PORCHESTER CASTLE, HANTS.

ALTHOUGH England is rich in Roman remains, and full of material traces of the all-pervading energy of that race of conquerors and colonists, such remains are chiefly roads, encampments, foundations of domestic buildings, and less frequently of fortresses or military works in masonry. Of these latter the chief are Burgh, Caerleon, Caerwent, Caistor, Pevensey, Richborough, and Silchester; parts of Colchester, Lincoln, Wroxeter, and York, and a few traces at Chester and Leicester. But of these, not inconsiderable remains, none are to be compared for completeness of preservation, and but few for extent of area, with Porchester.

That Porchester is a Roman work is unquestionable, though this certainty is not derived from its early history, of which little has been preserved, but from the evidence afforded by its plan, materials, and workmanship, confirmed in some measure by the relation of its walls to the additions of the Norman period; also, an undoubted Roman way connects Porchester with Venta Belgarum or Winchester.

This celebrated fortress is built upon a low point of land which projects into the inner or northern part of Portsmouth Harbour, dividing that spacious and secluded inlet into two heads, and expressing in its name both its position and its character. It is placed about 3 miles above the narrow entrance which, flanked by the towns of Portsmouth and Gosport, is the passage from the larger and exterior roadstead of Spithead.

PORCHESTER CASTLE.

In its present and tolerably perfect condition, Porchester is a walled enclosure, square or nearly so, containing within its area close upon 9 acres. The investing walls measure, by the larger Ordnance survey, 210 yards north and south, and 207 yards east and west. They range from 15 feet to 40 feet high, and from 6 feet to 10 feet thick. They were supported outside by four mural bastions on each face, and one at each angle, in all twenty, of which six have at various times been removed, two from the east, one from the north and from the west, and two from the north-west and south-east angles. Those bastions which remain are half-round, 19 feet to 20 feet in diameter, and have slightly prolonged and flattened sides. The angle bastions are of the same pattern. That to the north-west was removed to make way for the keep; that to the south-east has fallen, undermined by the sea. The two remaining are open at the gorge, as are the two upon the east front. The rest are closed, and probably all were originally so, for the interior work is very rough indeed, and seems intended to have been concealed with earth and rubbish, as was often the fashion in Roman bastions. Probably some of those now open have been cleared out by the Norman architect, to make use of the interior, but the gorge wall of one of those to the south has recently given way, and the interior is seen rough as the Roman builders left it. These bastions at present, with one exception, rise no higher than the curtain, no doubt their original condition, but it seems probable that the Normans raised a story upon them, and thus converted them into mural towers. They stand from 41 yards to 42 yards apart, from centre to centre, the distances being slightly unequal. On the west face the two bastions flanking the gate are 48 yards asunder.

The walls are built mainly of flint nodules, laid in courses with as thick or even thicker, beds of mortar. Occasionally are seen single and double flat courses of red tiles and tile-stone, and sometimes of herring-bone work, characteristic peculiarities, especially strongly marked in the bastions. The work seems late in the Roman period. The walls have been patched with Caen stone, and by later builders with coursed flint, and more recently with brick. Here and there the parapet may be Norman, but this can scarcely be the case with much of it, which must have been frequently renewed. The two missing bastions to the east, to judge by the patching up, were probably gone when the Normans took possession. One on the west face was evidently standing in the Perpendicular period; that at the south-east angle fell but a few years ago. There is still an east and west, a water and a land gateway, nor do there appear to have been more in the Roman period.

The east face is washed by the sea, here a good defence, because too shallow for boats, and too deep for land operations. On this face the curtain is especially high, reaching 40 feet, and at the base of its parapet is a row of small holes, as though to carry a timber gallery or brétasche, no doubt a post-Norman addition. Between the south face and the sea there intervenes a triangular strip of flat land, at its widest end 60 yards broad. To command this, and protect the foot of the wall, a berm or platform of earth has been thrown up against the wall, about 6 feet high and 24 feet broad, in front of which is a light ditch, prolonged westward to the advanced ditch to check any approach round the angle of the place. The curtain here is about 30 feet high.

