THE CASTLE OF CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS.

THE town, castle, and priory of Christchurch are placed upon the south-eastern point and edge of a tongue of moderately-high ground, which intervenes between the Stour on the west and the Avon on the east. The two rivers of Dorset and Wilts meander like their prototype,

“. . . . toties qui terris errat in isdem,”

and flow across broad and marshy tracts of land to unite below Christchurch in a spacious inlet of the bay which is formed, and on the south-east protected, by the headland bearing the suggestive name of Hengistbury. The position is thus strong and convenient: unapproachable, by reason of the marshes, on the east and west; presenting to the north a narrow and defencible front, and placed upon a harbour in former days very suitable for small vessels, sheltered from the prevailing west wind, and having a narrow and easily-guarded entrance from the adjacent channel. Such a position was not likely to be neglected by any people, even in the rudest age, and accordingly the Britons seem to have fortified the headland: and those who drove them out not only gave to that headland its present name, but, finding the inner position better suited to their habits, fortified it with bank and ditch, and within the area so enclosed threw up the usual mound, or burh, the ordinary indication of the residence of an early English chieftain.

The remains of the British period are confined to the double banks and ditches, which still crown the headland, and to the names of the rivers, which there unite. Of a British town or church, Aberdour, as such would have probably been called, no traces are to be found.

The earliest mention of the place in Anglo-Saxon records is in the Chronicle in a.d. 901, where it is recorded, that on the death of Alfred and the succession of Edward the Elder, Æthelwold, his uncle’s son, seized the vill at “Winburne and that at Tweoxneam,” but on Edward’s marching to Badbury, and threatening an attack on Winburne, now Wimborne, he fled into the North. This statement is repeated by Florence of Worcester, with the additional information that Tweoxneam was a royal vill. The place, under its better-known name of Twyneham, occurs in a charter by Athelstan, dated April 23rd, 939, in which, among other lands, he, the “king wielding all Britain,” gives to God and St. Mary, to St. Michael, St. Sampson, and St. Branwaladre, lands on Avene at Twynham. The character of a royal vill was long sustained, and from Domesday it appears that it had belonged to the Confessor and did then belong to King William. Long before that time, however, a religious house had been founded there, and the canons of Tuinham, or of the Holy Trinity of Thuinam, appear in the Survey as tenants-in-chief. The foundation was probably an early one. Twynburn, or Winburn, on the same Stour a few miles higher up, was founded before 705, and Wareham before 876. In the Confessor’s time, there were twenty-four canons and a dean; and in the reign of Rufus, the latter post was filled by Ralf Flambard, who is said to have rebuilt the college, which was practically re-founded by Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, in the reign of Henry I., and whose son, Earl Baldwin, obtained the conversion of the seculars into regular canons of the order of St. Augustin. The mill is recorded in Domesday. In all these transactions there is no mention of the castle.

THE CASTLE OF CHRISTCHURCH.

The castle, however, though possibly not a structure in regular masonry until a century later than the Conquest, was certainly a burh long before that event, and probably at least as early as the ninth century, preceding, no doubt, and being the cause of, the vill, or collection of houses. It stands upon the right or west bank of the Avon river, immediately below the ancient bridge which carries the high road across it. Its eastern front stands about 16 yards from the river, and rises out of, and forms, the bank of the Mill Leat, which intervenes between the castle and the Avon. The leat commences about three quarters of a mile higher up, and terminates at the ancient Priory Mill, now called “Place Mill,” 500 yards lower down, where, having started from the Avon, it falls into the Stour. As there seems to have been but one mill, it is to be supposed that the lay and spiritual lords were in accord upon the very interesting topic of multures. At any rate, it lay with the former to cut off the supply of water.

The area of the castle was roughly rectangular, about 110 yards north and south, or parallel to the river, and 150 yards east and west,—dimensions which include the ditch, now filled up, but of which there are indications, with a breadth of 20 yards, along the north and west fronts, now Castle and Church streets. The line of the ditch along the south, or Priory, side is not traceable. The old Priory wall is wanting there, and the ground has been levelled and cultivated as a garden for above a century. Probably the ditch communicated at each end with the mill-stream, and was filled from it, involving at the deepest part not above 12 feet to 15 feet of excavation. No doubt there was a bank within the ditch, thrown up from it, and which has since been employed to fill it up. On the water front no earthworks were necessary. The leat is 25 feet broad, and the river expands suddenly below the bridge to 130 feet in width.

