DESCRIPTION.
The Roman fortress is in plan a rounded oblong, 220 yards north-east and south-west by 115 yards, and contains from 8½ acres to 9 acres. It is included within a wall strengthened by towers, and here, as at Lyme, the outline of the plan was evidently governed by that of the ground on which the castle stands, and which rises 8 feet to 10 feet above the sea level and that of the surrounding marsh or meadow. The wall is from 10 feet to 11 feet thick throughout, and at this time from 20 feet to 30 feet high. The length in circuit is about 580 yards. At the bend of the enclosure, towards the south-west, is the main entrance, preserving very nearly its original form. Two half-round towers, 28 feet apart, and 20 feet diameter, with produced flat sides, giving them a depth of 30 feet, and 30 feet high, project 20 feet from the curtain, and were connected by a cross wall, of which only the foundation remains, and in which was the outer gateway. These towers are not quite parallel, but their longer axes radiate slightly outwards. They are solid and have no internal projection, but from each of them a wall ran backwards 18 feet, terminating in a cross wall, in which was the second gateway, the foundations of which show that the base had an opening of 9 feet. This rectangular gatehouse must have resembled those of Porchester, and, like those, had evidently been altered to suit the Norman entrance, of which there remains one jamb of the outer gateway.
Besides the towers flanking the entrance are eleven others upon the curtain wall. These also are solid, of the height and age of the curtain, and without internal projection. They vary from 14 feet to 20 feet in breadth, and from 14 feet to 16 feet projection from the wall. They stand at irregular distances of from 14 yards to 35 yards. Besides the thirteen standing towers, there are two displaced and broken down, and the fragments of two others, making seventeen in all. They are closest along the north-west and north fronts, where the ground outside is highest. Towards the south and east there are but few, the shallow, muddy sea and the marsh being found a sufficient protection. Besides the main entrance there were three posterns, of which that to the north-east is still in use. That to the north is broken down, but its remains show it to have passed obliquely, on a slight curve, through the wall. The southern postern was probably a water-gate. In the south wall the mouth of a drain, about 18 inches square, and opening towards the sea, has been laid open. Although the wall is for the most part thickly covered with ivy, it is pretty evident that in parts it is still capped by a later battlement, and one of the northern towers, originally 32 feet high, bears a superstructure of 18 feet, which, from a window in its side, appears to be of the Norman period.
The wall has been breached on the north front for 65 yards, and its mass, thrown forwards, still encumbers the ground outside. To the south is a much longer breach, at least of 200 yards. This seems to have been produced by a slip of the soil, by which the foundations have been moved forward bodily for several feet. At the east end also the wall has been broken down, but here its fragments, which are of considerable bulk, are mixed up with others of later date in wild, but not absolutely inextricable, confusion. Most of the north wall has been picked into to a considerable depth, at the ground level, but the foundation remains uninjured. This is said to be the work of the purchaser of the ruins in 1650, but may possibly be the work of some early assailants, though these are more likely to have worked below the surface of the earth, and to have inserted props of wood beneath the base of the masonry, which, when set on fire, would have caused the destruction of the whole superincumbent mass. No gunpowder has here been employed.
It is evident that there was formerly a ditch at the foot of the wall on the south front, full of water, where, indeed, it may still be traced. Along the north, west, and east fronts, the wall is bordered by a road, to make which the ditch, probably never very wide or deep, has been filled up. There can be no question as to the authors of the exterior enceinte, both wall and towers. They are all of one, or very nearly one, date, and distinctly Roman, and, which is not always the case, the towers are bonded into the walls. The substance of the masonry is very rudely-coursed flint-rubble, chiefly composed of flints and pebbles from the adjacent sea-beach, mixed with angular fragments of stone, the whole held together by mortar very freely employed. This mortar is remarkably white in colour, and contains numerous small pebbles, little if any broken tile, and a preponderance of sand. On the whole the mortar has set firmly, and holds well together the rather heterogeneous mass of materials. The face of the work, both inside and outside, is composed mainly of squared stones from Eastbourne or Beachy Head. They are generally about 6 inches by 4 inches on the face, but sometimes as large as 12 inches by 6 inches. The lowest courses at the ground-level are composed of darker and far larger stones, and in the wall above are occasional double bands of tile, and sometimes of stone nearly of the colour of tile. A good deal of the facing at the lower part of the wall has been stripped off, but inside this stripping is confined to the part of the wall just above the ground-level, which is raised artificially higher than the level of the natural soil. In some places this addition is high enough to convert the lower part of the masonry into a retaining wall. It has been thought that the earth thus employed was derived from the inner ditch, an early English work. It may be so, but more probably the contents of this ditch went to form the mound, and it is possible that the raised soil may be derived from the ditches of a British camp preceding the Roman occupation.
