Appleby, Brough, Brougham.
Yorkshire.—Bowes, Helmsley, Middleham, Normanby (?), Richmond,
Scarborough.

CHAPTER X.
OF THE SHELL KEEP.

WHILE of the rectangular keep there remain many, and some very perfect,
examples both in England and Normandy, the SHELL KEEP, though once
the most common of the two, has rarely been preserved, and is seldom, if
ever, found in a perfect or unaltered condition. There is a difference of
opinion as to the date of the introduction of these keeps, whether a little
before or a little after the other type. The shell keep, being invariably
connected with early earthworks, might be supposed to be the older form;
and Arundel, the only castle mentioned in Domesday as existing in the time
of the Confessor, has a shell keep; but a tolerably close examination has
failed to discover, either at Arundel or elsewhere in England or in
Normandy, any masonry of very early character, probably none that can
safely be attributed to the eleventh century. The fact seems to be that the
early timber structures, which are known to have been erected originally on
the moated mounds, were found to be very defensible, and so were retained
by the Norman lords until they were able to replace the timber by masonry.
The rectangular keeps were either on new sites, or on sites not defended by
very strong earthworks, so that their construction, from the first, was in
masonry, and thus it came to pass that the shells of masonry, though always
connected with the older sites, were of later date than the solid towers. Even
at Durham, a castle recorded to have been built by the Conqueror, and of
which the keep must always have been on the present mound, though the
chapel and connected buildings may be his work, the shell keep contains no
Norman masonry; and if, as is to be supposed, there was once a Norman
shell, it was probably the work of one of the Conqueror’s sons, or even of
Henry II.
A shell keep is always placed upon a mound, either natural or artificial.
Of those on natural hills, the most considerable are Belvoir, Durham, and
Lewes, but the masonry of the two former is not original, though built upon
the old lines. Dunster, the Tor of the early Lords Mohun, has been
examined, and the only trace of its keep is a fragment of a drain. Montacute,

where the hill is wholly natural, has also been cleared of masonry. But by
far the larger number of these mounds are either wholly artificial, or of a
mixed character.
In plan and dimensions these keeps are roughly governed by the figure of
the mound on which they stand. Most are polygons of ten or twelve sides,
not always equal. Some are circular, others polygonal outside and circular
within. Others are slightly oval, others more complex in plan. York, for
example, approaches to a quatrefoil, 64 feet by 45 feet, and this seems to
have been the plan of the long-since destroyed keep of Warwick. Their
diameter is rarely less than 30 feet, and seldom exceeds 100 feet.
The wall was usually 8 feet to 10 feet thick, and, as a security against
settlement, was generally placed 2 feet to 3 feet within the edge of the
mound. Sometimes, as at Lincoln and Tickhill, the walls were strengthened
by flat Norman pilasters, but more commonly they were of plain rubble
with plinths and angle quoins of ashlar. Cardiff, though without a plinth, has
angle quoins, and probably dates from early in the twelfth century. The
walls of these keeps were 20 feet to 25 feet high to the rampart walk, which
was reached by open interior staircases either of wood or stone. Traces of
the latter were visible a few years ago at Cardiff. Such a shell is well suited
to be placed upon made ground, which would not have supported a solid
mass. At Cardiff, where a heavy tower was long afterwards added, it slipped
and fell. The interior of the larger keeps was an open court, around which
were placed the buildings—sometimes mere sheds—against the ring wall.
Where the keep was large and the castle important, these buildings were
permanent, though even in the greater keeps, such as York, timber was
largely used. Windsor, before the alterations, contained an open court, as
still does the keep of Ledes Castle, which is peculiar in standing upon a
small island, completely occupied by it. The present round tower at
Windsor, though modern, is built upon the lines of the Edwardian tower,
which again was built upon those of a late Norman keep, the foundations of
which were laid open by Wyattville, and found to rest upon an artificial
mound. Durham keep is said to have been originally open, but to have been
closed to accommodate the bishops, who were forced, by the disturbed state
of the country, to reside within it. The keep at York, known as Clifford’s
tower, is rather Early English than Norman, and probably succeeded a
timber structure. It much resembles some of the French keeps built by

Philip Augustus. It has a well in the court, turnpike stairs to the ramparts,
and a chapel over the entrance, much altered in the Decorated period, and
which, as is not uncommon, serves as a portcullis chamber. At Hawarden, a
small and close, but very curious keep, the oratory is over the entrance.
Tamworth, rather an Early English than a Norman structure, was long the
actual residence of a considerable family. It is still inhabited, and contains
some crowded and curious buildings, an open court, and a well. Connected
with the keep is an earlier curtain-wall with some herring-bone work. The
approach to the keep lies along the rampart of this wall. The actual entrance
is a small, plain, pointed doorway. At Lincoln the keep is a mere Norman
shell. It is nearly circular, and has two original doorways, one (the larger)
opening from the castle area, the other opening upon the outer ditch. The
mound stands upon the enceinte line of the place, and at the points at which
the two curtains abut upon the keep are two mural chambers, which appear
to have been garderobes. At Clare the shell was a polygon of fourteen faces,
and at each angle was a buttress, triangular in plan, and of three stages,
dying into the wall. The shell was 52 feet internal diameter, and the walls 6
feet thick and 25 feet high, with four tiers of putlog holes. The foundations
of this keep are of the unusual depth of 6 feet. There is said to have been an
underground chamber, which may be doubted. The material is flint rubble,
with ashlar buttresses and dressings, but the actual masonry, though, no
doubt, generally on the old lines, does not look later than Edward III., if so
old. The mound is 53 feet high, and on the enceinte, and traversed by the
curtain. The base is about 870 feet in girth, of which about 600 feet are
outside, and 270 feet within the area.
At Alnwick the whole inner ward is a shell keep built upon a natural
knoll. The main buildings, being the lord’s lodgings, are built against and
form part of the wall, and the centre is an open court. The gatehouse is
Norman, and part of the foundations of the wall, but most of the
superstructure has been rebuilt twice over, though upon the old lines. There
is a well in the wall, probably original, but encased in late Norman
masonry. Alnwick being a sort of Castle Dangerous, and always open to
sudden attack, the lord habitually lived within the keep, which was far more
commodious than usual. Tickhill keep was a decagon, of which the
foundations remain, to the top of the plinth, with the base of a flat pilaster
capping each angle. The entrance was by a small door, just within which

was the well. The mound stands on the enceinte, and the curtain runs up it
on each side. About a quarter of the girth is within the castle area, and the
rest outside. Part of Pickering keep is standing; it is late and polygonal.
Here the mound is central, and stands on the line of a curtain which divides
the area into two parts. At Ewyas-Harold, Builth, and Berkhampstead are
traces of the foundations of the keep. At Kilpeck part of the wall is
standing, and the well was within it, and is probably older than the masonry.
Farnham keep is part of an inhabited dwelling, and has not been examined.
At Oswestry is a fragment of the masonry, and at Whittington are traces
showing that the mound was revetted, and also, in Decorated times,
strengthened by four or five large mural drum towers.
The foundations of Tonbridge keep show it to have been a slightly oval
polygon, 86 feet by 76 feet, with fifteen external pilasters at the angles, and
walls 11 feet 6 inches thick. This is attributed to Bishop Odo, but the noble
gatehouse and walls below are later. The mound covers an acre, and is on
the enceinte. Arundel has a good plain Norman doorway from the castle
court, and an entrance by a gallery in the curtain from the gatehouse. Here
is a chapel on the first floor, at the junction of the curtain with the keep, and
near it is the well-chamber. The well is outside, and probably older than the
keep wall. In the wall is a turnpike stair leading to the ramparts, and near its
foot a small subterranean chamber, but both are later than the keep, and
insertions. At Oxford the mound contains a crypt, an addition; but here, as
at Wallingford, Hinckley, Leicester and Caerleon, the walls are gone, as at
Bedford, so celebrated for its siege by Henry III. The mound at Quatford,
having been the seat of Earl Roger, was, of course, fortified, though
whether by masonry is unknown. There is, however, a deep well, which
must have been within the keep. A tunnel and later flight of steps have been
cut, and descend through the skirts of the hill from the outer ward. This
passage strikes the shaft a few feet above the water level.
Berkeley, on many accounts one of the most interesting castles in
England, has a very curious shell keep, built round a mound, which thus
fills up the lower stage. The wall, the lower part of which is thus a
revetment, is strengthened by three half-round mural towers, one of which
contains the well, and above it the chapel. This keep is also remarkable for
the forebuilding covering its entrance, which contains a tower over the
lower or outer gate, at the foot of the staircase. This castle is known to have

been built soon after the accession of Henry II., and, though Norman, is, of
course, late in the style; Orford and Chilham, Norman keeps of a peculiar
character, also have forebuildings. The keep at Pontefract is very peculiar.
The castle covers the table-top of an oval knoll, natural, with precipitous
sides of rock. At one end, on the edge of the cliff, is placed the mound, now
encased partially in masonry. The masonry begins at the foot of the cliff, as
a sort of half-round tower, or rather a cluster of roundlets, built as a
retaining-wall. Above, the circle of masonry is completed, includes the
mound, and forms the shell keep. The base is honeycombed with passages
and chambers, cut in the rock, and partly lined with masonry. In its present
condition this keep exhibits masonry of both Decorated and Perpendicular
date, but its substance, as also some of its adjacent masonry, is evidently
late Norman.
Restormel is rather a round castle than a shell keep, and more Early
English than Norman. On the whole, however, it may be classed with the
shells. It occupies a natural knoll, and its ring-wall crests the steep slope;
against it are the buildings, and within is an open court. Launceston, also,
though Early English, belongs to the shell type. It has a central round tower,
and a concentric wall much lower, a sort of chemise, the space between the
two having been covered in with a flat roof. Possibly Montacute, built by
the same lord, may have been after the same pattern; but of Montacute even
the ruins have long since perished.
The approach to these keeps seems, in its simplest form, to have been by
a wooden bridge over the ditch on the side within the castle, and thence by
steps up the mound, as at Lincoln, where, however, they are modern, and
the ditch is partially filled up. At Tickhill, and at Hawarden, there is a flight
of steps just within, and built against the curtain. At Cardiff recent
excavations have disclosed the piles of a timber bridge, which crossed the
ditch, and may be older than the remains of the Norman keep. Cardiff,
however, thanks to the same excavations, affords an excellent example of
the more elaborate approach to a Norman shell keep. Here a thick curtain-
wall traversed the court of the castle, and crossing the ditch of the mound
was continued up its slope; just within the curtain was a drawbridge across
the ditch, beyond which a direct flight of steps led up to the keep. Here, as
at Wallingford, the well was on the slope of the mound, just within its ditch.
Usually the actual entrance to the keep was by a mere door in the wall, as at

Arundel, Lincoln, Tickhill, and Tamworth. At York is a regular gate-house,
a part of the shell, which was reached by a very steep bridge, crossing a
very formidable wet ditch.
It has been mentioned that these shell keeps, and the mounds on which
they stand, are usually upon, and form a part of the enceinte or line of the
outer defence of the castle, though isolated from it by their proper ditch, of
which the main ditch of the place is commonly a part. This is well shown in
the old plans of York Castle, and may be actually seen at Arundel, and many
other works both large and small, and in other mounted mounds, such as
Hên-Domen, near Montgomery, and Brinklow, which have never been
defended by masonry. It was, of course, necessary to carry the palisade, and
afterwards, if constructed, the curtain, across the ditch and up the slope of
the mound to the wall of the keep, and even where the mound was central,
as at Pickering and Cardiff, it was upon the division line of the two wards,
and, therefore, on the line of a curtain. At Berkhampstead the keep seems to
have been, not upon, but outside the line of defence, and to have formed a
sort of spurwork connected with the main curtain by a single but very thick
wall. Arundel, Durham, Lincoln, Tamworth, Tickhill, Tonbridge, Windsor,
and Wallingford, are, or were, good examples of shell keeps on the line of
the enceinte wall.
Besides any other approaches, it is evident that the curtain was always
made use of as one way to the keep, and at Arundel and Tamworth is still so
used, the parapet in front and rear protecting the rampart walk. As, however,
it was a fundamental rule in Norman castles that the keep, the final retreat,
however many its approaches, should have as few entrances as possible, the
curtain usually stopped at the top level of the mound, and was continued
only as a parapet, so that those who came along the wall had, on reaching
the keep, to pass along its outside a greater or less distance before they
reached the doorway. This is well seen at Tamworth. At Arundel the wall is
raised to the full height of the keep, as at Lincoln, but this is not usual. At
Hawarden the curtain is continued 10 feet or 12 feet high, and so abuts upon
the keep, but the rampart walk does not communicate with it.
The position of the well in these keeps has already been noticed. At York
and Tickhill it is within the area. That at Arundel is in a tower outside the
wall, but a part of it. That at Berkeley is also in a tower, a part of the wall.

Those of Alnwick and Kilpeck are in the wall itself; those of Cardiff and
Wallingford at the foot of the mound, just within the ditch.
It is much to be regretted that so few of these shell keeps remain, even in
ruin, and very few, indeed, in a state at all approaching to their original
condition, for, as the representatives of a very early form of fortification,
and as the chief seats of very ancient estates, and of original English
families, they possess a very peculiar interest. Nor are they, when of large
size, at all wanting in a noble effect. It is true that upon level ground, as that
occupied by the Tower of London, or upon such a ridge as Corfe, or such an
elevated platform as Hedingham, the rectangular keep produces a very fine
effect, but there are positions in which this is fully equalled by the keeps of
the other type. At Durham, where the central tower of the cathedral is equal
in grandeur and simplicity to a rectangular keep, it is eclipsed by the
adjacent castle. The keep of Belvoir, which, though rebuilt and weak in its
details, retains its original outline, would be ill exchanged for the towers
even of Norham or Lancaster, and no other structure could be substituted to
advantage for the keep of Windsor, crowning and completing its “tiara of
proud towers.” Massive as is the rectangular keep, simple,
uncompromising, and warlike its features, still, even when seen to its
greatest advantage, as on the promontory of Dover or the bold impregnable
rock of Bamburgh, it must be confessed to be inferior in grandeur and in
completeness of outline to the stern round tower of other days, identified as
it is with the early residences of the adventurous Northmen who laid the
foundations of the English people.

LIST (APPROXIMATIVE) OF SHELL KEEPS, PAST OR PRESENT.

Bedfordshire.—Bedford, Clophill, Ridgemount (?), Toddington.
Berks.—Reading (?), Wallingford, Windsor, Yieldon (?).
Buckinghamshire.—Buckingham.
Cambridgeshire.—Burwell (?), Cambridge, Ely.
Cheshire.—Dunham-Massey, Kinderton (?), Malpas (?), Mold (?).
Cornwall.—Launceston, Restormel, Trematon, Truro (?).
Derbyshire.—Sheffield (?).
Devon.—Barnstaple, Barnton, Plympton, Tiverton (?), Totnes.
Dorset.—Dorchester (?), Shaftesbury (?), Wareham.
Durham.—Durham, Elswick (?), Throston, (?), Tunstal (?), The Yoden (?).
Essex.—Bures (?), Ongar, Plessy.
Gloucestershire.—Berkeley, Gloucester (?).
Hampshire.—Basing (?), Carisbrooke, Southampton, Winchester.
Herefordshire.—Erdesley, Ewyas Harold, Hereford, Kilpeck, Richard’s
Castle, Weobley, Wigmore.
Hertfordshire.—Ansty (?), Berkhampstead, Hertford, Stansted Mount
Fitchet, Stortford.
Huntingdonshire.—Huntingdon.
Kent.—Haydon Mount (?), Kenardington (?), Ledes, Newington (?),
Tunbridge, Tong (?).
Lancashire.—Gleaston (?), Halton, Penwortham, Robin Hood’s Butt (?).
Lincolnshire.—Bourne, Lincoln, Stamford.
Monmouth.—Abergavenny, Caerleon, Crickhowell.
Northamptonshire.—Fotheringay, Lilbourne (?), Rockingham.
Northumberland.—Alnwick.
Oxfordshire.—Oxford.
Rutland.—Belvoir.
Salop.—Oswestry, Pulverbatch (?), Quatford, Shrewsbury, Whitchurch,
Whittington.
Somerset.—Castle Carey, Dunster, Montacute, Stoke Courcy.
Staffordshire.—Chartley, Stafford (?), Tutbury.
Suffolk.—Clare, Eye, Haughley, Thetford.
Sussex.—Arundel, Chichester (?), Knapp, Lewes.
Warwick.—Beldesert, Tamworth, Warwick.
Wiltshire.—Castle Combe, The Devizes, Marlborough, Old Sarum.
Worcestershire.—Worcester.
Yorkshire.—Aughton (?), Pickering, Pontefract, Sandal, Skipsea, Tadcaster,

Yorkshire. Aughton (?), Pickering, Pontefract, Sandal, Skipsea, Tadcaster,
Tickhill, York.
North Wales.—Hawarden.
South Wales.—Brecknock, Builth, Cardiff, Coyty.

Thus, of 119 presumed sites of shell keeps, there are set down 31 the
evidence for which is imperfect, and 88 for the existence of which there is
good evidence, and of these about 40 actually remain in a more or less
perfect, or rather, imperfect, condition.

CHAPTER XI.
CASTLES OF THE EARLY ENGLISH PERIOD.