On the north front the margin of land is much broader, and is cut off by a deep and broad ditch communicating with the sea, and which turns the north-west angle, and extends along the west or main front nearly as far as the great gate; it would seem that originally this ditch covered the whole front, and extended onward to the sea, but the drawbridge of the gate has been replaced by a causeway, and the further traces of the ditch are but faint, as it has been filled up south of the causeway with some care.

In addition to these special defences the whole work is covered by a deep ditch with a high interior bank of earth, which has been cut from sea to sea right across the tongue on which the castle stands. This is about 300 yards in length, and from 50 yards to 100 yards to the west of or in advance of the west front, forming a broken curve with its salient near the centre. In outline it is rude, and as it bears no trace of masonry was probably stockaded. The notch for the entrance is placed considerably to the north of the main gate, so that the approach was oblique and exposed to be enfiladed from the castle. This work looks rather like an English addition before the arrival of the Normans. There is no trace of any rectangular camp or earthwork of earlier date than the walls. They are built upon the natural ground, and there is little or no difference between the interior and exterior level. In what condition the Romans left, or their successors found, the works which have thus been described, is not known. So convenient an enclosure, so well posted, could scarcely have been neglected by any people. In Domesday, “Porcestre” is a manor, and is the subject of a long and rather detailed entry. Mention is made of a “halla,” or mansion-house, or hall, but none of the castle. It had possibly been disused as a fortress, though probably then and long before a parish, with a church within its girth.

The Normans were for a time content with the existing wall; for it was not till about 1133 that Henry I. here founded a priory for Augustine canons, and built the small and plain, but very complete, Church of St. Mary, which was also the parish church, and most of which remains uninjured. Probably a little before this, judging from the internal evidence of the buildings, he proceeded to convert the Roman into a Norman fortress. This was effected by placing a rectangular keep at the north-west angle, about 10 feet in advance of the line of wall, removing for this purpose about 60 feet of the adjacent curtain on each face, and the capping bastion of the angle. The projection of the keep is mainly inwards. It seems to rest upon the natural soil, at that corner slightly elevated. It has been thought to stand upon an artificial knoll, but more probably its base has been banked round by the earth removed from the ditch, which is here both deep and broad. The keep required defence from the large interior court, as well as from the field. To afford this, and also to divide the castle from the church, Henry further enclosed a base-court, of about 67 yards east and west, by 47 yards north and south, or about one-fourteenth of the whole area, in which detached space the keep stood, and of which the great curtain formed the north and west sides. The entrance was in the south face, near the south-east angle, and this inner wall was covered by a wet ditch, fed by a culvert in the north curtain from the exterior tidal ditch, and which completed the isolation of the inner from the outer ward.

The church was placed in the south-east corner of the outer ward, diagonally opposite to the new ward, to which its enclosure corresponded. The conventual buildings stood against the church on the south side, and extended to the Roman curtain, which bears marks of Norman alteration. At Caister, in Norfolk, where the parish church stands within a similar enclosure, it occupies the south-west angle. The wall which, it is probable, cut off the monastery from the rest of the outer ward, is gone. The western or landward gatehouse of the outer ward was remodelled after the Norman fashion, but the eastern or water gate was left unaltered.