In the highest and north-western quarter of the space thus enclosed is the burh, attributed by Norden, with great probability, to Edward the Elder, after the suppression of the rebellion of Æthelwald in 901. This is an oblong mound, wholly artificial, and composed of chalk-gravel. It measures about 160 feet north and south by 150 feet east and west, and has a table summit about 120 feet by 90 feet; it is about 20 feet high. This mound and base court, with the circumscribing bank and ditch, and the watercourse, with, no doubt, a strong palisade, formed the original fortress, which, side by side with the Priory, afforded to the contiguous town temporal and spiritual protection. Here, upon the old site, Richard de Redvers, having before obtained a grant of the manor from Henry I., erected a castle such as was then in use. He walled in the area, placing probably his curtain along the crest of the bank and upon the edge of the mill leat. His keep he built upon the mound, and the hall and domestic buildings upon the line of the wall, along the edge of the water. He is said also to have walled the town. The masonry remaining is but scanty and confined to some fragments of the keep and the hall-house, both of which appear to be original.

The keep is peculiar both in position and in its details. It is, or has been, rectangular, and it stands upon the summit of the mound. It is very unusual, for obvious reasons, to find rectangular keeps placed upon artificial earthworks. At Guildford, where this appears to be the case, it is only partially so, the tower being built on the slope of the mound so that at least one half of it descends to the solid. It is, no doubt, possible that here, the mound being of but moderate height, the foundations may be laid below it; but more probably this is not the case, and the engineer trusted, and securely, to the immense breadth of his masonry to spread the weight and thus avoid unequal settlement. Usually, when keeps are erected on artificial mounds, they are of the shell type, as at Arundel.

This keep is also peculiar in its details. It was a rectangular tower, 50 feet north and south by 46 feet east and west. Its walls were fully 11 feet thick. There are no traces of pilasters, and the angles are chamfered off, the face of the chamfer being about 6 feet. At present only the east and west sides are standing, to a height of nearly 30 feet, and it is difficult to make out from them what were the arrangements of the building. In the west wall is one opening; on the east are two, flat-sided, 8 feet wide, about 18 feet high, and descending to the ground-level. They are closed above by very flat segmental arches—in fact, plat-bands—relieved by obtusely-pointed, if not round-headed, arches of construction in the work immediately above such details, so far as they can be seen or inferred. The low and large openings, the chamfered angles, and the absence of pilasters are utterly unlike what is usual in a Norman keep; though, from the great mass and general figure of the building, it can scarcely be other than Norman. Mitford, in Northumberland, though differing in detail from the present tower, differs quite as much from the ordinary type, and that certainly is of Norman date. The work of this keep is a sort of coarse ashlar, rough, but of good quality. Perhaps more details might be discovered but for a thick drapery of ivy, which, in this stage of its decay, serves to protect the building.

The hall, called the Constable’s House, is a rectangular building, 80 feet north and south by 35 feet east and west, placed on the margin of the leat, and rising out of it, so that its broadside forms a part of the outer line of defence towards the east. At present it is detached and stands alone, but it probably ranged with the curtain wall, of which, however, there are now no traces. There seems to have been a building connected with its south-west angle.

The building was composed of a basement and a first floor. At each end was a high-pitched gable, of which the southern only remains. The walls are 5 feet thick, and the interior dimensions therefore 70 feet by 25 feet. The basement is at the ground level and about 1 foot above the top water of the leat, the height of which is regulated by hatches. The entrance from the castle was in the west side, 16 feet from the north end. The doorway, of 5 feet opening, seems to have had a segmental head, but the ashlar has been roughly removed. In the two ends were loops: that to the south has long been closed. In the east side, towards its north end, are two loops. All these loops are mere rectangular slits, evidently intended for air, not defence. Each is placed in a splayed recess, 4 feet 6 inches wide, with a segmental head. Also in the east wall, 4 feet from the south end, is a similar recess, opening into a small door, which led into the garderobe turret. Next, north of this, 12 feet from the south end, is a door opening on the water, 7 feet wide, with a very flat arch, evidently original. The jambs are of ashlar, and they have capitals of a peculiar character. This was evidently the watergate for the admission of stores from the river, here a few yards beyond the leat and a few feet below it. The garderobe turret is a projection, 12 feet square, from the east wall at its south end, standing in the leat, and pierced below by a round-headed arch, or culvert, 4 feet broad, through which the water flows freely, and into which the garderobes discharged. This basement was evidently a store. It is said to have been crossed by a wall. Of this there is now no trace.