THE transition from the Norman to the Early English style, which in
ecclesiastical architecture constitutes a period of great interest, is by no
means, at least in England, so strongly marked in buildings of the military
type. The rectangular and circular or polygonal keeps, with their Norman
features, retained their hold upon English castle-builders through the reigns
of Stephen and that of Henry II., 1135–1189, or for a century and a quarter
from the Conquest, or even later. At Dover, the dog-tooth ornament and a
bead moulding, combined with very decidedly Norman features, mark the
Transition period, as do the ornamental details of the rectangular keep of
Helmsley, and the particulars of the shell-keeps of Tamworth and York. The
later keeps are known by the increased depth of the pilasters, which become
buttresses, as at Dover and Clun, and in the twelfth-century keep of
Chambois (Orne); sometimes by their improved and fine-jointed ashlar, as
at Hedingham; by a more frequent use of the stone of the district instead of
that brought from Caen; by the presence of ribs upon the groins of the hip-
vaulting of the galleries and mural chambers; by the use of nook-shafts at
the exterior angles, as at Scarborough and Castle-Rising; and by the greater
tendency to ornament about the rib bosses, door cases, window recesses,
and fireplaces; and by the more or less Early English character of such
ornamentation. The portcullis is perhaps less rare in the later keeps. There
was, however, little change in the internal arrangement so long as the
Norman outline was retained, and but little tendency, so far as the keep was
concerned, towards flanking defences. Passive strength is still relied upon.
Little is known of the castra adulterina, of which so many score were
constructed during the reign of Stephen, and destroyed by his successor.
They could scarcely be of the solidity of the Norman keeps, else their
demolition would have been a more difficult task. They were probably
either of timber, or mere walled enclosures of no great strength. Few, if any
of them, represented the chief seats of large estates, and being built for the
most part on new sites, the earthworks were inconsiderable, and where the

works above ground were destroyed there was little left to show where was
their site. Among the latest rectangular keeps should be mentioned the
tower at Penhow, Monmouthshire, the cradle of the house of Seymour; and
that of Fonmon, in Glamorgan, still inhabited. They are small, without
pilasters, and with scarcely any Norman features, and belong to the Early
English period, as, judging from its foundation laid open and from some
fragments dug up several years ago, did the castle of Sully, near Cardiff,
and probably that of Dunraven, in the same county, the remains of which
are built into a later house.
By degrees, as the Norman towers and shell-keeps fell out of fashion,
they were succeeded by towers of a cylindrical form, known as Donjons or
Juliets, and this change corresponds to the middle period of the Early
English style in ecclesiastical architecture. Scientifically, in a military point
of view, this was scarcely an advance, for the defenders of an isolated round
tower could not concentrate their fire, and could only protect the foot of the
wall by exposing themselves at its summit. On the other hand, with equal
material, the round tower was stronger, and more difficult to breach or to
bring down by a mine. Also, it admitted of being vaulted in every story, and
was thus more solid and less exposed than the rectangular keep to being set
on fire, either from within or by balls projected upon its conical roof.
Usually, however, in England, only the basement was vaulted, as at
Brunless. At Pembroke, the great round tower is vaulted at its summit, as
are some of the cylindrical towers in the enceinte; but it is possible that
these elevated vaults may be additions. At Coningsborough the basement
alone is vaulted, and the vault is entered by a ladder from an aperture in the
centre of the dome, under which is the well; the basement, as in Norman
and Early English towers generally, being used as a store-chamber, and
seldom, if ever, as a prison. In fact, in a single tower, whether rectangular or
cylindrical, intended by its passive strength to defy attacks and to wear out
the patience of a blockading force, an ample store of provisions was of the
first consequence, and to their storage all the spare space was necessarily
devoted. In those days, when the keep was the citadel, and not unfrequently
used as such, prisoners were not kept within its walls. Dungeons there were
none, save in a very few exceptional cases, and the basement or ground-
floor was invariably occupied as a magazine.

These donjons were usually entered at the first-floor level, either by an
exterior stone stair or by one of timber; or sometimes, as at Pembroke, by a
drawbridge, which dropped upon a detached pier, whence an inclined plane
or a flight of steps descended to the ground level. In their elevated entrance,
and in some other respects, these donjons recall the isolated towers erected
during the decline of the Roman Empire, of which a good example, but
square, remains at Autun. There are only two instances in England of the
application of a fore-building to cover the entrance of these towers, but
these—Chilham near Canterbury, and Orford in Suffolk—are late Norman,
not Early English. Dolbadarn, in North Wales, a rather later tower, but
cylindrical, has an exterior stair of stone, which, however, may be an
addition.
There were commonly three floors. The basement was for stores. The
central floor contained the principal apartment, usually with a fireplace, and
sometimes with mural chambers, one of which is almost always a
garderobe. The flues of the fireplaces and the shafts of the garderobes are
often vertical, and contained within the wall. The upper floor was either for
the soldiery or for a bedroom for the lord. The walls are ordinarily 10 feet to
12 feet thick, and there is often a well stair—as at Skenfrith, in
Monmouthshire—from the first floor, leading to the upper chamber and the
battlements. In some of the ruder towers—as in that by the church of
Aghadoe, near Killarney, the ascent from the first floor is by the narrow
steps projecting from the interior face of the wall into the chamber. In the
larger towers, as at Coucy, there is often a small chamber in the wall, over
the main entrance, for the working of a portcullis. Now and then the
staircase begins at the ground-level, ends at the first floor, and begins again
at the opposite side, as in the rectangular keeps. Thus no one could leave his
post on the battlements without the knowledge of the captain, who lived in
the main chamber.
Where the cylindrical tower formed the donjon or keep, it was commonly
placed within the area, as at Brunless and Skenfrith. At Coningsborough it
stands upon the outer wall; at Pembroke on the wall of the inner ward; but
in neither case is there any communication between the tower and the
rampart of the wall. At Coucy the tower stands on an inner wall, but is girt
about with a low concentric wall covering the foundations. At Launceston
the annular space thus created between the tower and the girdling wall was

roofed over, and there is something similar round the tower of Penrice in
Gower. At Tretower a round tower has been built within an older
rectangular keep, and the space between roofed over. In these cases the
outer wall was about half the height of the tower. At Lillebonne and Coucy
the tower has its proper ditch.
Coningsborough on the Don is the most complete English example of the
Early English or Transition Norman cylindrical keep. Pembroke, though
rather later, and of far inferior workmanship, is also, in its proportions and
dimensions, a very fine building. Launceston, Tretower, Penrice, Skenfrith,
Brunless, and Dolbadarn, are good examples, as are the Danes’ tower at
Waterford, and the small and rude, but very curious, tower at Aghadoe. At
Nenagh also is a very fine tower, apparently of the Early English type. The
round keep of Barnard Castle, though of nearly similar pattern, is of later
date. At Whitchurch, near Cardiff, are, or recently were, the foundations of
a detached round tower of considerable diameter, the base mouldings of
which showed it to be of Early English date. At Caldecot, a fine old Bohun
castle, admirably described by Mr. Octavius Morgan, is a round tower,
probably Early English, having a ditch of its own. This tower crowns a
small and evidently artificial mound. It is now a mural tower upon the line
of the outer wall, but it seems to have been cased, and the core is probably,
or possibly, the keep of an earlier castle.
Those English towers, though curious, are far inferior to those of the
same period remaining in France, whether keeps, such as Étampes, 1160,
the plan of which is a quatrefoil; or Roche-Guyon, where one-half of the
cylinder is absorbed in a triangular spur; or mural towers, as the King’s
Tower at Rouen, that at Carcassonne, and a specially fine one, lately
restored, at Pierrefonds. The keep at Nuremberg is also a good example.
The tower of the Louvre has long been destroyed, but its base was recently
laid open, and found to contain two shafts—those of a well and a sewer.
Probably the round towers, or keeps, are the oldest examples of the form,
but very soon afterwards they came into use in England and France as
mural towers, flanking and strengthening the enceinte wall. They were
especially used to cap an angle or to flank a gateway. There is an example
of a round tower capping an angle, of this date, in the Tower of London,
known as Bell Tower. Marten’s Tower at Chepstow is a good example of a
mural tower of the Early English period, having a fine oratory attached. Its

interior is a complete cylinder, but the exterior, or gorge wall, seen within
the court, is flat. At Rochester, the angle of the ward next the keep has a
circular tower, or rather a buttress tower, as it is not higher than the curtain.
In such positions their passive strength was a great advantage.
In the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth
centuries, much was done to introduce domestic comfort into castles.
Fireplaces, which in the Norman keeps were but recesses in the wall, often
with a mere lateral orifice for a smoke-vent, as at Colchester and Rochester,
are now adorned with hoods, often of stone, sometimes of wood and plaster,
and the flues are capacious and calculated to carry off the smoke. The stone
hoods are usually of excellent masonry, and, even when plain, of much
elegance of design, resting upon brackets, and these on clustered columns
flanking the hearth. The vent or flue is often capped by a chimney-shaft and
smoke lanthorn, such as may be seen at Grosmont and St. Briavels castles,
or in the remains of the priory at Abingdon. Where the hood was of wood or
plaster, with a shaft of the same, or where there was an opening or louvre in
the roof, all traces are, of course, gone, and thus is explained the absence of
fireplaces in rooms evidently intended for ladies and persons of rank.
In the Norman keeps boarded floors were a necessity, and very ill-jointed
and cold they no doubt were, but with the vault the floors were composed of
beaten lime and sand. Garderobes continued to be frequent, both in mural
chambers and on the battlements, and the shafts were usually vertical, and
descended within the wall, having an outlet at the foot of it. The hall chapel,
and other buildings, placed usually in the inner ward, were more ornate than
in the Norman period.
In addition to the flanking defence afforded by towers upon the line of
the enceinte wall, there was in general use a contrivance called a
“Brétasche.” This was a gallery of timber running round the walls outside
the battlements, and at their level, supported by struts resting upon corbels,
and covered in with a sloping roof. Sometimes, in large towers, there were
two tiers of these galleries, the upper projecting beyond the lower, and thus
affording a very formidable defence. As these galleries concealed the top of
the wall, this part was often left in a rude state, and now that the brétasche
is gone, such towers, as at Caerphilly, have a very unfinished appearance.
The brétasche was only put up when a siege was expected, and examples of
it are very rare indeed, although it is evident in numerous instances that it

was formerly in use. There remains a fragment of the actual brétasche over
the Soissons gate of Coucy; and at Ledes, over the outer gate, is the place of
its main beam. The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence shows by its
lines of corbels that it was intended to carry a brétasche, and a door is seen,
as at Norham, in the wall, which could only have opened upon a timber
gallery. Château-Gaillard, the work of Richard I., has what is not unlike a
brétasche, executed in stone.
The best example in England of the kind of tower which succeeded to the
rectangular and shell keep of the Norman period is the keep of
Coningsborough, which, though containing certain Norman ornaments and
details, belongs to the Transition period. It stands on the summit of a natural
hill, and forms a part of an earlier enceinte wall, which has been clumsily
broken to admit it. The tower, about 70 feet high, is cylindrical, about 50
feet diameter at the base, and 40 feet at the summit, but the cylinder is
supported exteriorly by six buttresses of great breadth and bold projection.
There is a basement domed over with a central hole above the well. The
only entrance is in the first floor, about 12 feet from the ground. The upper
floors and the roof were of timber. The staircases are in the wall, winding
with it. There are two garderobes, two fireplaces, no portcullis, and in the
upper part of one of the buttresses is an oratory. The roof was a cone, but
sprang from a ring wall, about 3 feet within the battlement wall and the
rampart walk. By this means the tower could be defended without a
brétasche, which would not have been the case had the roof rested on the
outer wall. A similar arrangement may be seen at Marten’s Tower at
Chepstow, and at Pembroke.
It is not, however, in England that the best examples of these Early
English or Transition keeps are to be found. In rectangular and shell keeps
England has some fine remains, but in France Philip Augustus carried the
new style of building much further, and even now there remain keep towers
of that time which have defied time and the madness of the Revolution, and
still remain tolerably perfect. The greatest triumph of the period, in this case
early in the thirteenth century, is the tower of Coucy, probably the finest
military tower in Europe. It is the keep of a castle which is itself the citadel
of a town, also strongly fortified. This wonderful work, a cylinder of fine
masonry about 98 feet in diameter, and rising clear and unbroken to 180
feet, was the work of Engerrand III., Sieur de Coucy, and the most powerful

Baron of his age. The walls are of great thickness, and the basement and
upper floors, three in number, were vaulted, each in twelve deep and
pointed cells. A fosse, paved and walled, 20 feet broad and 12 feet deep, the
counterscarp of which is raised as the wall of a chemise, surrounds the base,
and protects it from the operations of the miner. A drawbridge, crossing this
fosse, leads to the first floor of the tower by its only entrance, which is
protected by a portcullis, an interior meurtrière, and a stout door. From the
entrance passage a staircase ascends in the wall, at first direct, and
afterwards as a turnpike, and supplies each floor, reaching finally the
ramparts. The basement was the store, and above are state and other
chambers. The well, of large size, is in the basement, and each floor has its
fireplace and garderobe. The roof was conical, and rested upon an internal
wall, outside of which was the rampart walk, protected by an unusually
lofty parapet, surmounted by a heavy bold coping, and pierced by twenty-
four doorways, intended to open into the timber brétasche, while between
the doorways are twenty-four loops, intended to be used when the brétasche
was not fixed. A curious evidence remains of the manner in which this
tower was scaffolded. A double row of putlog holes are seen to wind round
the tower spirally, in two parallel lines, showing that as the wall rose it was
surrounded by a sloping roadway of timber, of which the main beams were
thrust into the wall, and supported by struts, the lower ends of which rested
upon blocks in the lower holes. A similar arrangement may be seen in the
north-west tower of Harlech Castle, commencing at the top of the curtain-
wall. So strong was Coucy keep that when, at the command of Mazarin,
powder was exploded in its basement-chamber, and the vaultings
throughout, thus lifted, fell, the cylinder, though cracked, was not thrown
down. This noble example of a thirteenth-century tower has been
successfully repaired by Viollet-le-Duc, who closed the fissure, and made
the tower apparently as sound as ever. The vaulting, however, is gone.
Nor does Coucy, though the chief of the towers of the thirteenth century,
stand alone in its magnificence. Issoudun, known as La Blanche Tour, is
remarkable for the position of its entrance-door, and for its well-stair
contained in the projecting spur; Tournebut, Cosson, Verneuil, Chinon,
Villeneuve-le-Roi, Semur, Alluye, Bourbon-l’Archambault, and
Châteaudun, are a few only of the round towers or donjons scattered over
France, and dating from the latter half of the twelfth and from the thirteenth
century.

There is a peculiarity in these French towers unknown in England.
Where, as at Château-Gaillard, they are exposed on one side to be battered,
they are constructed with a projection forming a right-angled salient from
the cylinder, which thus becomes keel or boat-shaped in plain. This spur has
a fine effect, and being usually solid, adds much to the strength of the
tower. This projection, of which Roche-Guyon is a fine example, and which
ascends the whole height of the tower, is very different from the spur-
buttress, by which a round tower rises from a square base. This is especially
common in Wales, and may be seen producing a good effect both at
Chepstow and Goderich.
Of cylindrical keeps, either of early English or late Norman date, in
England, may be mentioned Brunless, near Brecon; probably Caldecot,
Monmouthshire; Coningsborough, described above; Dolbadarn, in North
Wales; Launceston; Pembroke; Penrice, Glamorganshire; Skenfrith,
Monmouthshire; and Tretower, county Brecon. The round tower at Barnard
Castle, a very fine one, already mentioned, is later.
The reign of Henry III., 1216–1272, was long, and that prince was a
munificent patron of art, and especially of architecture; nevertheless, and
notwithstanding the internal dissensions of the period, the reign produced
(excepting perhaps in South Wales) but few original castles, and those not
remarkable for grandeur. The cause of this was that the country was already
rather over-furnished with castles, so active had the Norman lords been
during a century and a-half, and the positions of the existing castles being
well chosen, and their keeps of a substantial character, it was found better to
add to them, when space was needed, rather than construct new ones in new
positions. The itinerary of John shows that almost all the great castles of the
country were even then built, and the use to which they were so frequently
put may well have made the successors of that sovereign anxious rather to
destroy than to build. Thus Bedford, a very early and very strong castle, was
held by Fulke de Bréauté against the king in person, and was only taken by
assault after a vigorous siege of two months, after which it was not only
dismantled, but destroyed, its ditches filled up, and the materials of its walls
and towers used for other constructions. Sometimes, however, where it was
desirable, as in London or at Porchester, or Winchester, or Richmond, to
retain the existing castle, either enceinte walls or more extended outworks
were added, affording more accommodation for troops or for live stock for

the garrison. Palisades gave place to walls, and mural towers and
gatehouses, of large size and great strength, were added. Sometimes, as at
the Tower of London, an outer ward, encircling the older building, was
added; in other cases, as at Corfe, Chepstow, and Barnard Castle, the new
ward was applied on one side, or at one end. In these augmented castles the
keep was still treated as an interior citadel, a last resource or refuge, and
was protected by one or two lines of wall, with mural towers, usually round
or half round, and by gatehouses, composed of two round towers with the
entrance between them, the new area within being proportioned to the
importance of the place.
These composite structures are the earliest to which the term concentric
is properly applicable. Where the keep is central, and the enceinte double,
as at the Tower and Dover, the result is a very perfect example of the
concentric type of castle, though of course the parts are of different dates.
Of Kenilworth, and probably of Bridgnorth, the original arrangement was
concentric, although the central part is a ward or walled enclosure, not a
single isolated keep tower, which in these is worked into the line of the
inner ward wall. As the outline of most castles was materially affected by
the disposition of the ground, it is obvious that no classification as regards
chronology can be based altogether upon the ground plan. At Alnwick, for
example, the outline of which is probably Norman, and to some extent
governed by the ground, the keep stands between two wards, and is the
connecting part between them, and so at Chepstow and at Pickering; while
at Richmond, also Norman, the arrangement is wholly different, as it is at
Porchester, where Roman walls have been turned to account.
South Wales contains some castles which appear to have been altogether
built, though possibly on old sites, in the reign of Henry III., as Cilgerran,
Manorbeer, Grosmont, and Whitecastle. These, especially Whitecastle, are
mere enclosures of irregular plan, within a strong curtain wall, supported by
mural towers almost always round, and entered between two such towers as
a gatehouse. The domestic buildings or lodgings, as the hall, sleeping-
rooms, kitchen, offices, and stables, which in a regular English castle were
of masonry, in these Border structures, such as Whitchurch, were partly of
timber, with flat or moderately-sloping roofs, built against the walls of the
area.

