BROUGHAM CASTLE.
This very curious pile stands on the right bank of the river Eamont, just below the point at which it is joined from the south by the Lowther, so that the combined stream covers the fortress on the north, as do the two waters and the marshy ground between them on the west front. The castle is placed but a few yards distant from and but a few feet above the Eamont, and between it and the large rectangular camp which marks the site of the Roman “Brovacum,” whence both castle and township derive their names; such, at least, seems the most probable etymology, though a claim has been set up for Burgham, which would have been more tenable had there been evidence of the place having been an English as well as a Roman stronghold.
The Roman road from Brough and Appleby towards Carlisle and Penrith skirts the north-eastern front of both camp and castle, and is carried, by a modern bridge, across the river, a few yards below the latter. Above the castle and upon the Eamont was placed the castle mill, the weir connected with which still remains. The actual site of Brovacum has been claimed for Brougham Hall, on the adjacent high ground; but, however this may be, the camp below is undoubtedly Roman, and an excellent example of the entrenchments of that people. A Roman altar was found, in 1602, at the confluence of the two rivers. What earlier name is embodied in the Roman Brovacum is not known, but “Bro” in South Wales is the old Welsh word for “the hill country,” and is preserved in Brocastle and Broviscin, in Glamorgan. The parish of Brougham is large; the church is called Ninekirks, probably a corruption of St. Ninian’s kirk. The parochial chapel, which stands near Brougham Hall, is dedicated to St. Wilfrid.
The camp is contained within a single bank and exterior ditch, both very well marked, though in height and depth very much reduced. Along the scarp or inner slope of the ditch are traces of a step or terrace, as for a line of palisades, in front of and below the main defence. The area within the ditch is 113 yards broad, and its length, now 134 yards, was probably 198 yards, those being the proportions of the camp at Brough. The ditch is about 25 yards broad. The entrance is gone; it was no doubt in the centre of the east side, that towards the road. The angles are, as usual, slightly rounded. The castle stands a few yards north of the camp, the adjacent parts of the latter having been cut away and levelled in forming its outworks. The castle is, in plan, a very irregular four-sided figure; the south and west sides meet at less than a right angle, and are in length 80 yards and 77 yards. The north side, at right angles to the west, and upon the river, is 50 yards. The east side has been partly rebuilt, with a low salient angle. It is in length about 40 yards. This area is the main, or rather the only, court of the castle. The keep originally stood clear within the court, near to its north-east angle; a large gatehouse now occupies that angle, and much of the north front, and is connected with the keep, which, therefore, is no longer isolated. The hall and domestic buildings stand against the south wall, and are continued a short distance along the east wall. A large square tower is placed at the south-west angle, and covers a postern. The west wall is free, and seems to have been low. The castle is about 50 yards from the river, and 30 feet above it. The entrance was from the east, along the bank of the river. A ditch, wholly artificial, and probably filled with rainwater, protected the west, south, and east fronts. Towards the west it is broadest and deepest, that being the exposed front. Towards the river the natural fall and the marshy character of the ground were a sufficient defence. The entrance is, and probably always was, in the east wall, at its north or river end. This part of the enceinte wall is built with a shoulder or re-entering angle, so as to command, for some yards, the approach to the outer gate. The moat is now traversed by a causeway of earth, replacing the earlier drawbridge.