The keep answers to the usual conditions of such structures. It measures at its exterior base 65 feet north and south, by 52 feet east and west; and was, as originally built, about 55 feet, and as completed, 100 feet high. On its west front three broad pilaster strips, of slight projection, rise from the ground, independently of the plinth, to rather above half the present height of the tower. On the north front the arrangement is the same, save that the lower half of the pilaster to the east is united with the wall of the forebuilding that covered the entrance to the keep, on the east face. The south face has only two pilasters, that in the centre being omitted. The east face is again different; here the basement is covered by the forebuilding, and there is but one pilaster, at the north end. These pilasters in the north, west, and south faces, rise plain to the second-floor level, where both wall and pilasters are reduced by a set-off. The wall is not again reduced, but the pilasters have two or three rapid sets-off before they die into the wall. Near that was the base level of the original parapet. The angles are solid,—that is, without nooks. The two pilasters covering the south-west angle have a slightly bolder projection than the rest, and contain a well-stair, the head of which opens in a low turret. There are no turrets nor trace of them at the other three angles. They were the natural finish of the pilasters covering the angles, and as these are not carried to the summit it is possible that the usual turrets were also omitted. The present battlement is probably in substance of Decorated date. The north and south parapets are horizontal, but those to the east and west rise to the centre so as to form a very low-pitched gable, a very unusual outline in such a building, and for which there is nothing in the arrangement of the roof to account. The exterior of the keep is very free from ornament. The only exception is a string-course about 12 feet above the base on the west wall, which has on its under side a billet moulding of great delicacy. This string is confined to this face, and to the wall, being stopped by the pilasters.

The material of the keep, inside and out, is chiefly of Caen stone ashlar for facing, with hearting of chalk flints. The stones are from 4 inches to 6 inches square on the face; high up they are perhaps a little larger, but there is little difference between the original work and the additions. The stones of the parapet are still larger, and seem, from the accounts, to have come from the Isle of Wight.

The walls at the base average about 11 feet thick, and at the first floor about 7 feet. At the summit they are about 6 feet, the reduction in thickness being thus unusually small. The interior is divided throughout by a cross wall running east and west, from 5 feet to 3 feet 6 inches thick. It has a basement and four floors. The entrance was in the first floor, and a spiral stair, the only one, occupied the south-west angle and rose from the first floor, and it may be from the base, to the battlements, communicating with, probably, each floor, by doors, of which all but one are walled up. In the south-east angle was the pipe of the well, with similar communications. The floors throughout were of timber, the beams resting in holes in the wall. The interior sets-off, reducing the thickness of the wall, are irregular.

The two basement chambers are not quite equal, the southern being the larger. They are about 12 feet high, each has a loop in its west end and two in the north and south walls, six in all; these are of 6 inches opening, round-headed, and placed in splays of an hour-glass section, having recesses inside and out of 2 feet opening. The door to the well-pipe is visible, though blocked, but that to the stair seems to have been closed and obliterated. Each of these chambers is vaulted with a low-pointed barrel, running east and west, and stiffened by six very deep slender ribs, with hollow chamfers. These have been cut away from the vault, but the gable ribs remain attached to the wall, and sections of the others are seen at their springings. This work looks early Perpendicular, or, perhaps, a little earlier. It is excellent, and much too good for a cellar, though no doubt intended specially for the custody of the royal prisage wines, which formed a part of the revenue, and were often stored here. There is a door between the vaults, near the west end of the cross-wall, and an outer door in the east wall of the south vault, which latter was probably opened when the vaults were turned, and the spiral stair closed. This, however, may be an original door opening from the basement into a dungeon in the base of the forebuilding, or it may have been connected with an outer door in the forebuilding itself. It is difficult to be sure on this point.

The first floor is also of two chambers, 43 feet long, and 21 feet and 18 feet 6 inches broad. These floors contain the two state-rooms, which, to the timber ceiling, were 24 feet high. In the north and south walls are, in each two windows, round-headed, of 2 feet opening, of hour-glass section, with splays of 3 feet opening outside, and 5 feet inside. The sill of the recess is 4 feet above the floor, and the recess 12 feet high. Its angles are occupied by a bold bead or engaged shaft, with bases and foliated caps, whence the bead is carried round the head. Besides these four windows, in each west end is another, of the same character, but with recesses 20 feet high, and without beaded angles. The two south windows were probably walled up when the exterior smaller hall was added, and light ceased to be an object in the keep. In the north chamber the west window is also closed. The doors to the well-shaft and the stair have been closed in modern times. In the cross wall is a large modern breach. The old door was near the west end; also, in the south-west angle of the north room, a door opened into a small garderobe in the west wall. This is partially bricked up, but the loop is seen in the central pilaster, outside. The main entrance of the castle is on this floor, in the east wall of the south chamber. It is round-headed, of 4 feet 6 inches opening, perfectly plain, without chamfer or rebate, which, no doubt, has been cut off. It is evidently original. There are two doors in the east wall of the north chamber, but they are modern openings.

