THE CASTLE OF BRAMBER, SUSSEX.

OF the shires of England there is none more intensely English than Sussex. Its name, the names of the most central of its two capital towns, of its principal and secondary divisions, of its parishes, and in a very remarkable degree of its inhabitants, are but little changed from those they bore on the eve of the Conquest, and when under the sway of Godwin and Harold. Even the not infrequent marks of Norman occupation, in the form of parish churches, abbeys, and castles of great strength and durability, were many of them grafted upon foundations dating from the days of Alfred and Egbert. This is the case with Selsey, the ecclesiastical parent of the see of Chichester, with Bosham, Malling, Steyning, and other religious houses; and Arundel, Bramber, Knapp, Hastings, and Lewes, all great castles in their day, were the seats of English chiefs for centuries, before their banks were crested with walls of masonry, or their mounds crowned with keeps constructed after the Norman pattern. Pevensey, indeed, boasts a still earlier origin.

British remains in Sussex are but scanty. A few of the larger and more elevated of the hill-camps, and those of irregular form, as Cissbury, which includes 60 acres, are supposed to be the work of the Regni, the earliest recorded inhabitants of the district. It is also difficult not to see in the Arun, the Adur, and the Ouse, names corresponding to the Aeron, the Dour, and the Usk or Esk, by which many streams in Celtic countries are still designated. Glynde has been claimed as a Celtic name, but it is very rare, especially in Sussex, to find the name of a parish of other than Teutonic origin.

Of the Roman period the traces are more numerous. The main road intersecting the county from Chichester towards London is undoubtedly of that date, and there seems to have been at least one other from Chichester—the Roman Regnum—to Pevensey. There remain also several rectangular camps, as Goushill, Hollingbury, Ditchling, Highdown, and Brighthelmstone Down, evidently Roman. Chichester, though its Latin name probably includes an earlier appellation, has the Roman cruciform arrangement of its two main streets, though not the rectangular outline. Anderida, Mutuantonis, and Mida, Roman towns of which the site is disputed, seem to have been in Sussex; and at Bognor and other places, pavements and foundations and inscribed stones, and other marks of Roman habitation, have been discovered. Still the remains, whether of British or Roman occupation, are but slight: all that speaks of law, of order, of property, of the family tie, of the forefathers of the people, of civil or religious polity, and of public worship—all of this character which is ancestral, is English. This thorough uprooting of the traces of earlier occupation is due, no doubt, to the position of Sussex upon that part of the British coast most exposed to Saxon and Danish invasion, and which bore the attacks of those formidable invaders when at their earliest and fiercest. Sussex was late to come under the humanising influences of Christianity, remaining Pagan till the middle of the seventh century. The remarkable conservation, to our days, of the names and divisions is probably due to the very peculiar configuration of the district, and to the isolation produced by its steep and lofty frontier ridges, and by the dense woodland which covered, and to some extent does still cover, its central part. As the position of the principal castles is determined by this configuration, a few words concerning it will not be out of place.

Sussex forms the western half of a chalk basin. The chalk rises in a long, narrow, lofty, and very steep ridge, forming the northern, eastern, and southern margins of the area, its height, reaching to 800 feet, being known as the Downs. The North Downs divide Sussex from Surrey, the South Downs are the frontier towards the sea. This latter ridge extends from near Chichester to Beachy Head, while the North Downs extend to Folkestone and Dover. The deep wooded area thus enclosed between them is the well-known weald of Sussex. The basin is cut across obliquely by the sea, and the south-eastern frontier of the county thus laid open for a length of about fifty miles. In former days, however, the broad marshes of Pevensey, Winchelsea, and Romney closed this opening with a barrier as effective as the downs themselves.

Upon these downs, and especially upon the range to the seaward, the early sea-kings seem to have pitched their resting-places. Here are still found such hill-camps as Woolstonbury, Caburn, Rookshill, and Cheukbury, circular in form, and therefore neither British nor Roman, and besides these, several others, as Newhaven, Seaford, and Burling, which are segments of circles, and, like Flamborough Head, enclose headlands, and are attributed, with some probability, to the Danes. It seems the general opinion that these circular or segmental earthworks preceded the mounds and banks found in the interior of the country and upon lower ground, the work of the same people after their settlement and civilisation.