In the royal castles, and others the “capita” of estates and seats of the
greater barons, great attention was paid to domestic comfort and splendour.
The records of the reign contain many sheriffs’ accounts for additions or
repairs for domestic buildings within the castles, for painting the walls in
fresco, or filling the windows with stained glass, all showing a vast growth
in taste and luxury. More attention, indeed, was paid to these matters than to
the military defences, for the pure castles in time of peace were allowed to
fall into disrepair, and scarcely any garrisons were kept up within them.
When a rebellion broke out, and the castles of a district were threatened, the
patent and close rolls are filled with orders to the sheriffs, constables, and
castellans, to supply timber, nails, lead, cordage, barrels of arrow-heads and
cross-bow bolts, calthrops, bow-staves, and now and then military engines,
which were collected from all quarters. All, however, was done hastily, and
any masonry work erected under such circumstances is generally found to
be of inferior quality, and in marked contrast to the masonry of churches
and ecclesiastical buildings of the same period.
In the reign of Henry also began to be constructed fortified dwelling-
houses, embattled and usually moated, but not regular castles. The invasion
of the prerogative, under Stephen, led to its enforcement with strictness in
the subsequent reigns, but as there were few new castles, it was chiefly in
favour of fortified houses that the licentia kernellare was applied for and
granted. The earliest extant licence of this character dates from this reign,
and about a score altogether appear to have been issued by Henry. Of these,
six only were applied for by considerable barons, and in only two cases for
castles of consequence, namely, Dudley and Belvoir.

CHAPTER XII.
OF THE EDWARDIAN OR CONCENTRIC CASTLES.

EVERY castle, if more than a solitary tower or peel, and having more than a
single line of defence, has more or less of a concentric character, but in
most, even of the largest of the earlier castles, the secondary defences were
of small extent and confined to works for the protection of the entrance, as
at Richmond and Coningsborough, and such cannot, with any propriety, be
called in a general sense concentric. At Richmond, for example, the original
castle was an enclosure within a fortified wall of which the keep formed a
part, a small barbican covering the entrance, and so of the purely Norman
part of Corfe, of Coningsborough, of Brough, of Bridgnorth, and probably
of the original Tower of London. None of these were originally concentric,
nor can the term be correctly applied to the original castles of the early part
of the reign of Henry III., nor even to some of those built by his son. White
Castle, Grosmount, Cilgerran, and even Caernarvon and Conway, are mere
enclosures, strengthened and fortified by mural towers and gatehouses upon
a single line of wall. Salisbury was concentric by necessity, the earthworks
leaving the builders no choice in the matter. The concentric arrangement has
been supposed to have been introduced by Prince Edward from Syria. That
so able a soldier, and so shrewd an observer, added to his knowledge of the
military art by what he saw in Palestine is probable enough, but the system
of defence for which his reign became celebrated was in truth introduced
into England before the death of Henry and before Edward returned from
the East. Caerphilly, one of the most complete examples of the concentric
lines of defence, was constructed just before Henry’s death, and was the
work, not of the sovereign but of a subject. Nevertheless, so great was
Edward’s fame, that the system which, though he did not invent, he
adopted, has been designated by his name, and the term Edwardian has
been applied to that style of fortress, that took the place both of the round
tower and of the walled enclosure, and carried forward the art of
fortification from the Early English to the Decorated period of English
architecture.

Edward’s policy, on his return from the East, and accession to the throne,
led him not to build, but to pull down castles. In the fourth year of his reign
it was enacted: “It is to be enquired of castelles, and also of other buyldings
girt with dytches, that the walls, tymber, stone, lead, and other manner of
coverynges are worth, and how they may be solde, after the very value of
the same walles and buyldinges. And how moche the buyldinges without
the dych may be sold for, and what they may be worth, with the gardens,
custylages, dove house, and all other issues of the court by the yere.”
Probably this mainly related to such unlicensed castles as had escaped the
hands of Henry, as none of the older or more important structures were then
pulled down. Many of these, indeed, had recently been augmented and
embellished, and where it suited his convenience, Edward followed in the
same track, strengthening and repairing decayed walls and towers, and
adapting them to the changed circumstances of the time. Thus, at
Porchester, he rebuilt the inner ward, and much enlarged the contained
buildings. The additions to Middleham, an outer ward and gatehouse, are of
his reign, and the vast outworks beyond the lake at Kenilworth, and the
effect of these and similar alterations was to convert the original castles into
those of the concentric type.
But it was in North Wales that circumstances called forth Edward’s talent
as a military engineer. In that country the strong places were hill camps,
unfitted for modern warfare, and out of the line of his operations. He found
there neither English mounds nor Norman keeps, and his works are not only
on a grand scale, but they are original. To him are entirely due the castles of
Conway and Caernarvon, Beaumaris and Harlech. Possibly Bere Castle and
Dolbadarn Tower were strengthened by him, but they rather resemble the
early works of his father. In Scotland Edward’s works have been mostly
destroyed, but his hand may be recognised at Linlithgow, possibly in the
castle at Edinburgh, and in the old fortifications of Berwick.
The first characteristic of a concentric castle is the arrangement of its
lines of defence, one within the other, two or even three deep, with towers
at the angles and along the walls, so planned that no part is left entirely to
its own defences. A wall cannot be advantageously defended unless so
arranged that the exterior base of one part can be seen and commanded
from the summit of another. A Norman keep or an Early English round
tower could only be defended by the projection of missiles from the

battlements, exposing those who discharged almost as much as those who
received them. The employment of mural towers not only added to the
passive strength of the wall whence they projected, but when placed within
a bowshot distance enabled the defenders, themselves protected, to enfilade
the intermediate curtain. By this means the curtain wall, that part of the
work least able to withstand the strokes of the ram, became that in defence
of which most projectiles could be brought to bear, whilst the towers, which
from their distance apart were but imperfectly flanked, were from their
form and solidity in little danger of being breached. By this means also
material was economised. The walls were less thick, and the defence
generally was carried on with more skill and less dependence upon passive
strength. In this indeed there was nothing new, but not the less the principle
was ignored in the construction both of keep-towers and their successors,
the round towers, donjons, or juliets. But in the concentric system a good
deal more than this was effected. The parts of the lines of defence were so
arranged that the garrison could sally from one part, and so harass the attack
upon another. Moreover each part, tower or gatehouse, and sometimes each
stage of a building, was so contrived that it could be held separately for a
short time. Also, from the concentric arrangement of the lines, a breach of
the outer wall did not involve the loss of the place. The second ward, as at
Beaumaris, Harlech, Caerphilly, or the Tower, was so narrow that in the
event of its being entered from a breach, the assailants were exposed to an
attack on either flank, in such a manner that their greater number could not
be brought to bear, nor was there room to work a catapult or set up a
malvoisin. In these castles, the keep, the main feature in a Norman or an
Early English fortress, was dispensed with; it was developed, to speak
anatomically, into an open court, strengthened at its sides and angles by
gatehouses and mural towers, and having the hall and domestic apartments
ranged against the wall along one or two sides. Around this inner ward was
disposed a second ward, of narrow breadth, and broken up by cross walls.
Sometimes around this second ward was disposed a third or outer ward,
usually of large area, so as to accommodate the greater part of the garrison,
the horses, and the neighbouring peasants with their cattle. In many castles
this outer ward contained a ditch, or even a large sheet of water, as at Ledes,
Caerphilly, and Kenilworth, formed by damming back a local streamlet. In
such cases the defence of the dam became a matter of prime consequence,
and was specially provided for by stout walls along its length, and towers or

gatehouses at either end. In these castles every part is intended for everyday
use. No part is set apart only to be inhabited during a siege. The hall,
chapel, and kitchen were habitually used, and constructed on a fitting scale.
As Caerphilly is both the earliest and the most complete example in
Britain of a concentric castle, it will be convenient briefly to point out its
principal features. The position was selected to close a pass by which the
Welsh were wont to issue from the hill country of Glamorgan into
Monmouthshire, the way by the sea coast being barred by Cardiff and the
castles of the vale. The spot selected lay between the Taff and the Rhymny,
upon a gravel bank rising in a low marshy bottom, having mountainous, or
at least very high ground to its north, south, and west. The central part of
the bank was occupied by a rectangular enclosure, 70 yards by 53 yards,
having at each angle a lofty drum tower, and in the centre of each end a
broad and lofty gatehouse. On one side of this inner ward was the hall, 72
feet long by 33 feet wide, placed between the chapel and the private
apartments, while the gatehouses also contained apartments second only to
the hall in magnitude. This inner ward stood within a second and rather
larger area, also rectangular, and 106 yards by 90 yards. This middle ward
was provided with smaller gatehouses connected with those within, and was
contained within a revetment and parapetted wall which descended 20 feet
all round into water. Four parapetted bastions, corresponding to the interior
towers, capped the four angles, and the side next the hall contained the
kitchen and offices, and a water-gate opening from the hall by a broad
passage with space for the stowage of boats.
The water by which these two wards were encompassed was on one side
a deep and broad lake covering about 16 acres, and on the other side a
smaller sheet of water of about 3½ acres. These two waters were connected
by cross cuts at each end, traversed, opposite the gatehouses, by
drawbridges. One of these dropped upon a tête du pont, a sort of hornwork
or ravelin of earth, about an acre and a-half in area, and enclosed within a
revetment wall duly parapetted, and probably with a stout palisade on the
raised ground within. A branch from the lake encircled this work, and a
second drawbridge connected it with the ground outside. At the opposite
end of the castle another bridge dropped from the middle ward upon the
outer ward, a very remarkable work. This was a raised platform nearly 330
yards long by from 14 yards to 36 yards in depth, covering the whole front

of the castle, including the two sheets of water. The platform was divided
near its centre by a lofty wall embattled on each face, and having a ditch
along one of them. On this wall was a strong gatehouse having below a
portcullised doorway, with a drawbridge connecting the two parts of the
platform, and above, a smaller doorway, also protected by a bridge and
portcullis, and guarding the way to the battlements of the outer wall. At one
end of the platform was a postern connected with the stables, and at the
other a cluster of towers on the outer bank of the lake, containing another
postern. In the centre was the great exterior gatehouse, from the gateway of
which a bridge dropped upon an enormous pier standing in the middle of
the outer ditch, from the exterior face of which a second bridge dropped
upon the village street. On the platform was a large corn-mill, and
connected with it the dam and sluice by which the waters of the lake were
retained and regulated, and which was very strongly fortified. Thus there
were two great gates and two posterns at points of the castle distinct from
each other, whence large bodies of cavalry could issue, so that the camp of
a besieging force could be attacked from four directions, and, in case of
failure, the castle could be reached by four entrances, besides two water-
gates. In addition to these strategical arrangements, each tower and
gatehouse had a portcullised entrance on the ground floor, and in the upper
stories the lateral doorways opening on the battlements of the curtains were
protected in a similar manner.
In a military point of view, Caerphilly is a work of consummate skill.
Unfortunately for its historic fame, the settlement of Wales followed so
closely upon its erection that it never attained to any great importance.
Harlech is a concentric castle, probably designed by the architect of
Caerphilly. Here also is an inner rectangular ward, with drum towers at the
angles and the hall, and other buildings on two sides. This stands within an
outer ward, also rectangular, with parapetted walls and bastions. The inner
ward has a large single gatehouse, connected with a second and smaller one
in the outer ward, from which a drawbridge spanned a deep and broad ditch
quarried in the rock. Harlech stands well, and occupies a bold headland of
rock which formerly rose out of the sea, from which it is now separated by
a broad tract of low land. Its great peculiarity is a covered staircase cut in
the rock, defended seaward by a looped parapet, and closed above and

below by small gatehouses. This was the water-gate of the fortress, and
opened upon a small quay now occupied by the railway.
Beaumaris, another of Edward’s castles, deserves special attention from
the fact that it stands upon open ground, and its plan is therefore unaffected
by any peculiarities of level. It is composed of two wards; the inner
rectangular, 58 yards by 66 yards, with high curtain walls, drum towers at
the four angles, a gatehouse in the centre of each end and half-round towers
in the centre of each side, of which one is the chapel. The apartments were
in the gatehouses, and the hall was on the first floor, above the portal. The
curtains are remarkable. They are 16 feet thick, but are pierced
longitudinally below the ground level by a series of sewers, and above by a
mural gallery, the rampart walk being above all. The outer ward is an
irregular octagon, the opposite sides being equal. It is strengthened by
twelve drum towers. The space between the two walls, forming the ward, is
narrow—from 40 to 50 feet broad. At one end is a gatehouse, protected by a
double traverse raking the passage, and at the other is a postern, part of a
gatehouse, either unfinished or pulled down. From one end towards the sea
shore projects a wall 5 yards broad and about 33 yards long, containing a
passage looped each way and traversed by a gateway. This is a spurwork,
and was connected with the quay, and ended in a round tower. There was
but one ditch, which girdled the whole, and was fed from the adjacent sea.
It is now filled up.
The additions to the Tower of London, by which its Norman keep and
Early English inner ward were converted into a regular concentric castle,
are skilfully managed. Here the second ward, as usual, is very narrow, and a
broad and deep ditch girdles the whole. One limb of the ditch is, however,
represented by the Thames, but between it and the outer wall is a strip of
land serving as a quay for the landing of stores, of which the rear is strongly
fortified. At each end was a sluice for regulating the water of the ditch, and
in the centre a grand and strongly fortified water-tower, with a portcullised
canal from the river, known as Traitors’ Gate. The annexed plan of the
Tower represents very fairly a composite but concentric castle.
When the size of the fortress did not require more than one ward, as at
Pennard in Gower, or where the ground was unsuitable, as at Conway and
Chepstow, the concentric arrangement was laid aside. At Chepstow the
Norman keep stands upon a steep ridge of rock, occupying its whole

breadth. The additions, therefore, were necessarily at each end, so that the
whole castle, constructed at various times, is an oblong, composed of five
wards opening one from the other, with the keep in the centre. Its plan is, as
it were, a slice cut right across a concentric castle.
In an Edwardian castle the principal feature was the hall, spacious, well
lighted, usually with a handsome fireplace and an open timber roof. At
Beaumaris it occupies the first floor of a gatehouse; at Ludlow, Durham,
Pembroke, and Conway it is built against the curtain. The domestic
apartments opened from the dais end of the hall. The accounts of Henry III.
often record works in the halls of castles. 28 Henry III. a great louvre was
ordered for the hall at Woodstock, and a new hall 60 feet by 40 feet at
Ludgershall, with offices and two kitchens for the king and his household at
one end of it. At Chepstow Henry ordered a hall and kitchen to be
constructed of timber.

The kitchen was a very important part of an Edwardian castle. The
Norman cookery was probably very simple, and few of their keeps have any

discoverable kitchen. The later kitchen was often a great feature in the
castle. At Caerphilly, as at Cockermouth, it occupies a large tower. At
Ludlow it stood out alone in the court-yard. At Kenilworth its remains are
considerable. The oven was often of large size. That at Morlais was 12 feet
diameter.
The chapel is also an essential part of an Edwardian castle. Many of the
Norman keeps contain mural oratories. In Newcastle, Dover, and
Middleham there were regular chapels within the forebuilding. At Guildford
the oratory is an ∟-shaped mural cell. At Caerphilly the chapel opened
from the lower end of the hall. At Kenilworth foundations of a large chapel,
of Decorated date, have been laid open in the outer ward. At Goderich the
chapel is connected with the gatehouse, and at Prudhoe. At Beaumaris,
Kidwelly, and Oxwich it occupied a mural tower. At Chepstow the chapel
was on a large scale, and in the outer ward. There is also, in Martens tower,
a charming Early English oratory. In royal castles, in the reign of Henry III.,
the chapel often appears in the accounts. In one castle Henry orders a
chapel to be constructed 25 feet long, and the head of the oriel was to be in
the king’s chamber. At Kennington Castle, the chapel was to be wainscotted
and provided with a staircase of plaster 30 feet long and 12 feet wide. Its
upper part communicated with the queen’s private chapel, and the
household sat below. At Winchester the chapel opened into the queen’s
chamber, and at Woodstock was a passage between the two, so that the
queen could go and return dryshod. Twelve mats for the worshippers were
ordered in St. Thomas’ Chapel in Winchester Castle. Many of the larger
castles contained regularly endowed chapels, sometimes, as at Windsor,
even collegiate. Pontefract and Hastings were so provided. This was also
the practice in Scotland. Dalkeith Castle had a chapel endowed in 1377, and
to Lord Moray’s chapel, in Bucharm Castle, were attached certain tithes
early in the thirteenth century. At Dunster and elsewhere was a provision
that the officiating monks, who came from an adjacent priory, should during
a siege perform their services at home.
An Edwardian gatehouse is a very imposing structure. It was usually
rectangular in plan, always flanked in front by two drum towers, and
sometimes in the rear by two others containing well-staircases. In its centre
was the portal arch opening into a long straight passage traversing the
building. Three loops in each flanking tower commanded the bridge of

approach, raked the lateral curtain, and covered a point immediately outside
the gate. Above the portal was usually a small window, and above that, at
the summit, a machicolation set out on corbels, or in its place a sort of
bridge, thrown across from tower to tower a couple of feet in advance of the
wall, so that a chase or slot was left, down which stones or even beams
could be let fall upon those who might be assailing the gate below. Such an
arrangement is seen at Neath, Leybourne, and Pembroke, and is not
uncommon. Over the town gate at Coucy and at the barbican gate at Ledes
the projection was of timber, and part of it remains.
The portal arch, wide enough to admit a wain, or three men-at-arms
abreast, was usually of the form known as “drop.” Within, the first defence
was a herse or portcullis, and behind it a door of two leaves, opening
inwards, and, when closed, held by one or two stout bars of oak, which
could be pushed back into cavities in the wall. Behind the door the vaulting
was often replaced by a flat roof of timber, through which worked a second
portcullis, and then came two lateral doorways opening into porters’ lodges,
usually connected with a small prison. At St. Briavels the lodge doors are
portcullised. At the end of the boarded space the vault recommenced, and
there was a second pair of doors and a second portcullis. These two were
intended against assaults from within, each gatehouse being constructed for
an independent defence.
Usually, in addition to these gates and doors, the vault was pierced with
from one to five square or round holes, about a foot across, called
“meurtrières.” These might serve to hold posts to check the entrance of a
body of men, or for thrusting pikes down upon them. They have also been
supposed to be intended to allow water to be poured down, supposing the
passage filled with bushes set on fire, though it is difficult to see how any
quantity of water could be obtained, any more than melted lead or pitch,
which are spoken of. The first floor of the larger gatehouses contained a
handsome chamber with lateral doors leading to the ramparts of the curtain,
and sometimes, as at Caerphilly and the Tower, to an oratory. The
portcullises were worked through the floor, and their tackle must have given
an air of warlike reality to the room, like the guns in a state-cabin at sea. At
Caerphilly and Chepstow the passage to the curtains is protected by a
portcullis and a drawbridge, of which the pit is a deep hollow in the wall.