The first floor contained the hall, which occupied its whole area. The main entrance was at the south end, near the south-west corner, by a segmental-headed door; in the north wall is a window of two coupled lights, each under a segmental head, with exterior drips, and the whole placed within an exterior round-headed recess, the sides of which contain flanking shafts, nooked. Above, not quite over the centre, is a corbel carved as a human head. The arch-head and tympanum are highly enriched with varieties of the chevron moulding, and upon the chamfers of the lesser drips are rosettes carved with great delicacy. Though heavily draped in ivy, enough is seen of this window to show that it is late Norman, and of great beauty. There are windows similar in type, but less rich in ornament, in the side walls, two in each, and probably there were three, indicated by notches in the ivy. In the east wall, 20 feet from the north end, are the remains of a large fireplace, of which the convex back and the upper part of the circular tunnel remain, and above is a tall cylindrical chimney-shaft, probably original. A door from the south end of this wall led into the garderobe turret, which had a loop to the east. There is also a round-headed window in the south gable, which opened into the roof. There was no vaulting; the floor and roof were of timber, the latter open.

The view in Grose, taken in 1783, shows the garderobe turret to the full height of the side wall, and the great chimney-shaft unincumbered with ivy. It also shows the north-east angle unbroken, within which was then contained a well-stair. This angle has now fallen away or been removed, and its broken parts are so encumbered with ivy and rubbish that nothing has been ascertained as to what may remain; but no doubt the staircase ascended from the basement to the main floor and thence to the roof or to the ramparts of the curtain. In Grose’s time, the north wall was encumbered by a cottage and some chimneys and other additions in brick; these have now been removed. The garderobe turret was wilfully pulled down when the castle changed hands towards the end of the last century. There is a letter in the Gentleman’s Magazine complaining of this, and which possibly put a stop to further injuries.

It is remarkable that a building closely resembling this is found at Desmond’s Castle, at Adare, near Limerick. That castle is late Norman, with a rectangular keep, though not on a mound, as the ground is naturally high; and just below the keep, upon the bank of the river, is placed the hall-house. It has a basement on the ground level, evidently a store, with a separate entrance, and above is the hall, with a boarded floor and open roof. The garderobe turret is built out into the stream, has a culvert below, and is nearly perfect. The keep, hall-house, and gate-house are there preserved, and if, as is probable, the entrance at Christchurch was near the river at the foot of the bridge, the relative position of the buildings would be the same. An excellent plan of Desmond’s Castle will be found, with much else of a valuable character, in Lord Dunraven’s “Memorials of Adare.”

Christchurch Castle has not been the scene of any remarkable event, nor does its name occur with any prominence in the history of the country, or even of the county. The manor was first alienated from the Crown by Henry I. in favour of Richard de Redvers, whom he created Earl of Devon. In the “Monasticon” (vi., 304) is printed a grant or confirmation by this earl to the canons of Christchurch of the “Terram usque in aquam de havene, quæ est inter cimeterium et fossatum castelli, messuagium supra ipsius castelli fossatum, quod habent ex dono Gamelini.” This is the first mention of the castle, and would make it earlier than 1137, in which year Earl Richard died. As the masonry of the castle looks twenty or thirty years later, the allusion may be to the earthworks, or older castle; and the present building may be the work of Baldwin, the second earl, who granted a charter to the same effect with that of his father, confirming lands between the churchyard and the ditch of the castle (ibid., vi., 303). Earl Baldwin died 1155. In the rolls of Parliament, mention is made of John Randolph, a former justice, as having been warder of the castle in the time of Henry I. Baldwin’s son and successor was Earl Richard, who confirmed his gifts, and died 8 Henry II., 1161, leaving Baldwin, the fourth earl, who died childless, and was succeeded by his brother Richard, fifth earl, who also died childless. The heir was William, called De Vernon, sixth earl, brother of Richard, the third earl, and uncle to the two last earls. He flourished during the reigns of Richard I. and John. Probably during these transitions the Crown stepped in as custos, for in a plea before the Curia Regis, in 1194, a certain Roger Waspail affirms that seizin of certain lands was given to him by Earl John “in werra sua dum fuit in Castello de Cristescherche.” A little later, when Earl William was in possession, the king (2 John) confirmed a settlement made by William de Vernon, Earl of Devon, by which Plympton Castle, the caput of that honour, was to pass to his elder daughter, and Christchurch and the Isle of Wight to Joan, the younger. John was at Christchurch, either the priory or the castle, December 13, 1201. Probably this deed was drawn up before the birth of Baldwin, the earl’s son, or when it was supposed that Baldwin would die childless. As it was, it did not take effect, for though Baldwin died before his father, he left a son, Baldwin, seventh earl, who was also Earl of the Isle of Wight.