Sussex is the only county the primary divisions of which bear the names of rapes; of these it contains six: Hastings, Pevensey, Lewes, Bramber, Arundel, and Chichester, subordinate to which are sixty-five hundreds; each rape contains a portion of seaboard, a river, a haven, and a fortress. The rivers are the Lavant, which nearly encircles the city of Chichester, and falls into one head of the Bosham estuary, the port of Chichester—the name is thought to be a corruption of the Saxon hlifian, a rising, because the springs rise annually from deep sources;—the Arun, which descends the dell bearing its name, cleaving the chalk-range, and reaches the sea at Little Hampton; the Adur, the river of Bramber, which, also by a pass in the chalk, reaches the sea at Shoreham; the Ouse, the river of Lewes, which, through a narrow gorge, now joins the sea at Newhaven, instead of, as formerly, flowing out at Seaford. The Cuckmere is the river of Pevensey, but it leaves that haven far to the east, and descends, also by a gap in the chalk, to the sea, west of Beachy Head; and, finally, the Rother, the river of the rape of Hastings, but the common boundary of Sussex and Kent, and which falls into the sea at Rye. Pevensey Haven, though deprived of the Cuckmere, is the receptacle for a number of lesser streams, by which the upland waters formerly flooded that extensive level.

The fortresses of the rapes are also six:—Chichester, probably of Roman origin, long since destroyed; Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, and Hastings, all of præ-Norman date; Pevensey, of Roman origin. Ella, who landed a.d. 477, took possession of Chichester. All were the seats of English lords, and all were accepted by the Normans as well-chosen positions, and by them were occupied and strengthened. Knepp or Knapp Castle, subordinate to Bramber, in the same rape, like it, is of English origin.

Of the six castles, three, Arundel, Bramber, and Lewes, are posted at the upper openings of narrow gaps in the chalk downs. Chichester is placed to the east of and outside the chalk range. Pevensey stands within the weald, among the low marshes by which that tract opens upon the sea; and Hastings, also within the weald, stands upon the sea-cliff, on the rocks and sands to which it has given geologically its name.

All the six, as well as Knapp, possessed, on a larger or smaller scale, the conical mound so characteristic of English strongholds, and each, after the Conquest, became the chief seat of a barony, and was held by a powerful noble. Robert de Eu had Hastings; William de Warren, Lewes; the Earl of Moreton, Pevensey; Chichester fell to Roger de Montgomery, who there founded a castle upon the site of the earlier works, of which part of the mound remains. The castle stood within the city enclosure, in the north-east quarter. It became, with Arundel, the property of the D’Albinis, and was destroyed by order of King John, after which the third Earl of Arundel founded on its site the Grey Friars, of which the house was probably built with the materials of the castle. It is said that upon the mound stood a circular or polygonal keep, as at Arundel, and that the traces of its foundations were long visible on its summit. The mound has survived all its Norman additions, and is the only relic of the ancient fortress that is extant. The city, within which the castle stood, is also an early strong place. The cruciform streets are, doubtless, Roman, as are the coins and inscribed stones occasionally dug up; but the outline of the city is not rectangular, and is enclosed within a bank and ditch of irregular outline, once of formidable strength, and still in parts tolerably perfect. It is not improbable that these earthworks are post-Roman, the work of the Romanised Britons, and therefore earlier than the date of the castle mounds. The later wall was built against the bank, which thus still, where it remains, forms a broad ramp or terrace.

Arundel Castle, next eastwards to Chichester, and its superior in military importance, stands on the right bank of and high above the Arun. The pass is of a more open character than those to the east of it. This castle has already been described.

Knepp Castle is in Shipley parish. It had a shell keep upon the mound, of which traces remain, but which is said to have been destroyed as early as 1216.

Bramber, the castle next eastwards of Arundel, is held to be the English “Brymmburgh,” a fortress upon a brim or brink. It was the head of a barony, and the chief place of the rape to which it has given name, and which includes forty-two parishes. The rape extends about twenty-four miles from the Surrey border to the sea, with a width of about eight miles. Narrow as it is, it contained till 1832 the four Parliamentary boroughs of Shoreham, Bramber, Steyning, and Horsham, returning eight members to Parliament, now reduced to three. The castle stands on the west side of, and just above, the channel by which the Adur reaches the sea at Shoreham. The pass thus commanded is four miles long, and half a mile wide; the bottom flat and marshy, the sides very steep and rising to 600 or 700 feet. New Shoreham, founded about a.d. 1200, by the Norman lord of Bramber, stands upon the seashore; but old Shoreham, the English port, is now half a mile inland, the deposits from the river and the débris of the chalk range having encroached considerably upon the sea. Combe and St. Botolph’s, ancient parishes, are placed within the pass, and higher up upon the same side is the village of Bramber, standing upon slightly rising ground at the foot of the western hills, and upon the edge of a broad tract of level land, still wet, and formerly impracticable, across which the sluggish and frequently flooded Adur takes a rather winding course.