The walls of these Edwardian castles varied from 25 to 40 feet in height
and were from 6 to 8 feet thick, or even more, to allow of mural galleries, as
at Chepstow, Caerphilly, and Beaumaris. Upon their top was a path called
the “allure,” or rampart walk, protected in front by an embattled parapet,
and in the rear by lower and lighter walls. Frequently there was a loop in
each merlon, and each embrasure was fitted with a hanging shutter, both of
which are seen at Chepstow. Where the curtain crosses a ward or projects as
a spur, as at Caerphilly and Beaumaris, it was embattled on both faces. The
ramparts were usually reached from the adjacent mural towers, but
sometimes, as at Warwick, by an open staircase of stone. Occasionally,
where a wall is too slight to allow of a rampart wall, it was, in time of war,
provided with a platform of wood, like a builder’s scaffold. This seems to
have been the case with the city wall of York where it bounds the cathedral
garden.
Mural towers vary much in form and size, but are more usually round, or
half-round, or half-round with prolonged sides, than square. Now and then
they are polygonal, as at Stokesay, Warwick, Cardiff, and the Bishop’s
Gatehouse at Llandaff. Stokesay is of the thirteenth century, but usually
these towers are later. Mural towers have seldom much internal projection.
In Roman works they are usually solid, but in later castles they are
sometimes open in the rear or gorge to prevent their being held when taken
by the assailants. The towers of Cologne and Avignon are so open, and at
the Tower the Byward and Traitors’ Gate towers are closed only with a
wooden brattice. The annexed drawing shows the back view of Traitors’
Gate, with the large arch over the water and the timber-work above it.
Where there was an outer ward and a second wall, this was considerably
lower than the inner wall, and commanded from it; and the mural towers
often became mere bastions, not rising above the curtains. The second ward,
besides being too narrow to allow of troops being massed or machines
posted for the attack on the inner wall, was traversed by cross walls with
gates, so as to isolate any body of assailants who had breached the outer
wall. Such cross walls may be seen at Caerphilly and at the Tower.
The barbican was sometimes a mere walled space attached in front of the
gateway, as at Carlisle, Alnwick, Richmond, or the Bars at York. Sometimes
it was a tête du pont, detached from the main work, and posted at the end of
the bridge, upon the counterscarp of the ditch, as at Hawarden, Ledes, and

Goderich. At Scarborough it is placed at the outer end of the long raised
causeway, which, again, is broken by two drawbridges falling from a low
central tower. At Helmsley, as at Caerphilly, the barbican partakes of the
character of a horn-work. The Tower barbican, called the Spurgate, is a
regular low gatehouse, with flanking drum towers or bastions covering the
head of the bridge, and itself protected by a loop from the main ditch. At
Bridgenorth the barbican contained a kitchen, ordered to be repaired, 17
Hen. III. At Canterbury the barbican, temp. Ed. II., was used as a prison.

Spelman defines a barbican or “ante-murale” as “munimen a fronte castri
aliter ante murale dictum; etiam foramen in urbium castrorumque mœniis
ad trajicienda missilia.”
A palisaded embrasure in front of the barbican was known as the
“barriers.” They are well represented at the Tower by the stockade covering
the entrance.
The drawbridge was an important feature in the defence of a castle. In its
most simple form it was a platform of timber turning upon two gudgeons or
trunnions at the inner end; when up, it concealed the portal, and when
down, dropped upon a pier in the ditch or upon the counterscarp. Its span

varied from 8 to 12 feet. The contrivances for working it were various.
Sometimes chains attached to its outer end passed through holes above the
portal, and were worked within by hand or by a counterpoise. Occasionally
there was a frame above the bridge, also on trunnions. In the larger castles
the arrangements were very elaborate. Sometimes the bridge was the only
connexion between the gateway and the opposite pier; at others the parapets
or face walls rested on a fixed arch, and the bridge dropped between them.
A fine example of this kind of bridge is seen at the Constable’s Gate, Dover
Castle. At Goderich the details are tolerably perfect. The ditch was crossed
by a stone bridge, apparently of two arches, but only the outer one is
permanent. The roadway of the inner one was a drawbridge. At Caerphilly,
in the ditch in front of the main gate, is a large stone pier from which a
bridge fell each way. Probably it carried a tower of timber. In Henry III.’s
accounts is mention of a brétasche on the bridge of the great tower at
Winchester, and of another, covered with lead, upon the new bridge.
The portcullis, the “altera securitas” of the badge of the House of
Somerset, always present in the castles of Henry and Edward, was an
important part of the defence. It was a strong grating, in the smaller
gateways of iron, in the larger of oak, strengthened and shod with iron
spikes, and suspended in grooves by two cords or chains, which passed over
two sheaves, or sometimes through a single central block, and either were
attached to counterpoises or worked, as at the Tower and York gates, by a
winch. The grooves are generally half-round, with slightly prolonged sides,
4 to 6 inches broad by from 4 to 7 inches deep. Above, in the vault, is a
chase through which the grate is worked. Sometimes the portcullis chamber
is a small cell in the wall, as at Rochester keep and Coucy, but in large
gateways where there are two or three grates, they are worked in the
chamber above. At Linlithgow and Thornton Abbey, where the grate is
single, it is carried up within the wall and worked in the second story.
Sometimes the grate had no lateral grooves, and must have either hung
loose or been steadied by its spikes resting on the ground below. This is
seen at St. Briavels and at the upper gate of Chepstow, though never with an
outer portcullis. Sometimes grooves are cut for a spare grate, but do not
appear to have been armed.
Nothing is more remarkable than the provisions for cleanliness in
military buildings. At Ludlow, Langley, and Caerphilly Castles are large

mural towers appropriated to garderobes. At Goderich they occupy a broad
buttress. At Beaumaris the sewers are of very large size, and run within the
main curtain like galleries. Such sewers are often supposed to be secret
passages, though the garderobes above, and the character of the outlets
below, should correct this notion. At Coyty the filth was collected in an
enormous vaulted chamber. The ramparts of the curtains are also usually
provided with garderobes.
Subterranean chambers were not more frequent in England in the
thirteenth and fourteenth than in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and if
we have nothing like the magnificent tiers of vaulting in the tower of
Coucy, neither have we anything like the wretched cells and oubliettes
found in German castles, and of which those of Baden-Baden are examples.
The basement chambers of mural towers are, indeed, often below the level
of the court-yard, but they are above that of the ditch outside. At Castel
Coch, near Cardiff, is about the worst dungeon in Britain, but even this is
not underground.
The posterns in these castles are often very elaborate. There is a very fine
one at Windsor, opening in the castle ditch, and intended for the passage of
cavalry. This is probably of the age of Henry III. At Caerphilly are two with
regular gatehouses and drawbridges. Sometimes the postern is a small door
with a grate. That at Goderich was worked in the floor above, so that it
required two men in two several places to open or close the postern. At
Caerphilly are two water-posterns; one out of which a boat could be
lowered into the lake, the other at the water-level, as at Ledes and
Tonbridge. Harlech water-gate has been mentioned.
The castles both of Henry and Edward combine the palace with the
fortress, but the domestic are always subordinate to the military
arrangements. Whether absolutely original, as Caerphilly or Beaumaris, or
completions of older works, as Corfe, Dover, and the Tower, they usually
present a grand appearance, and the masonry is generally excellent.
Very many of our principal towns were walled in during the reigns of
Henry and Edward; some—as York, Leicester, Colchester, and Chester—
took advantage of the Roman wall. Northampton was walled before 1278.
At Winchester the wall was founded upon an early earth-bank. The only
licences granted for town walls appear to have been to the men of Harwich

and Ipswich, 26 Ed. III.; the Mayor and prud-hommes (probi homines) of
Coventry, 37 and 38 Ed. III.; of Salisbury, 46 Ed. III.; and of Winchelsea, 3
Hy.; the defences of Hereford, a very exposed place, seem to have been
formed of briars and thorns, placed upon very formidable banks of earth. It
sometimes happened that the gatehouses were of masonry, while the rest of
the defences were banks of earth stockaded.
The fourteenth century was prolific in castles, chiefly of the smaller
class, upon the Scottish border and in Scotland. In England Dacre,
Dunstanborough, and Spofforth were built early in that century; the Palace
Castle of St. David’s was built in 1342, Caesar’s Tower at Warwick about
1360, and Guy’s Tower in 1394, two magnificent works. Gradually,
however, pure castles fell into disuse, and such structures as Bolton and
Wressill and Sheriff-Hutton took their place, affecting generally the form of
a square court, round which the buildings were ranged, and which was
entered by a regular gatehouse. In these, however, the castellate character
was employed more from custom than from necessity, and the external
windows are large, and the walls of very moderate thickness. Many of the
royal castles were left to decay, and others were employed as prisons and
handed over to the counties. A short Act of the 13 R. II. orders “that the
King’s castles and gaols should be joined to the bodies of the counties, and,
where severed, should be reunited.”
Castle-building was from a very early time considered as a royal
prerogative, though in the reigns immediately succeeding the Conquest, it
was so great an object to hold the country, that the claim seems to have
been allowed to slumber. The wholesale destruction of the adulterine or
unlicensed castles which followed upon the death of Stephen showed the
revival of the prerogative, and, in the reign of Henry III., a regular form of
licence, “licentia crenellare,” had to be granted before a house could
lawfully be fortified. The earliest known of these licences was granted by
Henry III. to the Bishop of Winchester in 1257–8, to enable him to fortify
the Isle of Portland. Henry granted 20 of these licences; Edward I., 44;
Edward II., 60; Edward III., 181; Richard II., 60; Henry IV., 8; Henry V., 1;
Henry VI., 5; and Edward IV., 3. A very complete list of these licences,
prepared by Sir J. Duffus Hardy, has been printed by Mr. Parker. Of the 382
given by him, only four relate to castles of importance; Belvoir, Bungay,
Dudley, and Whitchurch, all of which had been fortified before legal

memory. Most of the others relate to manor-houses, some to bishops’
palaces and cathedral closes, some to monasteries, some to houses in cities,
and some to castles probably then first built, or perhaps rebuilt on a larger
scale. Such were Apley, Aldworth, Amberley, Bodiam, Bolton, Bothal,
Cowling, Dunstanborough, Ford, Harewood, Naworth, Penrith, Rose
Castle, Stokesay, Shirburne, Tanfield, Tongue, and Wardour, most of which
are still standing, and two or three inhabited.
The following, from the Patent Roll, 15 Hen. VI., 1437, is a part of the
licence granted to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and his Duchess, who
proposed to build a strong house upon the hill now occupied by the Royal
Observatory at Greenwich: “Muris petra et calce includere et firmare, et
muros illos kernellare, batellare, et turrellare, ac quandam turrim infra
parcum prædictum similiter petra et calce de novo construere, edificare, ac
tam turrim illam sic de novo constructam et edificatam quam dictum
manerium sive mansionem ut præmittitur inclusum, firmatum, kernellatum,
imbattellatum, et turrellatum, tenere possint sibi et hæredibus suis prædictis
in perpetuum.”
Innis (“Sketches,” 444) gives a corresponding licence from the Earl of
Ross, in 1406, for the building of Kilravock.
“Johne of Yle, Erle of Ross ande Lord of the Ilis, to all ande sundry to
quhais knawlage thir our present letteris sall come, greeting. Witte us to
have gevyn ande grantit, and be thir present letteris gevis ande grantis, our
full power ande licence till our luffid cosing, man ande tennand, Huchone
de Roos, Baron of Kylravok, to fund, big, ande upmak a toure of fens, with
barmkin and bataling, upon quhat place of strynth him best likes, within the
barony of Kilrawok, without any contradictioun or demaund, questioun, or
any obiection to put in contrar of him or his ayris, be us or our ayris, for the
said toure ande barmkyn making, with the bataling, now or in tyme to cum.
In witnes hereof, ye haf gert our sele to ther letteris be affixt at Inuernys, the
achtend day of Februar, the yer of Godd a thousand four hundreth sixte
yer.”
Mr. Innis points out that one of James’s first acts on returning from his
English captivity was to order the owners of all castles and manor-places to
make them habitable and to live in them; and he adds that it is remarkable
“How many Scotch castles date from the half century following the above

enactment, and all of one design—a stern, square keep, rudely kernellated,
and surmounted with a cap-house, partially surrounded by a barbican or
barmkin, affording protection to the inhabitants and their cattle from the
hurried inroads of rough-handed neighbours.”

MEDIÆVAL MILITARY ARCHITECTURE.

DESCRIPTIONS.

“ . . . . . Time
Has mouldered into beauty many a tower,
Which, when it frowned with all its battlements,
Was only terrible. . . . . —Mason.

ALNWICK CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
THE castle of Alnwick stands upon a moderate eminence on the south bank
of, and about 150 yards distant from, the river Alne, which was thus its
immediate defence against the Scot. It is about five miles from, and about
200 feet above, the sea-level. Towards the east and south the castle is cut off
from the town of Alnwick by a deep combe, once the bed of the Bow Burn.
This has been trimmed and scarped by art, and its upper part towards the
town has been almost obliterated by modern upfilling.
To the west is a nearly level platform in front of the castle, and separated
from it by a ditch wholly artificial, and in part filled up and covered by the
stables. This ditch was formerly produced along the south front, and
communicated with the Bow Burn ravine. A modern bank of earth conceals
the town from the castle on this, the south-western quarter.
The walls of Alnwick town were embattled, and probably built, under a
licence to Henry Percy, in 1434, when he constructed the Bond Gate, now
standing. It is uncertain whether the town wall was independent of the
castle, as at Chepstow, or abutted against its outer wall, as at Carlisle. The
main entrance to the castle and its principal postern were both outside the
town. The former was approached from it by a town gate, the position of
which is remembered, and its name preserved, in the way called “Narrow
Gate.” The castle postern opens towards the river. The Lion gateway in the
south wall, leading to the town and the railway station, is altogether a
modern structure, but may represent a by-gate communicating with the
town.
In plan the castle is irregular and many-sided; the west and south sides
terminate, the one in the Abbot’s Tower, and the other in the Eastern or
Ravine Tower, and are 125 yards and 213 yards long; and the side towards
the river, and contained between these two towers, is 226 yards. The area
within the walls is nearly 3 acres; that included by the ditch is near 7 acres.
There is no single keep-tower. The keep is in plan an irregular polygon,
set round with clustered towers, and containing a central court. This is

placed nearly in the middle of the general inclosure, with which it was
connected at three points: one, on the south, by a bold and lofty gallery
which has replaced an original curtain, and projects 35 yards from the keep
to a gatehouse which divides the eastern and western wards, and is known
as the Middle Gate. The other connexions on the north side were two
curtain walls, of which one reached from the keep 33 yards to the
Falconer’s Tower, now rebuilt and shifted, and had upon it the Armourer’s
Tower, now destroyed; and the other was a curtain, now removed, which
extended 20 yards from the keep to the Postern Tower.
By these arrangements the area was subdivided into an outer or western,
an inner or eastern ward, and a central open keep. There remained,
however, on the north front a three-sided space, bounded by the keep and
the two curtains, and flanked by the Falconer’s and Postern towers. This
space, open towards the river, is at present protected on that side by a low
retaining terrace-wall and bastions of very modern date. A survey of 1567
shows this side open, and no doubt it was so originally; the river, its steep
bank, the keep, the flanking towers and curtains, and no doubt palisade,
being regarded as a sufficient defence. This disposition is, however,
singular and very curious, and looks as though the engineer wished to
attract the enemy to this the strongest and most completely flanked part, by
a show of weakness by the absence of an outer enceinte. Economy of
construction could not have been the motive, for the cross curtains, in
length, would go some way towards completing the broken enceinte.
It would seem, from existing fragments and traces of foundations, that
the lines of the present enceinte and keep are those of the old Norman
fortress. The outline is governed very much by the disposition of the
ground, and the shell keep was the approved Norman way of occupying
such a knoll, whether natural, as at Durham, or artificial, as at Windsor, or,
as here, probably a very slight addition to a natural knoll. A distinct ditch,
now filled up, encircled the keep and protected it from its containing wards.
Towards the river this ditch seems to have worked out into a steep scarp.
The keep is at this time an open court surrounded by towers. To the
south-east, the gatehouse, about 40 feet deep and 20 feet wide, has grand
external and internal round-headed Norman arches of 9 feet 2 inches span,
the vault between being segmental and crossed by plain chamfered ribs. The
exterior arch has a double band of bold chevron mouldings within a circle

of double-hatched work. The inner arch has a single chevron band, and
above it a band of which the voussoirs have alternate patterns of sunk nail-
heads and the heraldic “lozengy.” This is the work of Eustace de Vesci, who
died 1157, and may be dated 1150, though possibly a part of his
“munitissimum castellum,” which, according to Mr. Tate, was existing in
1135. This Norman gateway is imbedded within a complete gatehouse by
Henry de Percy in 1530, of which the main features are two lofty towers,
which as half octagons flank the entrance from the eastern ward. Original
shields of arms, in the Northumbrian fashion, are carved below the
parapets; and upon the merlons, which are looped, are some original
figures, as at Bothal and Chepstow. The archway is portcullised. The
parapets are not machicolated. The vaulting of the interior of these towers is
very good, and they contain in the basement the original dungeons, which
are described as vaults 10 feet square, aired by loops, while below these are
oubliettes, 8 feet by 9 feet, and reached only by trap-doors in the floor
above. Over the gateway is the private dining-room. The plan of encrusting
an original Norman gateway with later work is very common; the
gatehouses at York afford excellent examples of it.
Entering the court, the open part of which is about 24 yards across, on the
right, in the wall, is the very curious well. Within a pointed panel are three
deep recesses, also pointed, of which the centre contains the mouth of the
well, the shaft of which descends in the thickness of the wall. A wooden
axle crosses above it, and is fitted in the lateral niches with two wheels, set
round with pegs, for winding up the water-buckets by hand. Above, within
the panel, in a small niche is a figure of St. James blessing the source. This
curious and probably singular well was the work of the first Henry de
Percy, in 1312–15; but the figure of the saint is thought to be an insertion of
the last century. There is a similar arrangement over the great gate of
Goderich Castle for working the portcullis.
Beyond the well is the rear wall of the Great Hall, built by the same
Percy, refitted by the first duke, and rebuilt in 1863. The vaults below with
their segmental ribbing are original, as is part of the rear and north wall and
of the bow, whence the cross curtain ran to the Postern Tower. This is still
the state dining-room, 60 feet by 24 feet, and the vaults fulfil their original
destination as cellars. At this point is placed a modern cloister supporting a