The second floor, 13 feet high, was the attic of the original building, and a mere series of lofts. The roof was very singular. Over the cross wall was a central ridge, and over the middle of each chamber a valley or gutter, from which the roofs rose to the outer walls. As a lean-to, there was, therefore, in the cross section, a central triangle divided by the cross wall, and on each side a half-triangle, formed by the outer wall; and in each of the four half gables thus formed in the east and west walls was a small round-headed window, eight in all. The windows remain, as does the stone weather-table, by which the section of the early roof is indicated. The roofs were steep, and, therefore, no use could be made of them as a platform for machines of defence or for storing missiles. In the cross wall, here 3 feet thick, is a tall, very plain, round-headed door, of 2 feet 6 inches opening, communicating between the halves of the division of the central roof. The south loft was reached by the well-stair, but how the three northern lofts were reached does not appear. In the north chamber, under the southernmost of the two east windows, are traces of a door, which no doubt led to the battlements of the forebuilding, covering the main door, as seen at Scarborough and Richmond, and elsewhere. The arrangement of the original roof resembles that of Helmsley, a very late keep, which also has been raised.

Soon after the completion of this roof, and within the Norman period, it was decided to raise the keep two stages, by which means the roof attics were converted into a regular second floor. Something of this kind was done at Richmond and at Bridgenorth.

The third floor, then built, is 18 feet high. It is quite plain, without an opening in the cross wall, and with one small window in each west wall. How the north chamber was entered is not known. The present floor is from 3 feet to 4 feet above the original one. The next is the fourth or upper floor, about 15 feet high, with a cross wall 3 feet 6 inches thick, of rough rubble, while the outer walls are of ashlar on both faces. The south chamber has four windows; those in the south wall of two lights, flat-headed, but under a full-centred arch of relief outside, and within placed in a recess, also full-centred, of 5 feet 6 inches opening. All these are quite plain. There is a similar window in the east end. The west end window is of similar pattern, but with a single light; and of the north chamber, two windows in the north side and one in each end are also of one light. In the east wall of this chamber a small door opens by an L-shaped mural passage turning the north-east angle into a garderobe, having a loop in the east wall, and a vent opening directly outwards on the face of the north wall. At Brougham is a similar arrangement for an oratory. In the south jamb of the west window of the south room a small oven has been excavated. As this could not be reached from the old floor level, it is probably very modern. Whether the well-pipe is brought up through the new work does not appear, nor is there any trace of an original opening from the turnpike stair, though probably there was one. The door in the cross-wall, of 4 feet 6 inches opening and full-centred, is placed near the west end. This has a rebate, so that the door opened into the north chamber, and was bolted on that side.

The original roof of the Norman addition was flat, as shown by a bold weather-table carried round the walls; but the actual present roof is exactly the reverse of that described below, there being a central and two side gutters, and a ridge over the centre of each chamber, an equally impracticable roof for a defensive platform. The flat or nearly flat roof much resembled that now upon the White Tower, London. The parapet can be examined from the top. The embrasures are at long intervals, and 4 feet 6 inches deep by 2 feet 3 inches opening. No traces of angle turrets are seen save at the stair-head, and that is but a small affair. No fireplace has been discovered in the keep, and only two mural chambers, both very small, for garderobes. The absence of ornament or of any very well marked state room with mural closets, is probably due to the construction at the same time with the keep of more convenient domestic buildings in the inner ward.