The Romans, who constructed the outer walls, seem to have been content with a single line of defence; but the Northmen treated the whole area after a different fashion. Within the area, at its eastern end, a mound was thrown up, table-topped, and about 30 feet high; this, though within the area, was upon its margin, and rested against the eastern wall. The material for the mound seems to have been derived from a ditch which surrounded about two-thirds of its circumference, extending from wall to wall, and which thus isolated it from the remainder of the Roman area. This ditch has been filled up, probably to give space, but its line is still marked by a slight depression in the soil. By this means a strong place would be formed very nearly in accordance with the early English practice, having a mound or bank, with its proper ditch, and an appended court. The only peculiarity would be that the court was walled, and thus the ditch of the mound would be traversed by the masonry, and the outer side of the mound supported by it.
The Normans, who at once saw the value and took possession of Pevensey, probably were for a time content with the Roman walls as they stood, and with the palisaded citadel of the mound. At least, there is no certain trace of any very early Norman masonry. Indeed, the only masonry of Norman date at all now to be seen is a fragment of wall with a window, the remains of a superstructure upon one of the northern towers, and some patchwork in flints, and a few courses of stone laid herring-bone fashion, by which the face of another of the Roman towers has been repaired. Had the Normans of the eleventh or twelfth centuries constructed any eastern walls, gatehouses, or mural towers within the court, some trace of them would probably remain. The chapel, indeed, judging from its dimensions, was Norman, and the base of the font decidedly so; and it is possible that the shapeless fragments of rubble masonry which encumber the top and slopes of the mound may be of the same, that is, of late Norman, date. In truth, the castle, as the Normans found it, was a very strong place. The walls only needed a battlement, and even if this were surmounted, the entrenched and palisaded mound would be perfectly defensible so long as provisions held out.
At this time the Roman enceinte contains the remains of a strong and tolerably perfect mediæval castle. This, as usual in such cases, takes the form of an addition to the defences of the mound, shutting it off as a citadel from the rest of the works. Advantage was taken of the broad and deep ditch extending from the east to the south wall, 210 yards in length, curved westwards or outwards, and which shut off the mound, and a part of the great area, and thus formed an inner ward, of about an acre and a quarter, containing the mound or keep. The ditch, which was probably supplied with water from the sea at its south end, gives off a branch northwards towards the Roman tower, called the watch-tower, and this cuts off the north-east corner of the ground, which thus forms a sort of small middle ward between the forks of the ditch. Behind the ditch is a curtain wall, near the centre of which is a gatehouse of some pretensions, and three large drum-towers, of which two flank the gatehouse, and one is placed to the north of it.
The gatehouse points to the west, opposite to that of the Roman area, now the outer ward, at a distance of 184 yards. In front of it are the two solid piers of the drawbridge, 14 feet wide, and approached from without between curved wing walls. The piers were faced with ashlar, now stripped off. The space between them is 12 feet, and may have been 10 feet The gatehouse is composed of two half-round towers, produced backwards to contain the entrance passage. Outside, these towers somewhat resemble those of the Roman or outer gate, which may have served as their pattern. Their loops are of unusual length, one being 15 feet long. The vents of two garderobes are seen, opening flush with the wall. One seems to be the lower end of a loop. They contain a basement, a ground, and an upper floor, looped towards the field, not vaulted, and duly provided with garderobes. The north tower, faced with sound, though rather open-jointed, ashlar, is still standing, though mutilated. In its ground floor is a fireplace. The south tower is quite broken down. The entrance passage is tolerably perfect, although the gateway at each end is gone, as is the upper chamber for working the portcullis, of which part of the grooves remain. The passage, 12 feet broad and 35 feet long, was vaulted with a segmental vault, strengthened with plain broad chamfered ribs, now broken away, and in the vault, a little behind the portcullis, is a large square central hole or “meurtrière” for the defence of the passage. In either wall is an arcade of two arches, a larger and a smaller, low pointed. The larger are closed, the smaller pierced by doors opening into the ground floors of the gatehouse.
Flanking the gatehouse, at a distance of 33 yards north and 54 yards south, are two grand round towers, each capping an angle of the curtain. The north curtain has a base or plinth slightly battering. The wall is vertical. There is no cordon between them. The north-west tower is 30 feet diameter, and has a basement, ground, and upper floor. The basement, though below the inner ward level, is on the level of the ground outside. It is arcaded, having six arches in its rounded sides, and one in its flat end or gorge. These arches have a drip of the double-scroll pattern, and between each pair springs a moulded rib, and one from each of the two right angles, eight in all. They are broken away, but their profile is seen, and the plan of the vault may be inferred. The entrance to this chamber is by a straight staircase from the inner ward, and at the foot of the stairs is a lobby on the left or west side leading to a postern doorway placed at the junction of the tower with the curtain. In the gorge wall is a fireplace, the hood of which seems to have been of timber. It is difficult to understand what this chamber can have been intended for, with its ornate details and a fireplace, and yet half under ground.