corridor, by which a bye-access is given to the suite of state-rooms. The
original entrance to the hall was by six open steps from the court.
Next beyond the hall, pointing to the north-east, is a tower, once the
kitchen and scullery, but rebuilt for the second time in 1856, and now the
drawing-room, 45 feet by 22 feet. Beyond this, along the north-east front,
are the saloon, 42 feet by 22 feet, and an ante-room, 22 feet by 22 feet, built
in 1750–86, but newly fitted up. Next to these, and forming the north-west
angle of the keep, is Prudhoe Tower, the principal tower in the fortress,
upon which the flag is hoisted. This contains the library, 55 feet by 24 feet,
and presents two grand bays to the east and west, with a deep re-entering
angle between them. This also is modern.
Next, on the west front, follows the chapel, built in 1856, a rectangular
tower of bold projection, one principal floor, and a high-pitched roof. The
two angles are cut off, so as to form a polygonal apse. This conventional
east end points, however, south-west.
Then, facing to the south-west, follow two half-round towers, rebuilt
1750–86, containing state bedrooms, and connected by a short curtain,
within which is a dressing-room. Finally, between these and the gatehouse,
completing the circuit of the keep, and projecting due south, is the gallery,
having on the first floor a breadth of one line of five rooms and a corridor,
and below, the middle gateway. The rooms are the private apartments of the
duke and duchess, and a passage communicating with the kitchens. The
gateway, which has a portcullis, is of the date of 1309–15, and built into the
south curtain, from the outside of which it projects as a mural tower. The
gallery replaced a curtain about 1760, and was rebuilt 1856. The
battlements of the gatehouse were probably added about 1407–55.
The entrance to the state apartments is in the central court, beneath the
arched vestibule, at the north-west corner. From this a grand flight of steps
ascends to an interior vestibule, and thence by a second flight to the guard
chamber, which opens into the state-rooms. These are all on the first floor,
the basement being occupied by servants’ rooms.
Although the greater part of the keep has been rebuilt in the last and the
present century, it still is composed of the seven towers of the early Percies,
shown in the plan of 1567, and much, especially of the basement, is old;
and what is new is arranged with a close general regard to the older, and,

indeed, in many parts, Norman plan. The exterior ditch of the keep is partly
filled up, and the drawbridge of the inner gate has been removed. A
portcullis remains.
Of the general and exterior enceinte, the most complete and striking
portion is the western gateway, a very fine and unaltered example of a gate
and barbican of the Edwardian period, 1312–15, in its simplest form. The
barbican, about 55 feet long by 32 feet wide, is entered by a large round-
headed arch, between a pair of square flanking buttresses, corbelled out
above into two turrets, also square. Over the entrance in a sunk panel is a
large Percy lion, with their motto, “Espérance.” The arch leads into a
passage, 55 feet long by 10 feet wide, for the first 20 feet vaulted, but
afterwards open to the sky. This lies between very lofty side walls,
embattled each way. On the left, a small side-door led to the counterscarp of
the ditch; also on the left another door opens into a mural stair ascending to
the battlements. In front is the portal of the gatehouse. This barbican
crossed the ditch now filled up. Besides an outer drawbridge, over a loop of
the main ditch, it had an inner bridge between its lateral walls, dropping
from the gatehouse. This is mentioned in the survey of 1538, and was
removed in 1567. The parapets are without machicolations, and the
embrasures have no mouldings. The merlons are not looped, and the figures
placed upon them date only from 1750–86. Probably in advance of the ditch
of this barbican was a barrier or palisade of timber, and the level space in
front, commanded by the walls of both town and castle, is what was usually
employed for jousting matches or military duels. The adjacent river was a
sufficient security against surprise.
The gatehouse, of which the barbican is the covering, is a rectangle 40
feet deep by 45 feet broad, of slight internal and bold external projection,
and presenting to the field two half octagonal towers. The passage is
vaulted and has the usual defences of a portcullis and gates. The portals are
round-headed. There are lateral lodges, entered one from the passage and
one from the court.
Entering the court, the curtain on the left, of considerable height, has
Norman foundations, 1150, and an Edwardian superstructure, 1350.
Outside, a string-course marks the base of the parapet, and the embrasures
have a decorated moulding carried all round. The wall extends to the
Abbot’s Tower, but upon it is a small rectangular mural tower, called the

Avener’s Tower, 1309–15. The Abbot’s Tower, of the same date, caps the
north-west angle. It is rectangular and of three stages, the lowest being
vaulted and ribbed with segmental arches, as in the Constable’s Tower, and
below the Great Hall. The third stage rises clear of the wall, and is reached
by a well-stair, which occupies the north-east angle.
From this a short curtain of mixed date, 1150 and 1350, with a low
salient, extends to the Falconer’s Tower, also rectangular, rebuilt, though
not exactly on the old site, in 1856, and from which a modern curtain wall
runs up to the Prudhoe Tower of the keep. Upon this wall stood the
Armourer’s Tower, also rectangular, destroyed in 1856, to improve the view
from the library. The removal of this and the Falconer’s Tower are said to
have been the only subtractions made from the original military works of
the castle.
Returning to the west gate, the curtain on its right extends past the west
Garret Tower to the Clock Tower, all rebuilt 1750–86. The latter is circular,
with a flat gorge and keel-shaped salient, and caps the south-west angle.
Outside the last-named curtain, and reached through it by a gateway, are the
stable courts, riding-school, and guest-hall, 135 feet by 35 feet, by 25 feet to
the spring of the open timber roof, a very noble structure. These buildings
are of modern date, 1856.
From the Clock Tower the south curtain supports on its outside the estate
offices. Part of this curtain is 1750–86, part 1309–15. This latter part
includes the Auditor’s Tower, 1770, of which the square rear projects into
the court and the half-round front outside. Beyond this is a bit of Norman
curtain, 1150, against which on the outside is built the modern kitchen, and
above which a modern corridor communicates between the duke’s room
and the record-room in the Auditor’s Tower. The treatment of this part of
the structure by Mr. Salvin deserves especial notice from the happy
combination of the features of the Edwardian age with the appliances of the
present day. The kitchen, with much to remind the visitor of Durham and
Avignon, is as a whole superior to either, and is besides a model of culinary
arrangement. These offices, originally within the keep at the east end of the
hall, were placed here by the first duke, but were recast and rebuilt by Duke
Algernon.

Formerly there stood in the west ward the exchequer and the stables. The
exchequer was a large rectangular building, applied to the north limb of the
west gatehouse, and, like it, embattled. The two ranges of stabling stood a
little within and parallel to the curtains next the Clock Tower. These
buildings, shown in the survey of 1650, were removed probably about
1755.
Traversing the middle gate, in front is the eastern or inner ward, and on
the left the inner or gatehouse of the keep. On the right, outside the curtain,
is the steward’s room, and beyond it the Warder’s Tower, mentioned in
1567, but altogether remodelled and rebuilt in 1860 upon a work of 1770. It
now contains the Lion gateway, leading to the gardens. Below the
gatehouse is an ale-cellar, and above one side of it, attached to the offices,
the confectionary.
Beyond, the line of the curtain is irregular. About the salient it is Norman,
1150, and a very good example of the rough walling of the age. Upon it is
the East Garret, 1309–15, and it ends in the Ravine Tower, the most eastern
work of the castle, and capping an acute angle of the enceinte. This is a
good-sized round tower, with a well-stair at its junction with the curtain. It
has been much repaired since its foundation in 1309–15. It is defended by
the ravine, whence it derives its name.
From hence the curtain trends to the north-west, being in great part
Norman, but repaired at what is called the “Bloody Gap.” Beyond this is a
garret bartizan, called Hotspur’s Chair. It was the gorge of a half-round
tower, now removed, but shown in the plan of 1650. Beyond this the curtain
is again mixed Norman and Decorated of 1312–15, to the Constable’s
Tower. This is a strong half-round tower, capping a flattish salient to the
north-east; it has an exterior entrance by stairs to each of its three floors.
From this a short curtain, 1150, leads to the Postern Tower, 1312–15,
rectangular, pierced below by the vaulted and portcullised passage of the
postern, and vaulted also on the first floor. This tower is a fine example of a
Northumbrian military building of the Decorated period. The arches are
round-headed or segmental, and it has in its rear wall a remarkable two-
light window with a transom, and in the head a foliated circle. There is also
a very perfect garderobe with external shoot. From this tower a curtain, now
removed, ran upwards to the bow of the hall tower of the keep, and thus
completed the defences of this ward. The original postern passage is filled

up, or nearly so, with earth, but by the side of the tower a way leads to a
terrace walk between the keep and the river, and extending to Falconer’s
Tower.
The eastern ward contained the castle chapel and the conduit, supplied
with water by lead pipes from an exterior spring called Howling Well. The
chapel, a considerable building, stood detached near the Bloody Gap, and
was removed in 1755. The ecclesiastical establishment seems to have been
on a respectable scale, and included a chantry for the performance of the
obits of the family. In this quarter also stood the brew, bake, and slaughter-
houses for the use of the garrison.
Alnwick Castle is probably the finest extant example of a Norman castle
of this type, having an open keep and a complete enceinte; for although
most of the present buildings are either of the fourteenth or the nineteenth
century, the plan is certainly Norman, and certain detached portions of the
construction. It seems also that the keep was never a mere shell, like Cardiff
or Arundel, but was always set about with towers and provided with a
handsome gatehouse. A notable feature is the use of the round-headed and
the segmental arch in the Decorated period. This is not uncommon in the
North of England. The very free use of stone warriors upon the parapets,
carried to an absurd extent in the repairs of the last century, is also
remarkable. They are seen at Bothal, and in Edwardian works both at
Caernarvon and Chepstow, but by no means so freely distributed as here.
They were obviously intended for ornament only, but, of all figures, that of
the eagle at Caernarvon is the only one at all appropriate. No archer would
or could have stood on the crest of the parapet. Most of the later figures
were very properly removed by Mr. Salvin.
There is found upon the battlements of both walls and towers, in various
parts of the castle, a convenient arrangement for hanging a movable
wooden shutter in the embrasures, so as to defend the warders from a
Scottish shaft, and from the scarcely less keen edge of the bleak winds of
the Border. The shutter was suspended horizontally, like a port-lid, but from
trunnions, of which one rested in a round hole in one merlon, and the other
in a similar hole terminating in a groove in the other, so that the shutter
hung freely, and could be lifted in and out if necessary. The arrangement is
precisely that applied to the roller of a round towel. Traces of this
arrangement remain in various parts of the castle. A perfect example is seen

on the barbican. It may also be seen on the east wall of Goderich, at
Chepstow, and elsewhere.
The officers forming the staff of this castle as a civil residence, in 1567,
were the constable or governor; the porter of the outer gate; the greive, or
executive officer or bailiff; the receiver or auditor; the feodary, who looked
up the services and tenures; the steward, learned in the law, who
administered justice; the clerk of the courts, who engrossed the rolls and
kept the records; and the foreign or outer bailiff, who collected the castle-
guard and cornage money, and summoned the tenants and suitors. The
whole of the annual payment to these officers was £58. 18s.
Looking to the character of the country, so charged with traces of early
military earthworks, and to the strong and well-defined natural position of
Alnwick, it seems probable that it was occupied as a camp by some of the
tribes who, from a very remote period, made this Border their battlefield,
and whose defences are still visible in eleven distinct earthworks within a
very short distance of the town. If so, they would necessarily have placed
their defences to the north and east upon the lines of the present castle. The
interior eminence would certainly have been their citadel, and the trench,
completing their security, would most conveniently have been carried along
the general direction of the western front, so as to connect the head of the
Bow Burn with the Alne, and thus complete the seclusion of the peninsula.
Such a site, so defended, was not uncommonly adopted or constructed by
the Northmen and Saxons when they became settled, and they would have
placed the timber and palisaded mansion of their thane upon the central
entrenched knoll.
Probably the Norman Gilbert Tison, of cloudy memory, who is the
reputed pioneer of the Conquest in these wild regions, found and contented
himself with some early kind of timber fortress, for the earliest traces of
masonry that remain in situ or have been extracted from the walls, though
Norman, are of late character, and attributable to Eustace Fitzjohn, who
married Beatrix, daughter and heir of Ivo de Vesci, who is thought to have
married Tison’s daughter. Eustace, called De Vesci, flourished under Henry
I. and Stephen, and died in 1157. He was a likely man to have constructed a
great castle, being a baron of considerable power, sheriff of
Northumberland, and founder of the abbeys of Alnwick and, in Yorkshire,
of Malton. Also he must have felt the want of a strong place, for in his days,

in 1135, Alnwick Castle was taken by David I., of Scotland, in the interest
of the Empress Maud.
Eustace no doubt built in the first half of the twelfth century a polygonal
clustered keep upon the knoll, gave it the gateway we still see, and placed
his residence within. Traces of his walls are said by Mr. Tate to have been
discovered when the last rebuilding was being executed. No doubt also he
cleared out the moat round the keep. To him also must be attributed the
general wall of the enceinte, and possibly the ditch outside it; and this
would have been strengthened by mural towers, many of which must have
stood where their successors are now placed. De Vesci’s work is indicated
by the stones being mostly square blocks of moderate size, laid in courses,
but in beds more or less wavy, as though the mason used neither line nor
level. The joints are open. Beyond question De Vesci constructed a castle in
keeping with his wealth, and worthy of the chief baron of the Border.
In July, 1174, William the Lion, on his way back from an invasion of
Cumberland, found himself, to his surprise, before Alnwick. William, son of
Eustace de Vesci, attacked him. He was unhorsed, captured, and sent into
England, and beyond sea, to prison. Eustace, son of William, succeeded in
1190, and was visited by King John, 12th February, 1201, and 24th April,
1209, when the king received at the castle the homage of Alexander, king of
Scotland. Four years later, May 14th, John ordered Philip de Ulecote to
demolish the castle of Alnwick—a mandate which could scarcely have been
obeyed, seeing the king himself was there 28th January, 1213, and 11th
January, 1216, no doubt unwelcome visits, for Eustace was a Magna Charta
baron. He met his death from an arrow before Barnard Castle in the last
year of King John. Henry III. visited Alnwick 23rd September, 1256, and
Edward I. was the guest of John de Vesci there 30th April and 1st May, and
16th and 17th August, 1291, and 16th August and 13th and 18th December,
1292; and again 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 25th, 26th, and 27th September, 1296;
and 26th and 29th June, 1298.
The Barons de Vesci became extinct in 1297, by the death of William,
seventh Baron, when the castle and barony were acquired, it is said, to the
fraudulent exclusion of the natural son, by Antony Bec, the warlike Bishop
of Durham, by whom, in 1309, 3 Edward II., they were sold to Henry de
Percy, the representative of a warlike family, whose advent forms an
important era in the history of the Border. Percy, as the leader of the

Northern barons, made Alnwick his residence, and although in possession
only for five years, seems to have rebuilt much of the fabric, the rest being
completed by his son of the same name.
The Percy Castle, laid out nearly upon the Norman lines, presented very
nearly the appearance of the present structure. The authorship of the
Edwardian part of the inner gatehouse is established by the escutcheon of
Clifford on its walls, the second Henry de Percy having married a lady of
that house. To the first half of this fourteenth century may be attributed, as
has already been pointed out in detail, nearly all the leading features of the
castle, as it stood at the incoming of the first Duke of the present family.
The Percies, though they maintained the reputation of Alnwick as the great
Border fortress during nearly four centuries, do not appear to have
materially altered the fabric of the two earliest lords. They received here
Edward II. in 1311 and 1322, and Edward III. in 1335; but the later earls
were much at Petworth and in Yorkshire; and upon the death of the eighth
earl, in 1537, and the attainder of his brother, the family ceased to reside at
Alnwick, and the castle was neglected. The Percy line ended in Elizabeth,
daughter of Jocelyn, the eleventh earl, who, 30th May, 1682, married
Charles, Duke of Somerset. Of their children, two had issue, Algernon and
Catherine, who married Sir Wm. Wyndham, and eventually conveyed to
that family the Percy estates at Petworth, Egremont, and Leconfield.
Algernon Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and by creation Earl of
Northumberland, left one child, Elizabeth Seymour, who inherited Alnwick,
and married Sir Hugh Smithson, created Duke of Northumberland, and
ancestor of the present family.
A survey of Alnwick in 1567 shows the decay then to have been very
considerable, and as the Seymour lords preferred their paternal residence,
Alnwick became almost a ruin. From this it was redeemed by the first duke,
who, under the advice of Adam, restored, and in part rebuilt, the keep; and
although he fitted up the interior with plaster and frippery, made the exterior
sound and good, and, on the whole, in keeping with the character of the
place, and with what remained of the ancient buildings.
Matters so remained until the accession of Duke Algernon, better known
as Lord Prudhoe, a naval officer and a good man of business, who had
travelled much and possessed a cultivated taste, and was of a truly noble

and magnificent disposition. While foremost in works of public usefulness
connected with his estates, county, and profession, and careful to drain his
lands, rebuild the cottages of his labourers, restore the local churches, and
provide lifeboats for his dangerous coast, he, under the sound advice of Mr.
Salvin, almost rebuilt the castle, preserving with scrupulous care all that
admitted of preservation, and adapting his new work to the period of the
first and second Percy, the founders of the later castle. Having thus restored
the great fortress of the Border with strict regard to the rules of military
architecture, he proceeded, under the advice of Canina, to fit up the interior
in the style of an Italian palace. The contrast afforded is certainly extreme,
and the attempt on so costly a scale was hardy; but the adaptation of the
fittings to the irregular plan of the rooms is so well conceived, the materials
employed are so rich, and the execution of the details is so skilful, that it is
difficult to regard even so great an incongruity as other than a distinguished
success.
Much attention has of late years been paid, and by very competent
persons, to the history of this castle. Grose gives some particulars, now very
valuable; but this and the castles of Warkworth and Prudhoe have been
illustrated by the late Mr. Hartshorne, and are treated of also by him with
great success in the Northumberland volume of the Archæological Institute.
More recently, Mr. Tate has handled the subject of Alnwick Castle with both
skill and accuracy in his admirable history of the barony of Alnwick. And
finally, in the “Life of William Rufus,” Mr. Freeman has touched lightly but
very effectively upon the connexion of Alnwick and its lords with
Northumbrian history. In the above sketch free use has, to some extent,
been made of the above materials; but the object of the writer has been to
treat solely of the fabric of the castle, and that from a military point of view.