The castle is placed a little to the north-west of the village, and, as was the English custom, close to the parish church. From thence a raised causeway is carried across the valley, leading to the village of Sele or Beeding, the Bedinges of Domesday, where was once a religious house dependent upon the castle. The village, composed of one short street, adjoins the causeway, and near it was discovered, in 1839, the piling and piers in masonry of an ancient bridge by which the road was carried across one of the bye-streams of the Adur. A charter of 1075 refers to this bridge and to a chapel upon it, as “Stᵘˢ. Petrus de veteri ponte.” The causeway, however, claims to be of higher antiquity, and to have carried a Roman road across the marsh then probably flooded by the sea.

In the construction of the fortress, advantage was taken of a knoll of the lower or grey chalk, roughly oval in figure, and about 120 feet high above the river. This was levelled on the top and scarped round the sides so as to form a more or less rounded area, 560 feet north and south, by 280 feet east and west. The scarp descended above 180 feet at an angle of 45 feet, or a slope of one to one, into a ditch about 20 feet wide at the bottom, and the opposite side of which, or counterscarp, rose about 40 feet at a similar angle, so that the ditch at the counterscarp level was 100 feet broad, and the crest of the scarp rose 30 feet to 40 feet above the ground opposite. A very formidable defence. Towards the east, where the ground was low, the counterscarp was not above 20 feet high, and to add to the depth of the ditch, it was crested by a light bank, from which the ground sloped towards the marsh. On the north and north-west, where the ditch was at its deepest, and the ground was high, the slope outwards is gentle, falling off for a furlong or so. To the west, where there is a valley now occupied by the railway, the ground is low, and here the outer side of the ditch, forming the crest of the counterscarp, is a narrow ridge, as at Arques, succeeded by a very steep slope. Thus those who approached the place on that side, after toiling up a steep and dangerous ascent, would only find themselves on the outer edge of a deep ditch, with a second still higher and steeper ascent beyond it. Towards the south the ditch crosses instead of skirting the hill, and is much less deep. Here was the entrance, and upon the small tail of the knoll thus cut off is placed the parish church, standing, therefore, just outside the ditch, and in its turn defended by the slope of the hill, and by a hollow way which runs a few yards within the edge of the marsh, the level of which is 8 feet or 10 feet below it.

BRAMBER CASTLE.

Upon the table summit, 160 feet from its northern, and 40 feet from its eastern, margin, was thrown up a conical mound, about 40 feet high, and 70 feet diameter at its summit. It is wholly artificial, and the material has evidently been scooped up from the surface of the area, which has thus been rendered slightly hollow, the surface rising gently towards the mound, and towards the outer margin of the area, that is, the crest of the scarp. The mound does not appear to have had any ditch proper to itself. It has been dug into and disfigured on its southern side. Possibly there have been buildings there. On the north the original and usual form is untouched. The slope is very steep. This was the “burgh” or keep of the original fortress.

What stood upon the burgh, or how the margin of the area was originally defended, is of course a matter of conjecture; but considering the wealth of timber in the district, it is probable that the defences were all of that material, as well as the adjacent church, and thus supposing, we may figure to ourselves the “aula” of Earl Guerd, who was the lord of Bramber during the reign of the Confessor. The position is a very strong one, and the view from it to the east and north-east extensive.

Bramber is one of the castles named in Domesday. It was then a part of the lordship of Washington, and held by Wm. de Braose, the Norman grantee. “Ipse Wills. [de Braiosa] tenet Wasingetune. Guerd comes tenuit tempore Regis Edwardi. Tunc se defend. pro LIX. hid. Modo non dat geldum. In una ex his hidis sedet Castellum Brembre.”

William de Braose here mentioned probably was present at Hastings. A charter cited by Dugdale, dated 1075–6, shows him to have been of Braose, near Saumur, on the Loire. He had an immediate grant of nearly the whole rape of Bramber, and he adopted the castle as his chief seat.