In 1210, 11 John, the king was again at Christchurch, on his way from Clarendon to Canford. Baldwin died 1245, leaving a son, another Baldwin, eighth and last earl of the House of Redvers. He died 47 Henry III., 1262–3, and is described as Baldwin de Lisle, Earl of Devon, and he died seized of the manor of Christchurch. It appears from the “Testa de Nevile” that he held that manor “de veteri feoffamento,” by what service is not recorded.

The earl’s heir was his sister Isabel, who married William de Fortibus, Earl of Albermarle, who died in 1260. Isabel succeeded to the whole estate, with the reversion of Christchurch, which was held in dower by Countess Margaret. Countess Isabel died before 1269, leaving one child, Aveline, who married Edmund Crouchback, son of Henry III. She died childless, having inherited Christchurch on the death of the Countess Margaret in 20 Edward I., in which year she also died, having granted or bequeathed Christchurch and some other parts of the earldom to the king, by whom, in 1299, 27 Edward I., the “Castrum de Cristeschurche de Twynham cum burgo et Manerio de Westovre et Hundredo de Cristeschurche” were assigned as part of the dower of Queen Margaret. These possessions, as part of the earldom of Devon, were claimed, in 1315, 8 & 9 Edward II., by Hugh de Courtenay, as heir-general of Countess Isabel, but without success. The castle descended to Edward III., who placed Thomas West in it as custos.

In his third year, the king granted to Sir William de Montacute, afterwards Earl of Salisbury, the castle and borough of Christchurch-Twynam, the Manor of Westovre, and the Hundred of Christchurch. The earl died so seized, and his will is dated at Christchurch-Twynam, 20th April, 1397. With the exception of a short forfeiture by Earl John to Henry IV., the castle remained in the Montacutes until Earl Thomas, who died in 7 Henry V., and left it to his daughter and heiress, Alice, who married Richard Nevile. Probably it was regarded as a male fief, for in 32 Henry VI. was a grant of a lease for twelve years of the manor, borough, and hundred, to Richard, Earl of Salisbury, in right of the Lady Alice, his wife, at the rent of a red rose. The leasehold appears to have been extended, and eventually converted into a freehold, as the Christchurch estates were held by the son of Richard and Alice, the king-maker Warwick, and descended to his elder daughter and co-heir, Isabel, who married George, Duke of Clarence. Their son, Edward, Earl of Warwick, held Christchurch till his forfeiture and death, after which (5 Henry VIII.) his estates and the title of Salisbury were allowed to his sister Margaret, executed 1541, and who at her death or forfeiture held the manor, castle, borough, and hundred of Christchurch, which then escheated to the Crown. It is by descent from Countess Margaret, through her granddaughter Catherine Pole, that the inheritors of the Hastings baronies are now claiming the chantry erected for their Plantagenet ancestress in the priory church. They, no doubt, are the heirs-general; the heir male is the Earl of Huntingdon.

From Henry to James, Christchurch remained in the Crown. The latter sovereign granted it to trustees for the benefit of Prince Charles, whence it passed by sale through various hands, and finally was purchased by Sir George Rose in 1790. It is now the property of Lord Strathnairn.

The Priory buildings stood to the south of the church, and but scanty traces of them remain. There are considerable fragments of the containing wall to the south and east, and the fragments of two mural towers and the gateway. On the low ground on the Stour to the south-west, on the edge of the wet land called “QUOMPS,” are traces of a large fish-pond. Beyond the mill are the “convent meadows.” On the corbel shields terminating the drip-stone of the west door of the tower, are, dexter, what appears to be a “cross patonce” for de Fortibus; and, sinister, Montacute quartering Monthermer.