REFERENCES.

1. Donjon.
2. Inner Ward.
3. Outer Ward.
4. Terrace.
5. Stable Courts.
6. Kitchen.
7. Estate Offices.
8. Ravine.
9. Ditch.
10. Tower.
11. Inner Gate.
12. Middle Gate.
13. Barbican.
14. Hall.
15. Withdrawing-room.
16. Music-room.
17. Ante-room.
18. Library. Prudhoe Tower.
19. Chapel.
20. State Bedroom.
21. Entrance.
22. Spur Gallery.
23. West Garret.
24. Abbot’s Tower.
25. Falconer’s Tower.
26. Postern Tower.
27. Constable’s Tower.
28. Ravine Tower.
29. Hotspur’s Chair.
30. East Garret.
31. Warder’s Tower.
32. Auditor’s Tower.
33. Clock Tower.
34. Avener’s Tower.
35. Garden.

PLAN OF ALNWICK CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.

THE CASTLE OF ARQUES, NEAR DIEPPE.
ARQUES is one of the earliest examples of a Norman castle, for which
reason, though not an English fortress, it has been thought convenient to
include an account of it in these pages. This grand castle crowns and
occupies the head of a steep and bold cape or promontory, in this case a
spur from the great chalk table-land of the “Pays de Caux.” On the west it is
flanked by a short but deep combe or dry valley, and on the east by the
deeper and far wider valley of the Bethune and Varenne—streams derived
from different sources, but which here meander across a broad and level
bottom, above half a mile wide, until, a little below the castle, uniting, they
receive the tributary Aulne, and, thus combined, under the name of “la
Rivière d’Arques,” fall into the sea at the port of Dieppe.
The castle thus stands above the left bank of the principal valley. It is
about 4 miles from Dieppe; and immediately below, and to its north-east, is
the village whence it takes its name, remarkable for a church of unusual
size, and a most elegant example of the style of the latter part of the
sixteenth century. Beyond, upon the right bank, are the remains of the
ancient Forest of Arques, a part of the spacious domain of the ancient lords
of the fee, and upon the skirts of which, within shot of the castle, was
fought, in 1589, a very celebrated battle.
The castle in its present form is composed of a rectangular keep, standing
in the south-west corner of an inner ward, in plan something less than a
half-circle, having its chord to the west, and contained within an enceinte
wall, strengthened by towers and buttresses along its sides and at its
southern end, and capping its angles.
Applied to the north end of this is an outer ward, of later date, four-sided,
and having drum towers at its four angles.
The main entrance, approached by a steep and winding road from the
town, is in the north end, or at the point of the cape, between the two
towers. Entering, is a second gatehouse, opening from the outer into the
inner ward, also between two towers. A third gatehouse, at the other end of

the fortress, leads direct from the exterior into the south end of the inner
ward, and thus opens a communication with the root of the cape. There is
also a lateral postern with vaulted passages in the west wall of the outer
ward.
Outside the wall, encircling it closely, is the ditch, the most striking
feature in the whole fortress. This is in general plan not unlike the long
section of a pear, the northern end being the smaller, and the western side
flattened so as to be nearly straight. The counterscarp of this ditch includes
an area of about 5 acres. The ditch itself, measured from the level of the
foot of the wall crowning its scarp, is about 60 feet deep, with slopes of 1
foot horizontal to 2 feet vertical, and about 70 feet broad. It is only just not
too steep to be covered with short turf. The crest of the counterscarp is a
ridge about 6 feet broad, and about 20 feet below the level of the foot of the
wall. From it descends another slope, equally steep, but much deeper; on
the west side descending about 150 feet to the bottom of the valley, and on
the east to a rather less depth, as here this “glacis” is succeeded by a sort of
broad terrace of pasture land, which falls gently towards the river, the level
of which may be 250 feet below the platform of the castle. In many respects
these defences resemble those of Bramber, in Sussex.
At the north-west end the ditch is traversed by a very modern causeway
of earth, which supersedes the earlier drawbridge. At the south end, where
the ground is highest and the ditch about 50 feet deep and 80 feet broad,
there remain two engaged piers upon the scarp and counterscarp, and
between them two detached piers, of which the outer has fallen against the
inner. All are rectangular; and the inner of the detached two is considerably
the larger, and probably carried a tower for the protection and working of a
double drawbridge. These piers are of flint rubble, cased with ashlar, of
which a small part only remains.
At the outer end is the earthwork of a tête du pont, or ravelin, of
triangular plan, the passage from which was a little to the east side of the
apex. This work was evidently constructed when artillery was in use, and is
attributed to Henry IV., during the campaign of 1589. It no doubt represents
an earlier barbican, also of earth and timber. There are no traces of masonry
beyond the bridge. This work opens upon the ridge of the promontory,
which widens and rises somewhat higher to the south. The ground is scarred

with banks and ditches, the remains of fieldworks of various dates, both of
attack and defence.
The design of this castle ditch is peculiar. The more obvious plan would
have been to place the walls upon the edge of the hill, and scarp its sides
down to the valley with such steepness as suited the ground. Instead of this,
the upper 40 feet of the hill, being chalk rock, was scarped vertically, and
then faced or revetted by a wall, upon which was placed the enceinte wall
of the inner ward. At the foot of the revetment was then excavated the ditch
just described, the material being thrown outwards so as to form an artificial
scarp, which thus became a sort of advanced banquette or earthwork
beyond the ditch, representing the crest of the glacis, and capable of being
held by a line of soldiers, but which, when taken, was too exposed and too
narrow to allow of its being held, or of cover being constructed upon it.
This banquette was at a rather lower level than the foot of the opposite wall.
Such an arrangement is found in other castles in Normandy, and notably,
as pointed out by M. Deville, at Molineaux, De Longueville, Bec de
Montagne, and in the later work of Château-Gaillard, where, however, it is
less marked.
The keep is rectangular, about 80 feet north and south by 70 feet east and
west, and at present about 60 feet high. It stands in the south-west corner of
the inner ward, close to the enceinte wall, of which its south-west angle
forms a part. Its walls at the ground level are about 13 feet thick. It presents
three buttresses on the north face and two on the south—the third being a
sort of cap thickening and enveloping the south-east angle. These are of the
unusual breadth and projection of 9 feet, and they rise to the present, which
cannot be above 10 feet below the original summit. At the north-east angle
the adjacent buttresses are set square, leaving the angle free. The south face
is plain, or nearly so, excepting the cap at its south-east angle, which
extends southwards, and is connected with the adjacent enceinte wall. The
west face is plain, outside of which was the entrance.
This is composed of a flight of steps, beginning upon the north face,
passing by a doorway through its most westerly buttress, and which then,
turning, is continued along the west face, until at its south end it lands in the
usual square appendage or forebuilding common in these keeps. This
staircase was guarded by an exterior wall, and had gateways at its foot and

its summit. It was covered over, as appears from marks upon the wall; and
above it was no doubt the usual platform for defence. In the basement of the
forebuilding, which forms also part of the enceinte wall, was a vaulted
chamber opening into the basement of the keep, as at Rochester, either a
store or a prison. The landing story was barrel-vaulted, having at one end a
loop towards the field, and at the other a door in the wall of the keep.
Entering this door, the staircase is continued southward in the wall of the
keep, up a roughly-vaulted, round-headed, mural gallery, until at the angle it
reaches the level of the first floor. The gallery now turns the angle, and is
continued on the level half-way along the south wall, when it is stopped
abruptly. A door on the right leads upon the enceinte rampart, and one on
the left probably led into the keep.
The interior of the keep is composed of a basement and an upper or,
perhaps, two floors, divided by a north and south wall into two chambers on
a floor. This division-wall is said to be original, and ought to be so in a keep
of this size, but it looks of the sixteenth century, and may represent an older
one. The west basement is much choked up with rubbish. The east chamber
is tolerably clear, and shows an exterior aperture in its east wall, near the
south end, which communicates with the adjacent south gateway. This may
be original, but it is now a mere hole. In the north wall is a short mural
gallery, entering a well-stair in the north-east angle, which ascends to the
first floor and chapel only. The lower stage was not vaulted. The first floor
has four windows on the north side, two in each room, and one on the east
side. The second floor had also similar windows on its north, and a vaulted
chamber on its east side; no doubt a chapel. This chapel is formed by
throwing a vault from buttress to buttress for its floor, and at a higher level
for its roof, and above this were the leads. There are traces of similar
chambers on the north front. The upper story has been vaulted in six bays,
three on each side, duly groined and ribbed, as is shown by the springers.
The material and the workmanship, no less than the section of the ribs,
show this to be a late addition, probably of the sixteenth century.

PLAN OF THE CASTLE OF ARQUES, NORMANDY.

A. Keep. E. Old Ditch. I. South Gate.
B. Inner Ward. F. Glacis. K. Barbican.
C. Outer Ward. G. New Ditch. L. North Gate.
D. Walls of Le Bel. H. Norman Gate. a. Galleries.

The supposed two upper floors were very possibly intended for one floor
of state, with two tiers of windows and a chapel above. The chapel seems to
have had a barrel round-headed vault, probably groined. The accounts show
this eastern side to have been the royal chamber in the fourteenth century.
The fireplaces seem to be confined to the upper floors. As now seen, they
are of the date of the vaulting.
In the south-west angle of the keep, very near the wall, is the well, of
which the pipe was continued at least to the first floor, as in the additions at
Richmond. It is about 6 feet diameter, lined with ashlar, and in 1768 was
choked up at 254 feet deep, or about the level of the river; a depth now
reduced to 30 or 40 feet.

Outside, between the buttresses, are traces of walls, as though the spaces
between them had been turned to account below as well as above; but these
walls are thin, and do not seem original.
M. Deville cites the public records for the existence in 1318 of four
turrets on the keep, roofed with lead.
M. Le Duc, in his Dictionary, Art. “Donjon,” gives a great variety of very
curious detail connected with this keep, detail unknown to M. Deville, and
for which there should be some authority other than the traces actually
existing, which are very unsatisfactory.
The keep is built of large chalk flints grouted copiously in mortar, and
cased outside with ashlar, now mostly stripped off and removed. Within, the
flints are occasionally laid herring-bone fashion. The ashlar was a
calcareous tufa, known in the country, and formed by the trickling of
calcareous springs over moss and similar vegetation. It was much used in
the earlier French castles. The later ashlar of the vaulting ribs and inserted
door-cases seems to be a fine hard limestone, approaching Caen stone in
appearance, and perhaps actually that material. Where the ashlar is wanting,
the putlog holes are seen, placed with exceeding regularity. The joints of the
original ashlar are large, those of the later fine. The new and old ashlar can
readily be distinguished; but one flint wall is very much like another.
The inner ward, in length about 160 yards, and in its greatest breadth
about 70 yards, is a natural chalk platform, revetted all round by a wall
about 8 feet thick, which on the east side is reduced to a parapet, but on the
west rises about 20 feet higher, probably its original height. In 1708 this
court contained the apartments of the governor and the staff of the garrison,
a well, and a chapel. These were probably of the sixteenth century or later,
and have now entirely disappeared.
The enceinte wall, which girdles this inner ward, deserves attention, as
most of it is of early date. Setting aside the four northern towers with their
curtains, which are of later date, we have about 380 yards of curtain broken
by five mural towers and three rectangular buttresses. Nearly the whole of
the wall is faced with flint, with three bands of ashlar. Much of the flint is
laid in herring-bone fashion, the repairs, where of brick, being of much later
date. The ashlar bands are of tufa. Of the towers two, half round, are on the
east front. Of these one, though probably original, has been cased with

brick. The other has had an ashlar base, and the upper part, of flint, shows
herring-bone work. Each is about 15 feet diameter, with walls 5 feet thick.
Between these towers are three rectangular buttresses; two of 15 feet
breadth and 12 feet projection, and one about 7 feet square. The two former
contain no herring-bone work, and are probably early additions, perhaps by
Henry I.; the latter is original.
On the west face are now no towers, but in 1708 there were two, half
round, and of small size, traces of which remain. They were, no doubt,
original.
The remaining three towers capped the three salient angles of the south
end, the central containing the gateway, and the others flanking it. All are
one quarter engaged.
The flanking towers are alike, about 22 feet diameter and 55 feet high
from the exterior base, with walls 7 feet thick. The bases are either solid or
pierced by steps leading down to the galleries. There is a regular basement
story, and above it a floor on the level of the inner ward. They are not
vaulted and show no exterior herring-bone work, though one has a little
inside. A modern summer-house has been built upon that to the south-east.
The central or gate-tower is 24 feet diameter. It is pierced at the level of
the scarp by a portal which opens upon the drawbridge, the piers of which
have been described; and there is a stage above this.
The portal ascends towards the keep; its details are much broken down,
and little can be made of them.
Of the enceinte of the inner ward there remains to be noted the northern
gatehouse. This, the original and, probably, the only entrance to the Norman
fortress, though much ruined, does not appear to have been materially
altered. It consists in a rectangular building, 40 feet deep by 20 feet broad,
set in the centre of the curtain, with which its outer face is nearly flush. It is
crossed by an outer, middle, and inner wall, each pierced by an arch of 12
feet opening, through which lies the passage. There remain the rectangular
grooves of a portcullis, and a few years ago there was evidence of a second,
and in the wall is herring-bone work. The arches are plain, without
moulding or chamfer. The inner one is round-headed, and springs from a
flat abacus, chamfered below. The joints of the ashlar work are about 1 inch

wide. The curtains on either side of this gateway, though much repaired,
seem to be original, and there are traces of the old round gate-towers. The
pit of the drawbridge remains in front of the gate, upon the original line of
fosse.
The outer ward no doubt occupies the site of an earlier outwork. It is built
against the narrow and north end of the inner ward, is four-sided, about 250
feet north and south, by a mean of 110 feet east and west. Its west side is
straight, being the continued line of that face of the old fortress. The east
face has a slight re-entering angle, caused apparently by the shape of the
ground. At the two southern angles are two large drum towers, which
connect the old and newer work, and probably replace two smaller and
older towers. These stand in the line of the old ditch, and flank the Norman
gateway. That to the south-west, rather the larger of the two, and slightly
oval in plan, has a mean diameter of 60 feet; it is of two stages. Both are
vaulted, or rather domed. That to the south-east, of 50 feet diameter, is
nearly circular, but has a remarkable spur or keel-shaped projection towards
the field. It is of three stages, the two lower being domed. These towers are
in fact casemates, having embrasures for small culverins towards the field.
Each has a well-stair in its southern side, and is entered from the gorge.
The two other towers cap the northern angles of the ward, and flank the
main gateway. They are of irregular form, semicircular to the field and
angular within. In diameter they are about 40 feet, and about the same
height. They are of two stages, which have been domed. The walls of these
four towers are from 14 feet to 16 feet thick. They are of flint faced with
brick.
Between the gate-tower is the gateway, composed of a larger and smaller
portal, the latter very narrow. The present work is modern, but no doubt in
this double entry represents the earlier openings. The ditch, two detached
piers standing in it, and with these any traces of the drawbridge, are
concealed by the modern causeway.
In the west curtain, near the south-west tower, a flight of steps beneath
hanging arches of brick descends from the ward level in the direction of the
foot of the wall. This is much encumbered with ruin, but seems to have
been a postern, opening upon the ditch.

All the works of this outer ward are of flint, rubble-faced with brick,
which material forms the lines of the embrasures. The quoins are sometimes
of ashlar, as are the extensive string-courses and bands, and the dressings of
the openings. Traces of herring-bone work in its west curtain, outside, will
be accounted for afterwards.
As the original castle was confined to the inner ward, its ditch
everywhere encircled it. When the outer ward was added, the intercepted
portion of the ditch was partially filled up, but the new work was included
in a new ditch, which was an accurate prolongation of the old one, of equal
depth and breadth, and continued in the same direction. Accurate
observation will, however, detect two slight shoulders in the counterscarp,
showing where began the curve of the old ditch.
Very remarkable in this castle are the subterranean galleries, driven in the
chalk rock beneath the lines of the original wall, and behind the scarp of the
ditch. These are now in part blocked up, but there still remain two or three
hundred yards of them of which the direction is known. They are entered by
a passage in the inner ward, in its north-west quarter, and by a descent of
fifty-four steps near the keep, and possibly from other points now lost. The
galleries are about 7 feet high and 6 feet wide, rudely cut, and somewhat
singularly laid out. They lie within, without, and beneath the wall, and give
off frequent spurs or short passages intended to occupy any space in which
a mine was likely to be opened. At this time they have been broken into at
three or four points in the scarp of the ditch, about half-way down. They
were intended as a system of permanent counter mines to meet any attempt
at mining on the part of the besiegers. In one place a large central pier is
surrounded by a gallery, whence the branches go off,—an arrangement
intended probably to check the progress of those who might break in. So far
as is known, these galleries, of which a survey was made in 1708, are
confined to the southern half, or four-fifths of the old castle. There are none
under the outer ward.
Outside, and to the north-east of the outer gate, are some semicircular
platforms, which seem to have played a part in the defence of the castle; but
whether before or after the use of artillery is uncertain.
The Bel.—A curtain wall, which originally was about 5 feet thick, and
from 15 feet to 20 feet high, commences abruptly upon the crest of the

counterscarp in two places; one on the east opposite to the mural tower,
which marks about the centre of that front of the castle, and thence
descends towards the river; and the other north, close outside of the
drawbridge of the main entrance. This latter wall is continued down the hill,
and makes a bold sweep towards the town, and, finally reaching the river
bank, joins the river wall. The enclosure thus formed contains about twice
the area included by the ditch of the castle, and has long been known as Le
Bel or La Baile, a form evidently of the Norman-Latin Ballium, called by us
the “Bailey.” This enclosure is traversed by the road from Dieppe to
Martigny, which passes through the two gates bearing those names. A third,
or water-gate to the east, opened upon the river. Upon the north front appear
to have been two small half-round mural towers, of which one remains. The
river has somewhat encroached upon the lower part of the Bel, and has
undermined part of the wall.
The Dieppe gate, which is also that from the town of Arques, was in 1433
called “La Première Port du Bel de Château d’Arques,” and, as such, was
the subject of a tenure by castle guard, the tenant being bound to defend it
for forty days in time of war. From this gate the approach ascends to the
castle, having the curtain-wall as a protection on its right. Where this wall
approaches the castle, at either end, it is covered by a broad ditch, continued
down the slope.
A flint wall may be of any age, but the remains of the gates, which a few
years ago showed round-headed arches, prove this inclosure to be of early
date, probably one of the earliest additions to the castle, and made by Henry
I. No doubt, before the construction of the outer ward, the wall of the Bel
was produced so as to unite with those of the castle. M. Deville has
discovered a part of this wall worked into the great curtain of the outer
ward, which lies in its line, and may still be seen.
Looking to the history of this castle, and to the evidence afforded by its
remains, it seems probable that the keep is the oldest part of the masonry,
and the work of the Conqueror’s uncle, Guillaume d’Arques, between the
years 1039–1043, and it is supposed to be one of the earliest, if not the
earliest, of the rectangular Norman keeps known. The chronicle of
Normandy, cited by M. Deville, says of William, “Si fist faire une tour
moult forte, audessus du chastel d’Arques”; as though there had been an
earlier castle, which the aspect of the earthworks renders highly probable.

