PENRITH CASTLE, CUMBERLAND.
PENRITH CASTLE stands upon a slight elevation of old red sandstone gravel, about a furlong from, and from 50 feet to 70 feet above, the church and the old town of Penrith, and a few yards east of the modern railway station. Originally and always a simple structure of no particular military strength or architectural merit, its remains are now scanty, and chiefly remarkable for the excellence of their material and workmanship, and well known from their position in full view of one of the great highways of the country.
The castle is in plan rectangular, 130 feet north and south by 153 feet east and west. It is composed of a stout and lofty curtain-wall, within and against which were built the rooms occupied by the garrison, and outside is an artificial and dry ditch, also rectangular in outline, and rather peculiar in the space left between it and the castle wall. On the west side this ditch has been removed in the formation of a deep road leading from the town to the station. On the south it remains, and beyond it are some excavations, which appear to be old, but are not very intelligible. On the east side the ditch is very perfect. About 9 yards intervene between its scarp and the foot of the curtain wall; and beyond, crowning the counterscarp, is rather a high bank, advantageously placed for those who intended to attack the wall with the weapons and engines of the Middle Ages. On the north front is a considerable platform, about half the area of the castle, and on the same level. This is defended towards the town by a natural slope, made somewhat steeper by art, but the ditch is continued in the rear of this, round the north-east angle, just west of which is a roadway indicating the approach to the place. This approach was flanked by the north-east angle of the platform, and the ground beyond the ditch.
The earthworks on this quarter are so sharp and fresh that they seem to have been deepened and strengthened to resist a modern attack from this quarter; and in that case the bank outside the east ditch may have been thrown up to protect the base of the curtain from being breached by cannon. Possibly the intention was to resist the Pretender’s army in 1745.
The curtain, of which the ditch is the outwork, is about 30 feet high and 5 feet thick. It is built of blocks of the red sandstone of the district, of a deep colour and handsome appearance. These are squared, and laid in courses. The wall appears, wholly or in part, to have been crowned by a corbel-table, of moderate projection, upon which rested the parapets. At some special points these corbels are bolder, and form machicolations, but more commonly their object was to add 6 inches in breadth to the rampart walk.
Along the east, and on the adjacent part of the north and south sides, the curtain is tolerably perfect. On the west side are some foundations, and a fragment of wall of full height. At the south-east angle a square buttress, original, of about 3 feet broad by 3 feet 6 inches projection, is set diagonally, and caps the angle. In the middle of the east wall is a similar buttress, but set square. These have no bases or setts-off, and rise to the parapets. At the north-east angle seems to have been a bartisan, or square turret, projected upon corbels; the wall is quite plain below. The other two angles are gone; but the foundations show no trace of mural towers. Grose’s plan, though very incorrect, may be taken to show that late in the last century the walls were tolerably perfect; and that in the centre of the south wall and at the south-west angle were buttresses similar to those described above.
All traces of the gateway are gone; but the earthwork shows it to have been on the north front, rather near the east end. West of this some traces of windows seem to indicate the site of the hall, and part of a large half-round barrel-vault, abutting against the remains of the west wall, seems to have belonged to its substructure. In the east wall, near its summit, are two large window openings, about 5 feet broad. The tracery is gone; but the arch of the recesses is flat segmental, strengthened by two plain bold ribs.
There is no trace of any keep or detached central building. The head of a flat-topped window of two lights, trefoiled, has been dug up and preserved. It seems to be early Perpendicular. The general plan of the building and what remains of its vault and arches, point to the Decorated period, during which both the round-headed and the flat segmental arch were largely used in this district. What remains appears to be of one date. The Ordnance sheet lviii. 4. 24. contains a plan of this castle to a scale of 10·56 feet to the mile, or ¹⁄₃₀₀.
Penrith Castle
Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.
In describing the building, it has been found convenient to call the tower face the north, but really it fronts more to the north-east.
It has been suggested, from the rectangular plan of the earthworks, and from the prevalence of Roman remains in the district, that the castle occupies the site of a Roman encampment, and that its material, said by some to have been taken from Mayburgh, was derived from some Roman building. This latter suggestion is, no doubt, perfectly possible. Certainly the material was not taken from Mayburgh, which never could have supplied ashlar in large quantities.
It is certain that there was no castle here during the early Norman times, or while the manor was the heritage of the kings of Scotland. From them it came to John Baliol, and was confiscated with his other English possessions late in the thirteenth century. The Neviles of Raby then held it. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had the castle and manor, and seems to have been often here. He probably made any pure Perpendicular additions of which evidence may remain.
There are extant two licences, one to crenellate the town of Penrith, 20 Edward III.; and the other, 22 Richard II., to William de Strickland, with permission to make a mantlet of stone and lime, and to crenellate it. Probably the present castle is the mantlet referred to.