Brougham Castle
The Gatehouse, rectangular in plan, and 90 feet long by 39 feet broad, occupies the space between the keep and the north wall, and extends either way beyond the keep. It is composed of two parts,—one, a block of chambers, lodges, &c., forms, or rather abuts upon, the curtain; the other, connecting these chambers with the keep, contains the vaulted entrance. The entrance is broken transversely into two parts, separated by a small open court. The outer passage, 34 feet long, belongs to the outer gate; the other, 36 feet, to the inner gate. The keep forms one side and the lodges the other. Thus, there are really two gatehouses,—one abutting on the north-east, and one on the north-west, angle of the keep, each with its own defences and gates, the buildings on the north communicating with both. The exterior portal is in the east wall. It has no flanking towers, being protected by the curtain. The north-east angle is capped by a square buttress, placed diagonally. The gateway has a plain, flat segmental arch over it. Upon a stone are the words, “This made Roger,” and above are two tiers, each of two good Decorated windows of two lights, with trefoiled heads and a quatrefoil in the head, and divided by a transom. Between the two upper windows are three bold corbels, intended to support a machicolation resembling those on each face of the keep. It is said that formerly the arms of Vaux, “checquy,” were carved over the entrance; but it seems probable that they were the arms of Clifford, “chequy, a fess,” or it may have been “a bendlet.” The passage within, 11 feet broad, is vaulted. The first defence was a portcullis, of which the square groove, 6 inches broad by 4 inches deep, remains. Within this is the rebate for a pair of gates, and on the right the small door of a lodge. At the inner end of the passage was a second pair of gates, opening towards the first pair, and beyond them the open court, with the keep wall on the left. Above this outer gateway is a large room, 21 feet east and west, by 32 feet long. In its west wall is a fireplace, and a door opening into the middle chambers. In its north wall a good Decorated window looks upon the river; in the east wall are two windows overlooking the outer gate, and between them, over the gate, a recess for working the portcullis.
Ground Plan of Norman Keep. Brougham Castle.
PLAN OF BROUGHAM CASTLE
Beyond the open court is the second part of the gatehouse, which commences by a portcullis, backed by a pair of doors, within which is a passage 20 feet long by 16 feet broad, vaulted in two bays with transverse and diagonal ribs springing from six corbels. There are no ridge ribs; the inner or further portal also had doors. The left-hand lodge is a vaulted cell, 11 feet long by 3 feet 3 inches broad. On the right the room is much larger, and leads to the north postern. The exterior or north front of these two gatehouses forms a handsome block, and is pierced by various openings at different levels. At its north-east corner is an angle buttress; then follows one in section a half square, set on diagonally; and west of this, again, is a large square buttress, in one side of which is the north postern, a small shoulder-headed door at the foot of a flight of stairs.
The lofty tower at the south-west angle of the court is about 35 feet square, with an appendage on the east face. It has thick walls and mural passages, and projects but little from the curtain. It has a basement and three upper floors. The first floor was entered by an exterior flight of stairs, which also communicated with the rampart of the west curtain. At its junction with the tower is the postern, the approach to which is guarded by a loop, while nearly over the door discharges the shoot of a garderobe.
Along the south wall are the domestic buildings, of which the chief was the chapel, about 35 feet by 20 feet. This was on the first floor, with a timber floor and open roof. The chamber below was entered from the court by a lancet door. The chapel had a large east window, of which the jambs remain; and in its south or curtain wall are two long trefoil-headed windows, splayed within. Towards the east end are three sedilia, also with trefoiled heads and trefoils in the spandrels, the whole beneath a flat top. There is also a piscina of late Decorated aspect. Near the chapel, towards the south-east angle, the remains of a large fireplace seem to indicate the kitchen, and along the east wall are two windows, and traces of a fireplace between them, all which seem to belong to the hall. At the north end, also, on the first floor, are remains of a handsome door in the Perpendicular style, with a four-centred arch beneath a square head. The staircase may have been exterior. Grose shows some walls here in 1775, which are now gone.