To the Conqueror or his immediate successor must be attributed the
enceinte of the inner ward and the formation of the galleries. The ditch may
be much older than the western masonry. The inner ward no doubt formed
part of the original plan, and it is only the occasional appearance of round
turrets upon the wall that leads to the opinion that any time intervened
between the actual construction of the keep and of its surroundings.
The southern entrance, with its gate and two flanking towers, and one or
two of the other mural towers or buttresses, seem to be additions, but of the
Norman period, probably the work of the Conqueror’s son, King Henry I.,
who, about 1123, seems also to have enclosed the Bel. Robert de Thorigny
—called also “Du Mont,” from his abbacy of Mont St. Michael—a Norman
chronicler of the twelfth century, says that King Henry I. “fortified
admirably the castle of Arques with walls and a tower.” This has been held
to show that the whole structure was the work of Henry, who reigned from
1105 to 1135, and the extreme boldness of the buttresses and
superincumbent constructions of the keep no doubt favour this view; but, as
M. Deville remarks in the same passage, similar reference is made to
Gisors, Falaise, and other castles, known to be of earlier date.
M. Deville is disposed to attribute the southern gate to Charles V., as he
finds a record of 1367, charging cost of transport of 6 “nances” of stone,
each of 16 to 18 “tonneaux,” from the river to the castle, for the masonry of
the new bridge and the new gate of the castle. This material was taken by
the king’s direction from the dismantled “manoir” of Veules or Weulles, at
St. Valery-en-Caux. The accounts of 1378–80 mention the tower on the
bridge behind the keep, its drawbridge, axles, ties, “vergues” or levers 18
feet long, and its beams of 9 feet. This was probably the southern
drawbridge and gate, including the opening of the communication between
this and the basement of the keep. These works are attributed to Charles V.
about 1378–80. He probably only pierced the existing central tower, not
otherwise altering or rebuilding it.
The next considerable work was the outer ward, which may be attributed
to the fifteenth century, subsequently to the general use of brick and the
introduction of siege artillery. It is singular that no record of this very
considerable work should be preserved, for it included not only the outer
ward, a castle in itself, with its enormous towers and massive curtains, but
the extension of the very formidable ditch, the repair of the older walls and

towers, and finally the fitting up and vaulting of the keep. All this is
supposed to have been the work of Francis I., and it is said that the date of
1553 was inscribed upon some of the additions to the keep.
Henry IV., during his occupation of the castle in 1589, may have
constructed quarters in the inner ward and repaired what was amiss in the
old building; but more probably his traces are to be found in the field works
which crown the adjacent hills, and along the high ground towards Dieppe.
It has been thought that the ditch of the castle is a remain of an older
fortification, such a work as the early Northmen or still earlier Celts might
have constructed. No doubt this was usually the case with the sites of the
great Norman castles, both in Normandy and in England, and the position
of Arques is a tempting one. There is, however, no positive evidence of an
earlier encampment.
It will be observed that the keep is so placed as to command both the
inner ward and the most exposed side of the castle,—that along the level
ridge of the promontory. It was perfectly capable of holding out when all
else was taken, and finally, if threatened with fire or starvation, its garrison
had a possible escape by the galleries.
This castle is the triumph of Norman skill. Often attacked, it was never
taken by storm. Without being a royal residence it was visited in peace or in
war by our Norman kings, from the Conqueror to John, and by most of the
kings of France, from Henry I. to Henry IV.; and, after a lapse of 800 years,
its oldest parts are still those best worth attention, and are at least as well
preserved as the additions of far later date.

ARUNDEL CASTLE, SUSSEX.
ARUNDEL, in its position, magnitude, and history, is one of the foremost
of the mediæval military structures of England. English in its origin,
Norman by adoption, it is not only among the rare castles recorded in
Domesday, but is the only one therein specifically mentioned as in
existence before the coming in of Duke William. It was held by Alfred and
by Harold, and was granted with its surrounding and dependent lordships
by William to the head of the great house of Montgomery as an
acknowledgment of kinship, and a fitting reward for his distinguished
services at Hastings. Three members and two generations of that family
held the castle for about thirty-two years. They were followed by Henry I.
and his Queen, who held it for half a century, and it has since descended in
succession by the lines of D’Albini, Fitz-Alan, and Howard, through seven
centuries of inheritance, to its present lord. Though less extensive in area, it
is equal to Windsor in antiquity and position, and resembles it closely in
type, having an upper and lower ward, and a lofty mound partially
interposed between the two, girdled by a deep fosse and crowned by a
circular keep. Within its precinct is the Chapel of St. George, and far
beyond the walls, but in one direction only, extends its broad demesne. Just
beyond the wall of the Norman castle, but probably within the earlier
English outwork, stands the fine parish church, a Fitz-Alan gift, and
attached to its east end is the chapel of the college founded by Richard, Earl
of Arundel, in 1386, and now, by a grant or purchase in the reign of Edward
VI., vested in the descendants of its founder, and the private property of the
lord of the castle. The buildings of the college are mostly removed, and the
chapel contains many tombs of great magnificence and considerable
historic interest, beneath which rest the remains of many members of the
great house of Fitz-Alan, who loved full well and gave full largely to that
church to which their Howard descendant has shown himself a not less
liberal benefactor.
The Arun, a principal river of the south, has its sources in Surrey. It
traverses the whole breadth, here about twenty miles, of the county of

Sussex, and in its passage to the sea cleaves the southern ridge of the chalk
by a very striking ravine or dell, which, with the river, gives name to the
castle and the town, as well as to the Rape of Arundel, within which they
stand. The castle is placed upon a bold bluff of chalk, which rises on the
right or western bank of the river, here flowing in easy curves across a
broad tract of low and level land, which intervenes between the downs and
the sea, from which the castle is distant about four miles. Upon and at the
foot of the slope has sprung up the town, which for centuries paid
allegiance to the castle and received from it protection and support. Six
miles westward of the Arun is Bognor, rich in Roman remains, and as far to
the east is the mouth of the Adur, where Shoreham contests with
Portsmouth the representation of the ancient Portus Adurni. A few miles
north of the castle, Staneway marks the line of the old Roman road between
Chichester and London. Various villages, the names of which show their
English origin, are thickly posted along the lower course of the Arun; but
the name of the river may be British, as are no doubt the hill camps here
and there scattered over the downs. The Rape is supposed to be a Jutish
division. It includes five Hundreds, and was formerly nearly all forest. The
courts were held beneath an oak-tree at Madehurst.
The bluff occupied by the castle is the end of a ridge of high ground,
which is specially steep towards the east and south, and ascends to still
higher land towards the north and west. In this direction lies the park, which
covers about 1,100 acres, and includes, between two ridges of the chalk, a
deep valley, in the lower part of which, just below the castle, is the lake
called Swanbourne, the pool from a very remote period for the use of the
mill.
The history of Arundel has been written by Dallaway in his Western
Sussex, and by Tierney in a specific work. Whatever may be the value of
either production for the history and descent of the lordship, neither gives a
full plan of the earthworks of the castle, nor enters at all scientifically into
its details from either the military or architectural point of view.
Unfortunately, the proximity of the castle to Brighton and some lesser
watering-places has caused the exclusion of visitors, save under restrictions
so very narrow that it is impracticable to examine the works at all in detail.
It appears from Tierney’s history that the castle is protected towards the
north or open country by a double line of defence, composed of a bank and

ditch, of which the outer includes the present as well as the older park, and
is, in places, at least two miles from the castle. The inner line is of much
smaller extent, but the two seem intended to protect the town and the port,
as well as the site of the castle, and to be rather lines of defence than the
remains of a camp, whether British or English. Within both of these, and
probably of later date, are the earthworks upon a part of which the Norman
castle was founded. These resemble the works common to England with
Normandy, and may probably be attributed to the Northern invaders in the
eighth or ninth centuries. The high ground is occupied by an oblong
inclosure, of which more or less of the original earthbank remains, and
outside of which to the south and east was the natural steep, and to the west
a natural hollow, deepened and extended round the north front by art. The
inclosure is in length 317 yards, and in breadth 83 yards, and includes about
5½ acres. Near the centre of the western side, and forming a part of the
enceinte, is a large circular mound, almost wholly artificial, having its
proper ditch, which on the outer face is also the ditch of the general
enceinte. The mound is about 90 feet diameter at its table summit, and
about 230 feet at its base. As the ground rises towards the north, the height
is on that side about 50 feet, and on the opposite side about 70 feet from the
bottom of the ditch. The Windsor mound is about the same height, but
rather larger, being 125 feet across, at its summit. By its projection this
work materially narrows the main area, and with the addition of a short
cross-ditch, bank, and wall, now gone, divided it into an upper or northern
and lower or southern ward, in the latter of which are the domestic
buildings. These two wards were the parts of the earlier fortification taken
possession of by the builder of the Norman castle, but there is also an
inclosure opposite to the mound, and outside the ditch, which runs up to a
narrow end towards the north-west. Whether this was fortified with
masonry is uncertain, but it certainly was a part of the earlier fortress, and
shows its extent and importance. The ditches everywhere being in the chalk,
and at a high level, were no doubt always dry. Earl Roger, probably, found
along the crest of these earthbanks the same sort of defences that he left
behind him, on similar banks and mounds, at his paternal castle in
Normandy; but whether these were of timber or of masonry is uncertain.
They might very well have been of either. It is, however, certain that the
earl, or his immediate successors, inclosed the main area within a curtain of
masonry, which ran up the mound and placed half of it, as at Lincoln and

Tonbridge, outside the inclosure. Upon this curtain, a little south of the
mound, was placed the gatehouse, and along it at various points were mural
towers, probably square, of which one, on the curtain north of the mound,
and known as Bevis Tower, still remains, though more or less altered. The
domestic buildings were then, as now, along the sides of the lower ward,
and upon the mound was placed a shell keep.
As the public are only permitted to inspect the lower part of the
gatehouse, the adjacent curtain, and the interior of the keep, it is impossible
to form a correct opinion as to the extent of the original earthworks, or as to
the age of the general curtain, or the basement of the domestic buildings,
parts of which are said to be of Norman date. That the earthworks were
extensive, and in part remain, may be seen from the summit of the keep,
and from the upper gate of the park. Dallaway gives a large, but not quite
correct, plan of the keep and its mound, the gatehouse and Bevis Tower, and
the lower ward; but his plan does not include the higher ward nor the
earthworks, nor is it accompanied by any sections. Dallaway and Tierney
were not strong in architectural details.
The Gatehouse stands on the line of the curtain, projecting inwards from
it, and upon the southern edge or counterscarp of the ditch of the mound. It
opens into the lower ward. It is of the early Norman type, resembling that at
Tickhill. It is a square of 32 feet, having in the outer and inner faces a large
round-headed doorway, quite plain, without even a chamfer, and with a
plain sloped abacus. The chamber is, of course, square, and but little
broader than the doorways. That towards the ward seems to have been
closed by a pair of doors only. The other or outer doorway has a broad
portcullis groove, which may or may not be original; more probably not.
The covering—the floor of the upper room—was no doubt of timber, and
flat. The present vaulting is an insertion. There was always an upper floor,
but this has been much altered, chiefly in the Decorated period. The old
loops, now blocked, may be traced. Some of the inserted windows are very
late. In the south part of the inner doorway was a door opening into a mural
stair leading to the upper floor and to the rampart-walk of the curtain, which
seems to have been continued through the gatehouse, over the outer portal.
The present staircase is exterior, and modern. This is the whole of the
original gatehouse, which, with the adjacent and very thick curtain, is
probably the work of Earl Roger.

The gatehouse has been extended outwardly in the Decorated period.
There is appended to it a crooked passage about 10 feet broad and 40 feet
long, between thick lateral walls. In its sides are shoulder-headed doorways,
which led into lodges and cells, and on the south side is a well-staircase,
ascending to the roof. The passage is covered by a very flat-pointed vault. It
ends in an outer doorway having a drop arch, and opening between a pair of
flanking towers, 20 feet square, rising out of the ditch. These have sub-
basement chambers in the ditch, basements at the ground level, and two
upper floors. In the doorway is a very broad portcullis groove for a timber
frame, and in front was a drawbridge, now replaced by an arch of masonry.
This addition to the Norman gatehouse, making with it a very long covered
entrance-passage, is attributed to Earl Richard Fitz-Alan, on his return from
the wars of Edward I. In very modern times the floor of the passage has
been lowered about 3 feet, and the walls underpinned by a plinth. The doors
which are not in use have been left unaltered, and show the original level of
the sill. Probably the approach to this entrance lay through an outer gate to
the north-west, at the upper part of the town, and across the large outwork,
now a garden and a carpenter’s yard.
The Keep is a rounded shell of masonry, about 67 feet by 59 feet in the
internal cross diameter, and with walls, 8 feet to 10 feet thick, and 20 feet
high to the rampart-walk. It is built of rubble masonry, the material chiefly
Sussex stone and chalk, but faced outside with small ashlar blocks of Caen
stone, close jointed, and with flat pilasters which die into the wall below the
base of the parapet. The entrance was by a rather large full-centred doorway
to the south-east, probably reached, as at Tickhill and Lincoln, by a flight of
steps up the mound, with a timber bridge at their base, as at York. This
doorway is not shown to visitors, but Tierney’s drawing represents it as
having a bold chevron moulding alternating with rolls or rounds, common
to the head and the jambs, and unbroken by imposts. Within, it opened into
a recess, also full centred, and having its angle replaced by a bold roll. This,
as at Lincoln, was the original entrance, and it seems, though walled up, not
to have been otherwise altered. Near this doorway a well-stair has been
formed in the wall, ascending from the ground to the ramparts. It is
evidently a Decorated insertion, of the same date with a steep flight of steps
and a vaulted subterraneous chamber near the centre of the area, probably a
cellar belonging to the lodgings which, as at Windsor, were at one time built
against the wall all round, leaving a small open court, as at Tamworth and

Ledes, in the centre. That there were here such lodgings is evident from the
roof corbels in the wall, and that they, as at York, had an upper floor, is
shown by a late fireplace, which marks the upper level, and the back of
which is formed of tiles set on edge. The parapet was about 8 feet high, and
crenellated, and in each merlon was a loop, set in an arched recess. In one
merlon is a small full-centred recess, evidently a garderobe. The present
parapet seems a Decorated addition. The keep stands, as does the mound,
on the line of the main curtain, which crosses the ditch from the gatehouse,
and ascends the mound, and has a similar continuation northwards. Where
the south curtain abuts upon the keep, there stands a broad irregular tower,
of about 20 feet in projection by 50 feet in breadth. This contains the well
and its chamber, the entrance from the curtain rampart, and an oratory. The
entrance is by a vaulted passage, with a portcullis groove at the ground
level of the keep. The curtain has a parapet on either face, forming a
covered way, and is commanded by a sort of balcony connected with the
keep. The well is of unusually large diameter, but not in use. The chamber
was at the surface level of the keep, into which it opened by a full-centred
doorway. There was also an upper chamber, now ruined. This position of
the well, on the outside of the keep, is found elsewhere. At Wallingford it is
on the slope, and at Cardiff nearly at the foot of it. The oratory, or chapel of
St. Martin, is a small chamber of irregular plan at the first-floor level, and is
placed over the entrance passage. It has a large east window, altered at two
periods, and two smaller lateral windows, all now closed up. The roof was
of timber, and is gone. This oratory had a special endowment, afterwards
shifted and expanded in favour of the large chapel in the lower ward. The
details of this appendage show that, as at York and Cardiff, it was an
addition to the original shell, the ashlar face of which is seen within one of
the lower chambers. At Cardiff the added tower was Perpendicular; at York,
where it included a small chapel, Early English. Here the addition seems
Early Decorated. The chapel is probably the St. Martin’s mentioned in
Domesday, and in the Patent Rolls of 1275, and was, of course, dismantled
when the endowment was shifted in 1375. The keep is mentioned at
different periods as Beaumont, Hautmont, and Grosmont, all names
preserving its chief characteristic.
As the English “Aula” was probably on this mound, while the ashlar
exterior of its present wall is unquestionably later than the Conquest, it has
been supposed that the heart of the wall is original, and that it was cased by

the Norman architect. Of such casing there is, however, no appearance. The
entrance from the curtain seems to have been cut through the wall, which
has been thought there to show traces of early masonry. The wall, however,
appears all of one date, and that probably late Norman, as is usual with shell
keeps.
Bevis Tower stands upon the curtain and projects from its outer face only.
It stands on the north counterscarp of the ditch of the mound, about 42
yards from the keep. It is square, and said to be, in substance, of the age of
the gatehouse, but it is not allowed to be seen close. It is called a barbican,
but its position scarcely justifies its having been so intended. It looks more
like an ordinary mural tower. There is no communication from the keep
with the curtain on this side. North of this tower the earthworks of the upper
ward seem tolerably perfect, but a request to be allowed to visit them was
evidently regarded as a sort of treason.
Besides the well attached to the keep was a second, now covered up, in
the middle of the lower ward. The habitable part of the castle is mostly or
entirely Howard work. Edward, the ninth duke, was a great builder. He
rebuilt Worksop, which was burned soon afterwards, in 1761, and he
founded Norfolk House in St. James’s Square. What he did here does not
appear. The present domestic buildings which line the lower ward to the
east, south, and west sides are, in substance, the work of Duke Charles
towards the close of the last century, or 1791–1806, and have since been
added to. They are what might be expected from the period, and better than
the rather earlier work at Alnwick, lately removed. It is said that in the
cellars, and built into the outer walls, are parts of the earlier structure, some
of Norman date. The hall stood on the east curtain. It had a good Early
English door, destroyed in the present century. The hall itself was ruined
during the siege of 1643. The present grand entrance to the ward, to the
south of the original one, is entirely modern, as are the approach to it and
the outer gateway. So also is the Chapel of St. George, which stands along
the west wall. The chapel which preceded it, and was taken down in 1796,
was 40 feet long by 22 feet broad, and was endowed by Richard, Earl of
Arundel, in 1375, with spoils derived from Crecy. The domestic buildings
are said to have been augmented at the same time by wealth from the same
source. The ecclesiastical endowment, shifted from the oratory of St. Martin

to the Chapel of St. George in 1375, was, after about a century, again
shifted to the Fitz-Alan Collegiate Church, without the walls.
Arundel is a castle where, if anywhere, traces of English masonry earlier
than the Norman Conquest might be expected to be preserved, and no doubt
it is just possible that such may be found about the foundations of the
Norman walls. What is mainly remarkable about it is the resemblance to
Windsor in its general plan; the oblong inclosure encroached upon from one
side by the mound and its ditch, so as to divide it into two wards, in one of
which are domestic buildings. The older part of the gatehouse, and parts of
the curtain near it, may be regarded as Early Norman, the work probably of
Earl Roger. The keep seems later, though also Norman. The additions to the
gatehouse, the well-tower, and the oratory are probably Decorated. What is
wanted is a correct ground-plan, which should include the outworks and the
more distant earthworks. The older walls should be critically examined, and
especially the basement of the domestic buildings.