The forebuilding was part of the original design of the keep, of the lower part of which it is a prolongation, of the same breadth, and 25 feet deep, eastward. Its walls, as thick as those of the keep, also contained two chambers, divided by a cross wall, east and west. The northern chamber is now filled up, and possibly always was so. The southern chamber seems originally to have had no outlet, and if used as a dungeon or cellar, it was probably reached by a trap in the timber floor.

The first floor of this structure, at the level of the same floor of the keep, was divided also into two chambers, between which was a passage, which led from an outer stair to the door of the keep. The north chamber has been defiled by use as a dust-house and garderobe for modern prisoners in the keep; but an elegant oriel window in the late Perpendicular style inserted into its north wall shows that it has been a room of some pretension. The south chamber was the chapel of the keep. In its west wall, the wall of the keep, is a large full-centred recess, about 11 feet broad and 2 feet deep, for a seat, and in the south wall remains half a Norman window, which originally opened into the inner ward.

The original roof of the forebuilding had rather a high pitch, of which, over the chapel, the weather-table remains. This was superseded by a higher roof, but at a very low pitch, suitable for lead. The top of both roofs reached nearly to the level of the floor of the second story of the keep. The battlements of this accessory tower were 15 feet to 20 feet below those of the original keep. The approach to the first floor of the forebuilding was by an exterior staircase of twenty-six steps, placed against its east wall, so as to reach the outer door about the centre of the building, and leading on also to the north curtain. The present staircase is modern, but a careful examination will show Norman remains about its base. It would seem that when the keep was raised it was decided to make a door in the south wall of the forebuilding into the space below the chapel. When this was done the wall was thickened on the outside. The door still remains, but opens no longer into the open court, but into the basement of a later building. Part of the added facing has fallen off, and the old wall is seen, with a billeted string corresponding to that upon the keep. In later times a Perpendicular window has been opened in the chapel wall above, and a second Perpendicular door into the space below. This is the door which has over it the arms of Queen Elizabeth in stone, and which was probably made by some earlier monarch to admit the wine-tuns into the vaults of the keep.

The inner ward is still bounded to the east and south by the original Norman wall of Caen stone, 6 feet thick. The original domestic buildings were ranged along the south side to the west of the entrance, as traces of the original walling still show. At the south-eastern angle was a large rectangular tower, of 23 feet breadth by 25 feet projection, placed diagonally,—not a usual Norman arrangement. The walls are 6 feet thick, and the gorge is open. It was of two stages, the basement being one, had timber floors, and was, no doubt, like the middle gatehouse of the Tower of London, boarded in the rear. The two exterior angles are hollow, or nooked, though without shafts. The upper floor was lighted by three narrow, round-headed loops.

Whatever may have been, in Norman times, the extent of the offices, at present these buildings cover three sides of the court, that to the north being open. Near the centre of the court was a well, and in the north wall, close to the steps of the keep, a small postern; at the north-east angle, partly on the two curtains, is a rectangular tower of great strength, about 26 feet by 30 feet, with walls 6 feet thick. Its basement seems to have been used as the great kitchen, though not originally constructed for that purpose. The upper floor is on the level of, and entered from, the north curtain; its north and east walls are pierced by a mural gallery, 3 feet broad, with two loops to the north and three to the east. There is also on that side a door opening on the main curtain. From this floor a well-stair, near the north-west corner, ascends to the battlements. The base of this tower seems Norman, but the upper floor and battlements are early Perpendicular.

Of the domestic buildings there is built against the keep and the west curtain the smaller hall, 18 feet broad by 30 feet long, one end abutting on the keep, the other on a retiring-room common to it with the great hall. It is of two floors, the lower on the ground level, having a handsome door and windows. The hall, with a timber floor and roof, occupies the upper floor. The fireplace is in the middle of the west side, let into the Roman curtain, which has been raised. In the east side are four windows looking into the ward, each of two lights divided by a transom, with cinquefoil heads.

