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.

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.

There seems also to have been a square-headed opening in the stair, to give a way to the top of the ward-curtain, of which the allure was 2 feet 6 inches wide, having a parapet of 3 feet, and a rerewall of 2 feet. As the parapet of the keep is gone, the stair terminates abruptly at the level of the rampart wall, where the wall is 7 feet 6 inches thick; and thence is a good view of the castle and town, and of one of the most lovely reaches of the Tees. In 1592 this keep was roofed with lead. The roof was probably always flat.

Mortham Tower capped the north-west angle of the ward, rising from the rock high above the river. It is a mere fragment. It seems to have been of irregular plan, built to fit on to the hollow bend of an existing wall. When it was built, it was thought prudent to strengthen the wall by stout exterior buttresses. The original wall is Norman. The first built part of the tower seems to have been Early English, and its completion Decorated.

The space between Mortham Tower and the keep was occupied by the hall and withdrawing-rooms, the latter being next the keep. The hall was on the first floor, as shown by its two windows in the curtain. These are of two lights, with a transom and trefoiled heads, and an oval quatrefoil in the head. They are placed in recesses with plain segmental arches, and side seats of stone. They are of the best Decorated period, and evidently insertions into an older wall, which has also been strengthened with Decorated buttresses.

Between the hall and the keep were, on the ground-floor, passages leading on the left to what was probably a cellar below the hall, and on the right into the keep, while at its end is a small square-headed postern in the curtain, still in use. Above this passage was the withdrawing-room, placed between the hall and the state floor of the keep; and the window of this room, in the curtain, is the well-known bay which displays in its soffit the “bristly boar” of Richard III. The window is projected over the postern, upon bold corbels and is mainly of good Perpendicular date, but the superstructure has been altered and debased by some very poor Tudor work, similar to the window in the keep, and possibly due to Sir George Bowes. This was called “The Great Chamber” in 1592.

Its gatehouse occupied the south-west angle of this ward, and was built on the edge of the cliff. The remains of it are very scanty. The curtain between it and Mortham Tower seems to have been a mere parapet, cresting the cliff.

The curved curtain connecting the gatehouse with the keep, and covering the two landward faces of the ward, is tolerably perfect. It is strengthened by an exterior buttress and a small tower. This latter, which is placed near the angle of the curtain, towards the keep, contains a basement and upper chamber, both vaulted, though of the latter, which was at the rampart level, only some fragments remain. This tower is rectangular, but the angles are chamfered off. It has no internal projection, and outside, against each of its three faces, is applied a Decorated buttress of 2 feet 6 inches breadth, by 3 feet 6 inches projection at the base. Each is of three stages, and dies into the wall near its summit. Between this tower and the keep is a large buttress, apparently hollow, possibly for the pipe of a garderobe. This also is a Decorated addition. Near it the curtain has a flat Norman pilaster strip, but of three stages. It is 4 feet broad, and diminishes from 18 inches to 6 inches projection. It also dies into the wall near the top.

It is not unlikely, from the aspect of the inner ward, that this was a fortress of the tenth century, composed of a cliff on two sides, a ditch on the other two, and a centre more or less nearly circular, and artificially scarped; in fact, a motte, upon which stood the original stronghold. The outer ditches may be of the same date, but from their figure and plan they are more likely to have been a later, probably a Norman, addition. Their contents are thrown inward so as to form a ramp behind the wall.

It is evident that the whole area of the castle, as it now stands, was inclosed by the Normans, and the walls throughout and nearly all the towers are latish in that style. Here and there, spread over the whole enceinte, are remains of Norman work. The pilaster strips on the inner curtain, the arches in the several ditches, the square tower and gate on the north curtain, Brackenbury’s Tower, and much of the wall towards the town are original. In the inner ward the base of Mortham Tower, and the half-round mural tower near the north gate, are probably Early English. The keep, the fragments of the hall, the south-east tower of the inner ward, and most of the remains of other buildings are evidently Decorated. The original walls were mostly of sound rubble, with ashlar dressings. In the Decorated work ashlar was more freely used.