HISTORY.

The Manor of Arundel, with others in this immediate neighbourhood,
was given by Alfred, by will (885), to his brother’s son. It was held by
Harold, and afterwards by William, who about or before 1070 granted to
Roger de Montgomery the castle and honour of Arundel, with 84½ knights’
fees. Roger, who was of kin to the Conqueror, and commanded the Norman
centre at Hastings, became Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, and held the
Castle about twenty-three years, till his death. Domesday describes the
Castle of Harundel as having, in the time of King Edward, paid annually for
the mill, 40s.; for three “convivia,” or entertainments, 20s.; and “pro uno
pasticio,” or pasty, 20s. There was also the church of St. Nicholas, or the
parish church, and St. Martin’s, probably the chapel of the castle. There was
also another mill which paid ten bushels of corn. The burgh, port, and
shipping paid £12 or more.
It is curious that Arundel, Chichester, Shrewsbury, and the Norman
Manor whence Roger derived his territorial designation, each possessed a
mound. On William’s death in 1088, Earl Roger gave his support to Robert
Curthose, whom he invited to land at Arundel. The Prince’s sluggishness
alienated his English followers, and the Earl tendered his aid to Rufus. At

Earl Roger’s death, in 1094, he bequeathed his Sussex earldom, called also
“of Chichester,” to his younger son Hugh, the Hugh Goch of the Welsh,
who held both Arundel and Shrewsbury, stood in opposition to William
Rufus, and was slain while repelling pirates from the north Welsh coast in
1098. His successor in the English earldom was his eldest brother, who
already held the family lordships in Normandy. This was Robert, Earl of
Belesme in la Perche, who received at Arundel William Rufus on his arrival
from Normandy in 1097.
Earl Robert, the wicked son of a wicked mother, was a bold soldier, and
an able, though a very cruel man. He built with great rapidity the strong
castle of Brugge or Bridgenorth, and that of Montgomery, called by the
Welsh Tre-faldwin, from Baldwin, its early seneschal. His career in England
was violent and short. Bridgenorth was besieged and taken by Henry I.,
who brought the wooden turret known as a malvoisin to bear upon its walls.
The Earl went into exile in 1102, and died in 1118.
King Henry held Arundel till his death, when it passed in settlement to
his widow, Adeliza, daughter of Godfrey of Louvaine, Duke of Brabant.
The Queen Dowager married William d’Albini, a Norfolk noble, known to
chroniclers as “William with the strong hand,” the royal dapifer. They
received the Empress Maud at Arundel on her landing in 1139, with her
brother, the Earl of Gloucester, and in consequence had to stand an attack
from Stephen, to whom, it is said, Adeliza pleaded with success the duties
of hospitality, and Maud was allowed to retire to Bristol. D’Albini,
however, was, on the whole, a supporter of Stephen, though with great
judgment. He advised the accord between Stephen and Henry in 1153, and
signed the compact as “Earl of Chichester.” Henry, on his accession,
acknowledged the service by a grant of the earldom of Arundel in fee with
the third penny of the county of Sussex. Earl William died in 1176. By
Adeliza, who died in 1151, he left a son, also William, the first of four
generations of D’Albinis, and of five persons who held the earldom of
Arundel, or, as they called it, of Sussex. They were buried at Wymondham,
their own foundation. Earl Hugh, the eighth from the Conquest, died
childless in 1243. Isabel, his sister, carried on the succession, and married
John Fitz-Alan, whose son, on his uncle’s death, succeeded.
This John, head of the great house of Fitz-Alan, Lords of Clun and
Oswaldestre, became the ninth earl, and died 1240. He was the first of

fourteen earls of the name who held the castle for twelve generations. Of
these, the elder line died out in the person of Thomas, fifteenth earl, who
died childless in 1415; but the succession was continued by his cousin,
Henry Fitz-Alan Lord Maltravers, who died 1580, leaving an heiress, Mary,
who married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. The later Fitz-Alans lived
much at Arundel, with which place they became closely identified.
Duchess Mary died 1557, and her husband in 1572. Their son, Philip,
became twenty-second earl, since when there have been in all ten
generations of Howards who have held the title of Arundel, the present
Duke of Norfolk being the thirty-fifth Norman earl, and the thirty-second
by descent from Queen Adeliza and William d’Albini.
The castle of Arundel has not played any very important part in English
history. Its most famous event is the siege of 1643, when it was besieged by
Sir William Waller, who first attacked and took the town, then defended by
walls, and finally battered the castle from the tower of the church, where he
posted his guns. The siege lasted from the 20th December, 1643, to the 6th
of January following, when the place surrendered, and with it the celebrated
Chillingworth, who died shortly after. The domestic buildings were then
ruined, and seem so to have remained until the last century.
The town was walled round by Richard Fitz-Alan, who had a licence for
that work in 1295. There were two gates, one below and on the river, the
other called St. Mary’s, at the top of the town. The town wall seems to have
abutted upon the castle, which thus formed a part of its defence.
The present duke has built just outside the castle, and not far from the
parish church, a large church dedicated to San Filippo Neri, a very noble
structure, and fitted up with great simplicity and excellent taste.
Unfortunately, it is so placed as to detract materially from the general aspect
of the castle from the plain below. Placed a little lower down, it would have
left the castle as the predominant figure, permitted the fine old parish
church to hold its due place, and have supported and elevated, instead of
somewhat oppressing, the whole group.

THE CASTLE OF BARNARD CASTLE.
BARNARD, or Bernard’s, Castle, so called from its founder, Bernard de
Baliol, stands in a commanding position on the left bank of the Tees, here
the boundary between Durham and Yorkshire. It is a large castle, and was
long a very important one, both from its position on the frontier of the
bishopric, and from the power of the great barons who built and maintained
it.
The castle crowns the summit of a steep and in part precipitous shelf of
rock, which rises about 100 feet above the river, and has a projecting
shoulder, by means of which the north-western quarter of the fortress is
protected naturally by a cliff. The remainder of the area was covered by a
deep and broad artificial ditch, now mostly filled up, which intervened
between the east and north sides of the castle and the contiguous town, to
which it gave name, and the people of which, in the times when the castle
was maintained, looked to its lords for protection. The north front of both
town and castle received a further defence from the Percy beck, a stream
which flows into the Tees about 450 yards higher up.
The area of the castle, within the walls, is rather above 8 acres. In plan it
is oblong, having four unequal sides, averaging about 293 yards north and
south by 133 yards east and west. The east or town side, the longest, is
slightly convex, and measures 336 yards; the west, or that upon the river,
245 yards; the north end, 160 yards; and the south end, 110 yards. The Tees
Bridge springs from the rocky bank, below the centre of the western front,
and was commanded from the battlements.
The area is divided into four wards, of which the “outer” covers rather
more than its southern half, and the “town ward” about the eastern half of
the remainder. The other, or north-western quarter, is again subdivided
pretty equally into a “middle” ward, and a northern or “inner” ward. The
whole area and the several wards are protected, where necessary, by walls
and ditches. The curtain along the cliff seems to have been a mere parapet,
save where, as in the inner ward, it supported interior buildings. The walls

generally vary up to 30 feet in height, and from 4 feet to 5 feet in thickness.
The outer ditch of the place, also the town ditch, commenced in a deep
ravine close north of the keep, and was carried along the north front,
skirting what are called “the Flats”; thence along the east front, between the
wall and the town, and thence round the south end, and so beneath a part of
the west front, until it is lost in the steep ground near the bridge, having
been altogether nearly 700 yards in length. From this ditch branched a
second, which traversed the place east and west, from the town ditch to the
river bank, and which, placed to the south of a cross-wall, was the defence
of the three northern wards from the outer ward.
Another ditch, commencing in the ravine below the keep, runs north and
south, and joined the preceding ditch, and thus protected the inner and
middle wards from the town ward. Finally, from this branched another and
still shorter ditch, which ran east and west into the river bank, and formed
the defence of the inner from the middle ward; so that each curtain had its
separate ditch. All the ditches are shown in Grose’s plan, but the town ditch,
though to be traced, has been filled up and built upon. The deepest and
broadest of the whole, and it is a formidable excavation, is that proper to the
inner ward, something of the elevation of which is due to the heaping up of
the contents of the ditch. These ditches seem all to have been dry. They are
traversed at their ends by the curtains, and in three places, where the north
curtain closes the end of the inner-ward ditch, and where the other end ran
out upon the river slope, and where the east curtain closes the great cross
ditch, are arched openings in the curtain at the level of the bottom of the
ditch. Grose also shows a fourth arch in the wall of the middle ward. These
were either drains or posterns. They are so nearly buried that only the tops
of some of them are seen. Grose calls them doors, and they may be so. They
seem original.
The enceinte of the outer ward seems to have been a mere buttressed and
embattled wall, of no very great strength. This ward could only have been
held by a very strong garrison. It was probably designed, like the Scottish
barmkin, to afford a refuge for the townfolk and their cattle, supposing the
town to be taken by an enemy. In the event of a serious siege it would
probably have been abandoned. Leland speaks of a fair chapel and two
chantries in the first area, with monuments said to be of the Baliols. They
were probably in this ward. There was a gate from the town in the east

front, opposite the market-place, probably at the present entrance, and an
inner gate, at the north-west corner, of which some traces remain, and
which led into the middle ward. The drawbridge of this gate is replaced by a
causeway of earth, closing the end of the ditch. The slight defence of this
outer ward is consistent with the stanzas in the old ballad of the “Rising of
the North”:—
“That Baron to his castle fled,
To Barnard Castle then fled hee.
The uttermost walles were eathe to win,
The Earles have won them presentlie.
The uttermost walles were lime and bricke;
But thoughe they wan them soon anone,
The innermost walles they could not win,
For they were cut in rocke of stone.”

The baron was Sir George Bowes, who held the castle for eleven days
against the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in 1569, and then,
according to some accounts, capitulated on fair terms. Probably Percy beck
was then so named.
The town ward, occupying the north-east quarter of the area, much less
extensive than the outer ward, was more strongly fortified. Upon its east
curtain are the remains of a rectangular building, projecting inwards from
the wall, and known as Brackenbury’s Tower. There was also a square
tower at the north-east angle. On the north front is a half-round tower,
projecting from the wall, and serving to flank a large round-headed
doorway, evidently a main entrance from the north, independent of the
town. The arch of this portal is composed of three rings of voussoirs, each
chamfered, of excellent ashlar, but without ornament. The jambs are also
chamfered. They have a plain impost also chamfered, but with a sort of
bead-moulding underneath. There is no portcullis. This seems to have been
the middle or inner doorway of a regular rectangular gatehouse, the lines of
the side walls of which are indicated by toothings on each side of the door.
There are remains of similar lateral walls within. With the gatehouse, the
drawbridge is, of course, gone, and the ditch has been filled up.

BARNARD CASTLE.

A. Inner Ward. C. Town Ward. F. Brackenbury’s Tower.
B. Middle Ward. D. Outer Ward. G. Round Tower.
E. North Gate.

West of this Norman gate, and standing on the counterscarp of the ditch
of the inner ward, opposite to the keep, a shoulder in the curtain is occupied
by a small rectangular tower, in substance Norman, whence the curtain, of
great height and strength, closing the north end of the ditch, runs up to the
keep. In its base, in the bottom of the ditch, is seen the upper part of one of
the round-headed openings already noticed. This is of 4 feet span, and more
like a postern than a drain.
The area of this town ward is occupied as a kitchen-garden, and part of it
is locked up, and entry refused. The curtains seem substantially Norman.
Grose shows the remains of a drawbridge between this and the middle
ward, and no doubt there must have been some such communication.
The middle ward seems to have contained stables and offices, now
destroyed. Its communication with the outer and town wards has been
mentioned. It had also a drawbridge, superseded by an earthen causeway, at

its north-west corner, leading into the inner ward. It is difficult to say
whether the ditch was here run out upon the face of the cliff, and has since
been filled up, for a cottage has been built on the slope outside, and
effectually conceals the point for examination. Grose, however, indicates a
doorway in the ditch here, as at the other end, and in the cross-wall dividing
this from the town ward.
The inner ward is the most perfect and really curious part of the castle. It
is in level about 30 feet above the rest, commands the whole area, and
predominates grandly over the Tees. It contains the keep, northern tower,
the domestic buildings between them, the curtains and buttresses, and the
remains of the gatehouse. The keep caps the north-east angle, and is half
within and half without the curtain. It is a very grand piece of masonry,
built of blocks of coarse red grit of moderate size, square and coursed, with
rather open joints. It is circular, about 40 feet diameter, and about 50 feet
high to the base of the parapet, now gone. It rises from the rock. Its base for
about 6 feet batters slightly, but above that it is cylindrical. It is absolutely
without ornament, and there is not even the usual cordon to mark the top of
the base. The loops are of unusual length, and slightly dovetailed at the
lower end; never cruciform. The original openings are mostly square-
headed, and without mouldings or labels. One large window, high up,
towards the north, is round-headed, and probably original. Towards the
town ward is a five-light late Tudor window, an insertion. Probably the
parapet rested on bold corbels, but, if so, they are gone. There are no strut-
holes nor indications of a bretasche. Though circular above and towards the
field, the southern or interior face is capped by a bold spur, a pyramid cut
diagonally, with the apex dying into the round wall about four-fifths of the
way up. This spur contains a mural chamber. It is much shattered.

THE KEEP, BARNARD CASTLE.

The keep is cylindrical within, and has a basement and three upper floors.
All its original openings seem to have been either flat or round-headed.
There is no original pointed arch; that over the main door is clearly an
insertion. The basement is on the ground level, about 20 feet diameter, and
the walls about 10 feet thick, and it is covered in with a flattish dome of
inferior rubble, but probably original. On the south side are traces of a
fireplace, of which the vertical tunnel remains in the wall. The entrance-
door is on the west side, and so also is the main door. It is much broken, and
has at present a late flat-pointed arch, but it seems to have been round-
headed. It opened not, as now, from the court, but from the passage-room
leading to the postern. In the outer wall, a couple of yards to the right of the

door, is a recess like a sepulchre in the keep wall, and in it is laid a stone
coffin, probably found in the outer ward. The recess may have been a seat;
it can scarcely have been a tomb. The entrance-door has no portcullis. In its
left jamb a flat-topped mural passage, 3 feet wide, leads into a garderobe
which projects outwards between the keep and the curtain, and has a short
exterior loop. The shaft of a garderobe in the floor above so drops that it is
evident that here, as at Corfe, there was a wooden partition within it.
Entering the keep, on the right a door leads up half a dozen steps into the
north side of what is called the guard-chamber, a barrel-vaulted room, 14
feet east and west, by 7 feet, with a loop to the south. This looks very much
like an oratory, though it is a passage-room. It is contained partly within the
spur buttress, and is evidently the cause of that appendage. From near the
west end of the chamber, a second door leads by a mural stair, 3 feet broad,
to the first floor, a circular chamber, 21 feet diameter, with walls about 8
feet 6 inches thick. This stair opens by a narrow, round-headed door in the
jamb of a doorway, also round-headed, which seems to have led from this
floor into the “great chamber,” the withdrawing-room of the hall. In the
opposite door jamb, a similar door leads by a mural passage to a garderobe
above that already mentioned.
The first floor was evidently the state-room. It has traces of a fireplace to
the south side, but the hood is gone, and opposite to it is a round-headed
window of 4 feet opening, looking up the Tees. Another window, probably
of the same pattern, looked towards the tower ward. This has been altered to
suit a Tudor five-light flat-topped window. This seems to have been called
“My Lady’s Chamber.”
In the left-hand jamb of the north window, now much broken, another
narrow door opens on a mural stair, 2 feet 6 inches broad, which, following
the curve of the wall, and lighted by small loops, led up to the battlements,
opening, on the way, upon the second floor, of which the floor and roof,
both of timber, are now gone. This floor also had a fireplace, and a sort of
magnified loop, which did duty as a door, and opened upon the battlements
of the hall, and led also to a third garderobe, corbelled out above the other
two. This has an open vent, while the shaft of the other two descends within
the wall to a sewer, the arched mouth of which is just visible at the foot of
the wall, outside.