Set against the keep, and also abutting on this hall, is a building of two floors, the uppermost of which seems to have been a chapel, superseding that of the keep with which it communicated. It has an east window flanked by two diagonal buttresses. Opposite to this, against the curtain, is the great hall. This is 67 feet long by 28 feet broad, also of two floors, the basement having been probably a cellar. In its north wall are arches as for a buttery, and some remains of the original Norman walling, probably of an earlier hall. In the north side are four windows, three to the west and one to the east of the great door, in front of which is a handsome Perpendicular porch with vaulted roof, and steps leading up to the hall. From the porch a well-stair and short gallery led to the music-gallery at the east end of the hall, and at this end also, in the south wall, is the great fireplace. If this was the daïs end, the gallery must have been above it,—not a usual arrangement. The hall had a wooden floor and a low-pitched roof. The porch seems later than the hall. East of the hall are other smaller rooms, abutting against the wall which flanks the entrance-gate. Beyond this gateway the remainder of the south wall, and the whole of the east wall to the kitchen tower, are occupied by buildings of Tudor date,—mere shells, probably servants’ lodgings, butteries, and rooms connected with the kitchen department. It is said there were buildings against the north curtain, but of such there is now no trace.

How the ramparts of the west, south, and east walls of this ward were reached is uncertain. There is no way to them from the keep or from the kitchen tower. The north curtain is reached by a short stair from the forebuilding. This curtain is here 10 feet thick, and has a rampart walk 6 feet high, with a high parapet and rere-wall. One of the old Roman bastions occurs on this part of the curtain. It is solid below, and has been raised to contain a small chamber, the floor of which is a little below the rampart level, from which a door opens into it. There is also a good west window of two lights, cinquefoiled, opening on the rampart walk, and a small fireplace; altogether far too comfortable a post for any officer on duty. East of this bastion the hollow angle between it and the curtain is crossed by an oblique arch or squinch, of two rings of voussoirs of excellent Decorated work, which supports a small garderobe, such as is seen on Southampton walls and at Ludlow.

There remains to be described the gatehouse, or entrance to this inner ward,—a very curious structure, of unusual length, and of three periods. First, approaching from the outside are two parallel walls, 5 feet thick and 9 feet apart, from within the ends of which hung the drawbridge, apparently without any special arch or gateway. In one wall is a squint loop, commanding the approach from the great gateway of the outer ward. From the drawbridge a passage, at first of 9 feet, and then of 10 feet in width, and 15 feet long, ends in a portcullis and gateway, the whole 2 feet deep and 9 feet of opening. Beyond this the passage continues 10 feet broad for 17 feet. So far, the road was either open or roofed with timber, and all is of Perpendicular date.

Next follows a remarkably fine archway of the Decorated period, deeply moulded and portcullised, with a rebate for a door. This leads into a sort of peristyle, 8 feet deep, vaulted and groined, with ribs and bosses, and ending in a second and rather lower portal. In this peristyle are two lateral doorways, of 3 feet broad, opening upon the scarp of the ditch between it and the curtain wall, just as at Hawarden, only there they open from a chamber on the counterscarp. The arch in which the peristyle ends is rebated for a door, but has no portcullis grooves. The Decorated work here ends, the portal being seen to mask the original Norman entrance. This is a perfect, plain, square-jambed Norman entrance archway, placed in the front and centre of the original gatehouse, which was a plain rectangular tower of 23 feet projection from the curtain, and 28 feet broad. Entering, the way lies between two lofty walls, 19 feet apart, and which for 22 feet are those of the old Norman gatehouse, with two lateral loops raking the curtain. There was a timber floor above this passage. The walls are then continued 28 feet further, on the left being the rooms attached to the great hall, on the right those of Tudor date. Thus the entrance to this ward is about 100 feet long, defended by a drawbridge, a portcullis, and two sets of gates.