The Keep, called in Countess Anne’s time “the Roman Tower,” the only remain of the original castle, is 44 feet square, and, in its present state, of unusual height. Its exterior plinth is confined to the north side. The two western angles are covered by pilasters, 12 feet broad and of 6 inches projection, one on each face, meeting so as to form a solid angle. Two other pilasters, balancing these, cover the east end of the north and south walls, but there are none on the east side, that having been covered by the forebuilding. The south face is prolonged eastwards 12 feet by a wall 5 feet thick, which rises to the third-floor level, and formed the south end of the forebuilding. The pilasters rise to the present summit of the wall, and terminated originally in four square turrets, of which traces remain at the two northern angles. The keep has a basement and three upper floors, of which the uppermost, if not an addition, has been recast. The walls are 11 feet thick at the base, and at least 10 feet at the rampart level. The parapet is gone. There is no external set-off. In the centre of each face, and near the top, are three or four bold corbels, which evidently carried a short machicolation; and in the angles, near the top, are several cruciform loops, slightly fantailed at the top and bottom, and with lateral arms ending in oillets, much resembling those at Kenilworth. Some of these are the lower half of those of the turrets, which, with the parapet, were standing in 1775. At the upper part of the south-eastern angle the wall is corbelled out 12 inches for a breadth of 15 feet on the southern, and rather less on the eastern, face. This is to give a little more space to a mural oratory, which has a loop on the south face, and a small trefoil-headed window towards the east, clear of the forebuilding. On the north face, near the east pilaster, a vertical line of six loops shows the presence of a well-stair from the first floor. The four lower loops have round heads; the two upper have square heads, and are probably later.
The basement is at the ground level. It has splayed loops to the north, west, and south; and in the east side is a recess with parallel sides, and a trace of a rebate of a doorway. This, if original, must have led into a cell below the forebuilding, as at Rochester; but it may be a Decorated insertion. It is nearly covered up with rubbish. In the north-east angle, which has been filled up with a short wall, is a small door opening into a bent passage, which now leads into the open air, at where was the foot of the great entrance-staircase. There may always have been a cell here, but the cross-wall and the outer door are not original. In the west end of the north wall is another recess opening into a garderobe chamber, 5 feet long by 3 feet broad, and original. This basement floor has had a vaulted and ribbed roof, springing from corbels at the angles, and from four others, in the centre of each side. There was, in 1775, a central pier. As at Richmond, this vault was an insertion replacing timber. The basement was about 13 feet high.
The first floor is 23 feet square. It has round-headed window-openings to the north and west, in round-headed recesses, with beaded angles. In the south wall was a fireplace, probably a garderobe, like that below. In the north-east angle, filled up like that below by a short cross-wall, is a door opening on a well-stair, which occupies that angle, and ascends to the roof. The east wall has been in some measure rebuilt, recently. In it may be seen parts of a large Decorated doorway, evidently inserted to give a direct entrance to the chamber. This floor has had an arcade against its walls, of which traces remain on the south and west sides. The arcade had slender piers and trefoiled arches. It is unusual to find so ornate a room in the first, or, indeed, any floor in a Norman keep: it must have more resembled a chapter-house than a private chamber. The chapel at Castle Rising was so arcaded, and those at York, and in the curtain at Richmond. This floor was about 15 feet high, and was covered by the joists and floor of the room above.
The second floor has round-headed recesses, beaded at the angles, for the windows, in the north and west sides; and a flue, now laid open, occupies the south side. In the east wall is the original entrance,—a plain round-headed arch of 6 feet opening, with a chamfered rebate for an exterior door. There was no grate. Close north of this is a small door entering an oblique passage, which opened, as at Middleham and Rochester, upon the turret over the outer entrance of the forebuilding. The well-stair has no direct opening into this floor, whatever may have been the case before the alterations. There seems to be, as below, a garderobe in the north-west angle.
With this floor the original keep seems to have ended. There is now, however, a third floor, which, if not altogether new, has been remodelled. The walls are very thick, and the four angles within are filled up with short walls, converting the chamber into an octagon, or rather into a square with the angles taken off. One of these fillings-up, that to the north-east, is carried down the whole way. The other three are confined to the top floor, and rest upon brackets. This floor had a large recess and a window in each of the four main faces, of which that to the west is segmental and ribbed. These recesses are now quite inaccessible; but it would appear, from the thickness of the wall, and from certain square apertures outside, that they communicate on the west side with mural chambers. In the north-west angle is a very remarkable fireplace of about 9 feet opening, with a perfectly flat platband, composed of thirteen stones joggled together. This is a very fine example of this kind of work, and it stands quite unaltered. In the opposite, or south-eastern angle, is a shallow-pointed recess, and in it a square-headed doorway, which opens into the oratory. The window recess in the south wall differs from the rest. Its arch was high-pointed, and moulded with deep reduplicated bands, with half-shafts with bell capitals; no doubt Decorated, but of Early English character. From the east jamb of this recess a second passage opens into the oratory, and this was probably the principal entrance to it. The oratory is seen from below to be vaulted and groined. It occupies the south-eastern angle of the building.