The castle must have undergone almost a rebuilding in the Decorated period. The Norman architect evidently treated the whole inner ward as a shell keep. His successors added part of Mortham Tower, and the Decorated artist, more ambitious, raised the round tower as a keep, added—probably rebuilding—the hall, and completed Mortham Tower, and strengthened or restored the curtain in various places.

Here, as was much the practice in the North, the round-headed arch and the flat lintel were largely employed in the Decorated period. The general style of the work is much to be admired. Strong, sound, massive, very plain, of excellent execution, it is in admirable taste, and in good keeping with a military structure. The keep, though not one of the largest, is one of the finest round towers in England. Its proportions are good, its materials of proper size and rich colour, and its very plainness is indicative of strength.

There is but little Perpendicular work; probably it was of a lighter character, and has fallen and been removed.

Whatever may be regarded as the value of the material evidence of its earthworks, the notion of Bernard Castle occupying the site of an earlier stronghold is unsupported by records. The present town is thought to have risen on the fall of Marwood, a place the very site of which is now forgotten; neither is it a parish, being included in the vast parish of Gainford, the church of which is eight miles distant. From Domesday no aid is to be derived, seeing that this valuable record does not include Durham, nor is there any mention of either Marwood or Gainford, still less of the castle, in Hugh Pudsey’s Domesday of Durham, the Boldon Book, compiled in 1133, for this is confined to the bishopric, within which the Baliol fee was not at that time included.

Guy de Baliol received from William Rufus the Barony of Bywell, in Northumberland, and either from that king, or his father, the lordship of Gainford, of which he gave the church to St. Mary’s, at York.

Bernard, his son and successor, was a distinguished adherent of Stephen, but lived into the reign of Henry II., and was one of those who broke up the siege of Alnwick, by the Scots, in 1174, before which time he probably built Barnard Castle. He also seems to have built the church, or rather chapel, of Barnard Castle town, and gave it also to St. Mary’s. He was succeeded by another Bernard, father of Hugh, father of John de Baliol, founder of Baliol College, Oxford, and of St. John’s Hospital, in Barnard Castle town, and regent of Scotland. He was born in the castle. He married Devorgoil, a co-heir of Alan, Lord of Galloway, from whom their son, another John, inherited the deadly claim to the throne of Scotland, which he made good, after a fashion, in 1292. He lost his English estates, and died at Château-Gaillard in 1314.

Edward, his son, became king of Scotland, 1332, but was expelled in 1341, and died childless in 1363.

On the attainder of John de Baliol, Bishop Bek claimed Barnard Castle, probably unjustly, as belonging to the See. As early as 1301 he had seized upon it, and he held it for some time, and to his tenure are attributed the keep and other additions in the style prevailing at the period. Edward I., however, granted it to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who cared little for episcopal claims, which took the form of protests from several successive bishops.

The castle remained in the Earls of Warwick, Beauchamps and Nevilles, for five descents, and here Thomas Beauchamp founded an Augustin Priory about 1381. How it came to be held for a time by the Earls of Westmoreland of the other line of the Nevilles does not appear. It finally, however, vested in Richard Duke of Gloucester, who repaired it, and left his cognisance upon it, as has been stated. On his death it remained in the Crown until it was sold, and after various vicissitudes became the property of the ancestor of the Duke of Cleveland. It was dismantled in 1630, when the spoil of the great hall was carried to Raby.

The bridge across the Tees is a fine one, of two lofty pointed arches, said to have been rebuilt in the last century. The arches are moulded in three sets-off, and beneath, each arch is supported by five bold ribs. If modern, the old type is well followed.

In the adjacent church there are some old parts. There is a good ornate south door with flanking columns and capitals, round-headed, with a chevron moulding on the arch. The opening is wider than usual. The style is late Norman. The base of the tower is set round with several short Early English buttresses. About 12 feet west of the tower, in the churchyard, are laid several large blue gravestones of a quality not now used. They seem to have carried brasses, are much worn, and have evidently been removed from the interior of this church or the castle chapel. Under one, on which remains a merchant’s mark, is buried Sir John Hullock, a Baron of the Exchequer, who died July 31st, 1829, and his wife, who died November 18th, 1852.