Although local history is silent as to De Braose’s operations, much may be extracted from the evidence of the existing ruins. Around the edge of the table area he or his immediate successor built a wall of enceinte. Where the ground was sound, this was founded upon the edge of the slope, but where the chalk had given way, the foundations were laid 3 feet or 4 feet lower down, so that the wall was built as a revetment, and the ground within formed a ramp against it. Of this wall of enceinte some large portions remain, and its foundations may be traced all round. It was 7 feet to 9 feet thick, from 10 feet to 18 feet high inside, and outside from 20 feet to 30 feet. It was built entirely of large pebbles, as from the sea-beach, laid in very thick beds of mortar. Of course, such stones could have no bond, and are about the worst material that could, under ordinary circumstances, have been selected, but so firm is the mortar that the wall remains sound, and in places, even the parapet, 2 feet thick, and composed of the same material, is standing. Towards the north-east is a sharp angle, and another of some boldness towards the south-west, but neither there nor elsewhere do there seem to have been any mural towers, although it must be confessed that a dense underwood of thorn and bramble renders a close inspection of the exterior impracticable.

The Norman keep stood upon or just within the line of the enceinte, at its south end, close to the east of the entrance, and opposite to the church. It was a square of 40 feet, standing north and south, and about 240 feet south of the mound. Its walls at the base were 9 feet 6 inches thick, and at the summit but little, if anything less, and its exterior face was vertical. The basement chamber at the ground level was 21 feet square and 14 feet high, and above it were three stages, all with timber floors. The height to the rampart wall is, by guess, about 70 feet, or a diameter and three-quarters. The first floor, 23 feet high, either rested upon joists which were supported by the north and south walls, now gone, or, which is more probable, upon a ledge in the wall, which is reduced in thickness at that level about 6 inches, as seen on the west side. Only the west wall remains, and the lower 6 feet or 8 feet of the east wall. The north and south walls are entirely removed. The west wall is solid at the base, but the east wall is recessed in a curious way inside, and seems besides to have contained two cavities like cesspits. The whole mass has, however, been so pulled about, that little can be made of it.

At the first floor, also, the west wall is solid, save that in its south end is a short mural passage, vaulted, which seems to have ended in a garderobe, the vent of which is marked by a sort of vertical furrow in the wall. This passage was probably entered by a door in the south wall, near the south-west angle. The east floor, 19 feet high, rested upon six joists in the east and west walls. In its west wall is a full-centred recess, 3 feet deep, 2 feet above the floor, 5 feet wide, with jambs 7 feet high. In the recess is a window 3 feet wide, with jambs 5 feet high, also full-centred. Both recess and window are quite plain, and are not splayed.

The third floor, 14 feet high, also rested on six joists, east and west. This has no window to the west, but in the wall are two recesses for the vertical beams of a roof, and at the base of each a corbel. This looks as though the roof was inclined, as at Bridgenorth and elsewhere, at a low pitch, the north and south walls being its gables.

There are some indications, in a foundation, as of a forebuilding attached to the north face, where probably was the entrance. The material of the keep is chalk flint, laid in copious beds of mortar. The flints are undressed, and the workmanship is coursed rubble, very plain and good, but rather rough, with a tendency to herring-bone work. The window is dressed with ashlar, as are the hollow quoins of the interior, but there is no ornament, not even the usual Norman pilaster or plinth. The ashlar is probably the malm rock of the neighbourhood, a bed below the chalk, much like that used at Dorchester, and for some of the adjacent Oxfordshire churches. Altogether, this keep seems to be early Norman work, perhaps as early as Malling, and was probably built by the first De Braose before 1095, when his son was in possession.

When the keep was blown up, as it evidently was, with powder, the south and east walls fell in four or five huge masses into the adjacent ditch, where they remain but little altered, though obscured with vegetation. If these were cleared, something more of the detail of the keep might be discovered. The north wall seems to have been broken up and removed.

About 40 feet west of the keep are the remains of the entrance. So far as can now be seen there was no considerable gatehouse, probably only an arch in the curtain, as at Richmond. The fragment of a wall shows the approach to have been steep, and about 40 feet from the gate was a bridge, the pier and counter-pier of which, 13 feet apart, are still standing in the ditch, here not above 90 feet wide and 30 feet deep. The approach to the counter-pier rises steeply from the foot of the hill and passes the church.

The only building of which there are positive traces, beside the keep, within the area, was a rectangular pile, built upon the curtain, 60 feet long, and projecting 24 feet into the area. This is placed opposite to and east of the mound, and the passage between the two was only 15 feet broad. A part of the base of this building remains, and shows a plinth and fragment of wall faced with squared flint. The work looks many centuries later than the keep, and most certainly is not Norman. There is no trace of a well.

The parish church shares the protection of St. Nicholas, in common with Old Shoreham. It is in substance Norman, probably rather later than the castle, and was originally a cross church with a central tower. The nave and central square remain, but the choir and transepts have been removed, and the arches blocked up. The south door of the nave has a plain billet moulding, but the original opening has been walled up, and a smaller segmental doorway inserted. The cruciform plan seems to have been much in use here. It is seen at Old Shoreham, Steyning, and Broadwater.