The two gatehouses of the outer ward next require attention. The water-gate is, in substance, Roman. The gatehouse is 26 feet square, with walls 6 feet thick, having no projection outside the curtain. All is perfectly plain, without buttress, chamfered edge, or moulding. The way lies through two doorways, opposite each other, of 8 feet 6 inches opening. The inner arch is built of white limestone, with a few blocks of blood-red iron sandstone. The voussoirs are heavy, and a single ring. The walls generally are of coursed flint rubble, very open jointed. In the Decorated period a sort of porch, of 20 feet projection by 12 feet in breadth, was added upon the outer face, in the centre of which is an outer gateway, portcullised, and flanked by a pair of buttresses, placed diagonally. Over the gate is a small window, and in the side walls two loops raking the curtain. The old Roman doorway in the line of the curtain has also been altered and refaced in the Decorated period, and a rebate added for a door. The roof was of timber, and there was an upper floor, no doubt an addition. This was reached by a well-stair in the south-west angle, rebuilt for the purpose, and entered by an interior door.

A study of the water-gate will throw much light upon what has been done at the land-gate, which was evidently built originally upon the same pattern. Here the Roman work was either pulled down and rebuilt of the same dimensions, or, which seems more probable, the Roman core has been preserved, and a Norman facing applied. The inner gate is perfectly plain, save that the arch springs from a simple Norman abacus, which is continued outside the wall as a string. The outer gateway has not even the abacus; but it is masked outside by a handsome Decorated portal, with a drop arch and good moulded jambs, and an exterior drip. There is no portcullis, and no middle gate. The space between the gates, a square of 14 feet, was vaulted over from four heavy corbels in the angles, from each of which sprang five ribs, two placed against the walls. There was a plain but hollow chamfer, and they met in a central open circle, and four half circles against the four walls, connected by four ridge-ribs. The whole is of late Decorated or early Perpendicular character.

Here, also, an upper floor has been added, and remains pretty perfect. The chamber is barrel-vaulted, the axis being east and west, and strengthened by seven plain chamfered ribs, of which the springings remain; but the bodies of the ribs, with the vault, are gone. The vault seems to have been pointed, and looks Perpendicular. This room had windows over the gateways. It was reached by a straight staircase, placed in a projection parallel to the north wall, on the north side, and vaulted over. The stair-head opened on the left into the upper chamber, and on the right upon the curtain. There is another door on the south side of the chamber opening on the opposite curtain. This gatehouse has a perfect and very handsome parapet, with merlons and embrasures of equal size, and a bold moulding is carried round each.

A few yards north of this gatehouse a small lancet doorway has been opened in the Roman curtain, probably as a postern. At present it is a mere rough hole; but it looks old, and had it been very modern it would have been lined with brick.

The structural history of the castle is tolerably plainly written upon its walls. Henry I., probably before 1133, seems to have built the keep, and inclosed the inner ward, repaired the Roman curtain, rebuilt or restored the gatehouse, and placed a hall and other domestic buildings along the south side of the inner ward. It may be that Henry himself raised the keep before the works were completed, or this may have been done by Henry II., as late as 1160.

In the Winchester volume of the “Journal of the Archæological Institute” is a paper by Mr. Hartshorne upon Porchester, which gives some curious particulars as to its government and repairs. From these it appears that in 1220 the roof of the keep was out of order, as the constable has four carratas of lead for its covering. This shows that the roof then upon it was the flat one indicated by the weather moulding. Henry III., who obtained in his second, third, and fourteenth years upwards of £10 for tallages from the town or manor of Porchester, suffered the castle to fall into decay, and the return of a survey ordered by Edward I. in 1274 states that the buildings within the castle are old, out of repair, and unfit for habitation. A second report was made twenty years later, after a visit from Edward in person, and repairs were at once ordered, which were very extensive, and were continued through much of the reign of Edward II. Mr. Hartshorne gives an analysis of an account of the clerk of the works here in 1321.