The ground floor is entered from the inner ward by a separate entrance, in the right or east wall of which an opening passes into an oblong mural chamber, vaulted, and contained within the curtain. This chamber has a water drain, and above it, in the wall, three bold corbels, and above these a small segmental-headed doorway, now blocked up. This is a very peculiar arrangement, and it looks as though there had been a wooden structure, perhaps a garderobe, bracketed out upon the face of the wall, over the ditch, at about 10 feet from the ground. The upper floor of the tower was entered from the battlements, the tower rising above the wall. Only the basement floor was vaulted. Each stage is lighted, or rather ventilated, by loops towards the field.
The southern flanking tower is nearly upon the pattern of that last described, save that the basement is not arcaded, and none of the floors vaulted.
The third tower, in the north wall, 36 yards from the north-west flanker, is of the same pattern, with the same exceptions. The staircase into the basement has a side door opening upon a postern in the east wall, with a segmental head, and from the ground-floor entrance there opens, westwards, a long mural chamber, the counterpart of that described as attached to the north-west flanker, having also brackets and corbels, and a small door in the wall, 10 feet above the ground, as though for a timber garderobe. These are all the regular towers, but in the south wall, where a tower might be expected, is a postern, which pierces the wall at its junction with the Roman wall, and outside and in front of it is a fragment of a Roman tower, which has slipped forwards a few yards, and forms a sort of bulwark concealing and protecting the postern. It is evident that the displacement of the tower is older than the Norman period, and was taken advantage of by the later builder. In the north wall of this inner ward, beneath the north and north-west towers, is a large fireplace, perhaps that of a hall. The kitchen was probably in the north-west tower, and the large mural drain was connected with it.
The mound, which occupied the east end of the castle and carried the keep, remains tolerably perfect, though much encumbered with ruins, produced evidently by gunpowder. Against its east side, and supporting the mound, is a Roman tower, which was worked into the keep, its solid top being battlemented. The mound has a spur of earth towards the north, probably connecting it with the north wall, but nothing definite can at present be ascertained, though the foundations upon it, if laid open, would probably disclose something.
As the mediæval castle is placed within the eastern end of the Roman area, its eastern side osculated with the Roman boundary, which is here common to both areas. About four-fifths of the enclosing wall of the castle is mediæval, but the remainder, that towards the east, is Roman, which is thus common to both fortresses. Commencing at the south postern, where the two walls are in contact, to the great disadvantage of the masonry of later date, the Roman wall extends, partially propped up by a later buttress, until it reaches a Roman tower that connected it with the keep mound. Beyond this, passing southward and eastward, to where the mediæval wall springs from the Roman enceinte, the Roman wall has been left to support the mound, but about 6 feet in front of it a mediæval wall, 9 feet thick, has been built, probably to afford more space above, and to assist in supporting the earthwork. The castle has been attacked on this side, or else those who dismantled it, thinking this the strongest part, have mined and blown it up, for the glacis for many yards is covered with enormous masses of masonry, which have evidently been displaced by gunpowder exploded in large quantities. At one part, abutting upon the Roman tower, the two walls are seen. About 20 feet of the mediæval wall, 9 feet thick and 10 feet high, stands undisturbed, though above this height its superstructure has been blown off. Behind it is the Roman wall of about the same height, not only reduced in height by the explosion, but tilted forward. This is what has happened in this quarter, and the history of it is clear, even in the midst of so great a confusion.
Within the mediæval or inner ward an excavation shows the position and plan of the chapel, with a nave 40 feet by 16 feet 8 inches broad, and chancel of 12 feet 8 inches by 11 feet 6 inches. A fragment of the font has been preserved. The chapel is, no doubt, of Norman date, and older, therefore, than the castle in its present form. There is also a rude pillar piscina, such as is now and then found in Norman buildings. There are one or two in Glamorganshire. The free chapel in the castle is mentioned in the grant of John of Gaunt. The well also has been discovered at the foot of the mound. It is cylindrical, 7 feet diameter, and lined with ashlar to a depth of 52 feet, below which it is square and lined with timber.
The Roman works at Pevensey have been explored and examined, as already stated, by Mr. Roach Smith. Unfortunately, the mediæval castle has been less fortunate, and has not been accurately described. A short but complete and brilliant description of Pevensey, and a notice of the part it played in the campaign of 1066, will be found in Mr. Freeman’s “Norman Conquest.” It also plays a conspicuous part in his recent life of the Red King.