KEEP, VERTICAL SECTION.
The east face of the keep was covered by the Forebuilding, which evidently contained a straight staircase, which rose from the north-east corner of the keep, and ascended to the main doorway on the second-floor level. This doorway, as at Middleham, is near the south end of the wall, but, notwithstanding, the steps must have begun above the ground level, to reach, without undue steepness, so considerable a height. The wall has been so much injured, and so freely repaired, that the marks of the stairs are no longer visible, but a toothing and some springing stones, as for an arch, seem to show that the staircase rose from the north-east angle, under a covered way or low tower, the battlements of which were evidently reached by the oblique passage still seen above in the wall, as at Middleham and Rochester. Below the level of the original doorway are traces of a larger and more lofty doorway, in the ornate Decorated style,—evidently an insertion. This would give direct passage into the first floor of the keep, and was probably inserted when the arcading was introduced, and this converted into the main apartment. There are other toothings and roughnesses in the wall, indicating various alterations. The forebuilding was about 12 feet broad, and contained a basement and two floors, as shown by the openings in the south wall, which are, near the ground, a loop; above it, a small window; and above that a garderobe, corbelled out upon two heavy blocks upon the south wall. Above the line of roof of the forebuilding is to be seen the east window of the oratory, and near it a cruciform loop.
KEEP, FROM THE SOUTH-WEST.
Unfortunately for the close examination of this very curious keep, the upper part is inaccessible, and ladders of sufficient length are not readily to be procured. The architectural history of the castle may be inferred from its details, so far as these are visible. It is evident that the original fortress was a late Norman keep, and it must have been placed within an enceinte pretty closely corresponding to that now seen, and which skirts the edge of the ditch. Of this supposed original enceinte wall, as well as of the domestic buildings and gatehouse, which must have been present in some form or other within it, there remain no very certain traces. The keep, judging from internal evidence, and probably the ditches were the work of Robert de Vipont, very early in the thirteenth century.
In the Decorated period the castle underwent great alterations. The keep was probably raised a story, and an oratory included in the new work. The basement was vaulted, the first floor arcaded, and the forebuilding so altered as to admit of an entrance on that floor. All the rest of the castle, gatehouses, domestic buildings, and the whole of the enceinte wall belong to one general period, and are probably the work of Roger de Clifford, the first of his race who held this property, and the husband of Isabel de Vipont, its heiress, in the reign of Edward I. Usually, when a Norman fortress was remodelled in the Edwardian period, the keep was neglected, and left in its original isolation; here, however, it was decided to turn the keep to account, and to ornament its principal chambers, and connect them with the suite of rooms in the upper floor of the gatehouse.
The drawing represents a section of the keep east and west, looking south. Something of the various additions is here shown, and the springings of the vault of the basement.
The exterior view of the keep is taken from the south-west quarter, and shows, above, the projection for the oratory, and below and beyond it the end wall of the demolished forebuilding. On the left is seen the river gateway of the entrance.
There are some peculiarities of detail in this castle which need further investigation. The large windows of the first and second floors of the keep are original; but the half-piers and bell-caps in the exterior jambs look much later, and may be a part of the Decorated additions. It is said that the buildings against the east wall received some alterations from another Roger de Clifford, grandson of the former. It is curious that walls so thick as those of the keep, and of such good material, should have been left solid, for the most part unpierced by the chambers and passages so much affected by the Norman architects. It is also to be observed that the curtain wall is but scantily furnished with flanking defences. Countess Anne mentions “the Tower of Leaguer,” and “the Pagan Tower,” and “the Greystoke State Chamber,” in Brougham Castle.