Bramber has little or no history. The lords were among the wildest, most turbulent, and most unfortunate of the Norman barons. Their founder, William de Braose, received from the Conqueror forty-one lordships in Sussex, chiefly in this rape, and others in Dorset, Hants, Berks, Wilts, and Surrey. He founded St. Peter’s Priory, at Sele.

Philip, his son, adhered to Rufus, but was opposed to Henry I., and was disinherited. He married Berta, daughter of Milo, Earl of Hereford, with whom he had Brecknock, Gower, and other south Welsh lordships, and thus laid the foundation of much of the power and most of the misfortunes of his race. He probably founded the strong castles of Oystermouth and of Swansea.

William, the grandson of the founder, recovered the estates. He founded New Shoreham church and port. He also joined in the invasion of Ireland with Henry II., and held the whole kingdom of Limerick in fee. He is accused, though upon scanty evidence, of a wholesale massacre of his Welsh neighbours at Abergavenny. His possessions in England, Wales, and Ireland were enormous, and he also held the Honour of Braose in the Bailliewick of Falaise, in Normandy, and a share of the Honour of Totnes. He married Maud de Hayes or St. Valerie. For some reason not very clearly ascertained, he became obnoxious to King John, and their strife, much embittered by the outspeaking of his wife, led in 1210 to his attainder and exile, and the death of his wife and William their son, it is said of starvation, in the prison of Windsor Castle. He himself died at Paris shortly afterwards, in 1212. He was a considerable benefactor to the Church, and it is recorded of him that he was careful to use God’s name with great reverence. The king seized the Rape of Bramber, and granted the barony to Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Giles, Bishop of Hereford, and Reginald de Braose, brothers of the attainted baron, obtained after a time a share of the estates. Bramber was granted to the bishop, who, however, died within the year. Finally, in the reign of Henry III., Reginald recovered Bramber and Knapp, and most of the rest of the property, and having married Grecia, daughter of William de la Bruere, died 6th Henry III., and was succeeded by William his son.

William de Braose married Eve Mareschal, a co-heir of the great earl. He fell into the hands of Prince Llewelyn, who accused him of too great intimacy with his princess, and put him to death at Builth, it is said, by hanging. He left four daughters co-heirs, whose descendants held the greater part of the estates.

There remained, however, an heir male, in John de Braose, by Maud de Clare: he was the grandson by Maud de Clare of that William who was famished with his mother at Windsor, and he recovered Bramber and Gower. His son was William de Braose, who held Bramber and Gower, and added considerably to the Sussex estates. He is said, in 1262, to have raised a large sum of money from his tenants by foregoing his right of murage. He died at Findon, 1290, 19 Edward I., and was succeeded by John de Braose of Bramber, who married Margaret, daughter of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales. He died at Bramber of a fall from his horse (16 Henry III., 1232), and was succeeded by William, who died 19 Edward I. William was a powerful baron, and active in the wars of Edward I. and II. He was, however, extravagant, and reduced to sell Gower, which led afterwards to disputes between the purchaser and the lawful heirs of the vendor, of whom Aliva, his elder daughter, married John de Mowbray, from whom descended, in the seventh generation, Margaret de Mowbray, who married Sir Robert Howard, whence comes the Duke of Norfolk, the present owner of Bramber Castle. The barony is in abeyance. Probably, with the failure of the elder male line of De Braose, the castle ceased to be a residence, but in 1644 it was strong enough to be held by Captain James Temple, for the king, against a strong Parliamentary party, and it was probably in consequence that the keep was blown up, and the castle reduced to its present condition. There is an engraving by Hollar, taken 150 years ago, representing it very much as it now is.

Another branch of the family of De Braose rose to the rank of Barons of Parliament, and held large Sussex possessions. The last male of this cadet branch, De Braose of Chesworth and East Grinsted, died in the reign of Richard II.

Bramber is, like Pontefract, Lewes, and Dudley, an example of a natural hill, scarped and defended by art, and crowned with an artificial mound; but, unlike those castles, it has both a mound and rectangular keep, a rare combination, found also at Guildford and Christchurch. A rectangular keep upon a natural isolated hill, unaccompanied by a mound, though not usual, is not unknown. Examples of it are seen at Hedingham, Corfe, and Bridgenorth. At Bramber, as indeed is the case in many other sites of early fortresses, the original earthworks have survived the Norman additions, and remain pretty much as they must have existed before the Conquest.