After the receipts, which in this year were £55. 0s. 0½d., the particulars of the expenditure are given in detail. First, the cost of the materials, then the wages of the people employed, the foundation-diggers or “fundatores,” the masons or “cementarii,” at 4d. a day; their labourers or “servientes”; the collectors of stones, “colligentes lapidum,” most of which were picked up on the beach, at 6d. a day; throwers of sand, “jactantes zabulonis,” at 2d.; carpenters, “carpentarii”; sawyers, “sarratores,” at 4d.; fallers, “prostratores”; bark peelers or “scapulatores,” at 3½d.; tilers, “latamores”; plumbers, “plumbatores”; smiths, “fabri”; labourers, “laboratores,” &c. A new lock and key for the east gate cost 4d. William Giles, the tyler, had 4d. a day, and Robert, his boy, 3d., while covering the chamber of Edward II. Two large hawsers, for lifting timber and stone to the top of the tower, cost 43s. 8d.; thirty-two weldichboarde boards were purchased at Havante for 4d. each. Thomas le Piper supplied 157 stones at 10s., and their carriage from the Isle of Wight cost 6d. They were employed for the foundation of the bridge under the castle: probably that in front of the west gate. Peter de Pulford, as clerk and overlooker, had 12d. a day. These works would be all in the Decorated style, varying in detail as the style advanced. The work at the top of the keep was probably the present parapet.

About 12 Edward III. the repairs were resumed. The Queen’s and Knighton’s chambers were repaired. A “fausse wall” was ordered to be built, and a barbican with a brétasche and barriers: works evidently of timber, and probably in advance of the west gate.

Richard II. resumed the works, and about 1396–7, just as the Decorated style was passing into the Perpendicular, seems to have pushed them forward with great activity. Mr. Hartshorne points out that the castle was supplied with stone from Bonchurch and South-Wick, with freestone from Bereston for doors, windows, and fireplaces; and with flint-stone and “rag-platen-stone” from Binnerbeg, also in the island. Besides these were wainscot boards, Botineholt boards, for doors and windows, hearth tiles or “hurthtighel,” Flemish tiles from Billingsgate, and “reretighel” or fire-bricks, for the backs of fireplaces. This accounts for the early Perpendicular work found all over the castle. Probably that in the Tudor style was executed in the reign of Elizabeth, who seems to have given her name to the kitchen tower, probably in consequence of alterations made in it.

The works in modern brick were executed during the present and past centuries, when the Crown held the castle on lease, and fitted it up as a prison; building barracks, now removed, in the great court. As early as 1761 there were Spanish and French prisoners of war here; in that year, it is said, 4,000. The Dutch prisoners taken at Camperdown were stowed here, and many French taken in war. It is said that at one time as many as 8,000 were lodged here. The castle has long been the property of the Thistlethwayte family. A couple of hundred pounds judiciously laid out on the keep would close its breaches, restore the old doorways and stairs, and replace the floors at their proper level. Some such moderate outlay would also do much to improve the inner ward.

The history of Porchester is but scanty. Until comparatively modern times it was always in the hands of the Crown, and commanded by constables, whose names occur from time to time in the public records. King John, the most restless of monarchs, was here eighteen times between 1200 and 1214, in all for fifty-two days. Much mention is made of wine stored here; at one time there were thirty tuns. In 1205 the king sent an engineer and sixteen miners to stay here for twenty days, and the constable was to find twenty picked men to aid them. Also Stephen English, an artificer, was sent. This might be to dig the well in the inner ward; the keep well must have been dug when or before the keep was founded. Sheep are sent for the garrison, sixty at a time, and petraria and mangonels, and other military stores. The tenants who held by castle guard were warned. To the castle was attached a large demesne, and a forest, under the charge of the constable, the income from which was considerable.

Edward I. seems to have been here two or three times, and Edward II. more frequently, staying here for several days in 1324–5–6. Edward III. mustered his army here before his French wars, and kept up a strong garrison and good supplies of wheat and barley, and wine.