TAMWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE.
TAMWORTH CASTLE stands at the confluence of the Anker with the Tame, on the right bank of either, between the town and the latter river, and close above St. Mary’s Bridge. It occupies a position near the east end of the south, or river front, of the old town, the outlines of which are still indicated by a bank and ditch, showing it to have been in plan a parallelogram, with one side resting upon the Tame, and the east end defended by the Anker. The low ground about the junction of the rivers, the broad meadows on the left bank of the Tame opposite to, and on both banks below the town, in their natural condition a deep morass, must have rendered the place nearly inaccessible upon its east, south, and west fronts; and, no doubt, led to its conversion into a safe residence at a very early period.
As the ground rises from the river, the town and its grand old church occupy positions rather higher than the castle, and which must always have been dry and airy and, in consequence, salubrious.
The line of the town defence upon the east side is known as the King’s Ditch, in reference, it is supposed, to the Mercian Offa. Though without anything like sharpness of outline, and occupied as a nursery garden, the work is by no means obliterated, and may be traced nearly from the Anker below Bolebridge for about 300 yards northwards. It is composed of a raised bank, which formed a terrace behind the wall or palisade, a ditch more or less filled up, and beyond this a slope representing a glacis, or space outside the works, which it was the custom from a very early period to keep clear of cover. Bank and ditch are about 45 feet broad. The Market-street intersects the line of defence, and, being old, probably was crossed by a gatehouse. There are some slight and uncertain traces of masonry upon its north side. Further north, a modern road affords a good section of the bank.
This side joins the north front at a right angle, within which is a sort of tump, remembered as somewhat larger, and which looks as if it marked the site of a mural tower, or perhaps a cavalier or small mount.
The defences of the north front skirt the Lichfield and Polesworth road, and are traceable nearly to the cross-road from Seckington. Beyond this, the line, now built over or enclosed in walled gardens, was traced by Dugdale along a front altogether of 400 paces, to a mount marking the north-west corner, from which the line passed at right angles southwards to the river. This would give a space of about 300 yards by 400 yards as the enclosure of the town. Outside the west front the ground sinks rapidly into the meadows, among which, on the river bank, and just outside the town, is the Moat House, an old seat of the Comberfords, still standing in all its dampness, although the moat has been filled up.
The principal bridge, that across the Tame, close below the castle, known as St. Mary’s or Lady Bridge, is of modern construction. It succeeded a mediæval structure, shown in Shaw’s plate of 1780, the precursor of which was probably a bridge, or perhaps a ford, of Saxon times. In Leland’s day, a stone upon it bore the arms of Lord Basset, of Drayton.
Bow, or Bolebridge, crosses the Anker, and leads to the hamlet of Bolehill and to Nuneaton.
The church is a large structure of considerable merit, containing some Norman work, apparently once connected with a central tower, and in which may be seen traces of herring-bone masonry. East of it are some ruins, known as the Deanery, part of which seems also to be Norman. The Market-place, though much altered, represents an early space set aside for trading purposes.
Tamworth has no historical pretensions to either British or Roman origin. The Britons would have designated it from the smaller stream. The earliest mention of it is in the records of the people in whose tongue it is named. Offa, King of Mercia, in a charter of A.D. 781, announces himself as “Ego Offa rex, sedens in regali palatio in Tamoworthige,” an evidence of its distinction at that time, and one which renders it probable that it had an earlier history. Cenwulf dates a charter of A.D. 816, “In vico celeberrimo qui vocatur Tomoworthig,” and other royal charters are dated from it in 841 and 854. So that in the eighth and ninth centuries it was already a royal residence and a place of celebrity.
The Danes ravaged it in common with much of Mercia early in the tenth century, and in A.D. 913–14 it was restored by Æthelflaed,
Elfleda potens! O terror virgo virorum!
daughter of Alfred, sister of Edward the Elder, and the foundress of Tutbury, Warwick, and many other well-known Saxon places of strength. She is reputed to have cast up the mound, and to have placed her residence on the summit. She died here A.D. 918–22.
The castle and half the town are in the shire of Warwick; the other half and the church in Stafford. There is no mention of the castle in Domesday.
At the Conquest, Tamworth became the property of Robert Marmion, who seems to have fortified it, as such earthworks were fortified in Normandy, and to have made it strong enough to be obnoxious, some time later, to King John, who, in 1215–16, ordered it to be razed. Under Henry III. another Robert was its lord, and Philip Marmion died seized of it in 1291–92. From Marmion it descended to Frevile, thence to Ferrers, thence with Ann Ferrers, at the end of the seventeenth century, it came in marriage to the house of Shirley, from whom, through Compton, it passed to the Townshends, whose representative, Marquis Townshend, is sixteenth Baron Ferrers by writ of 1299, and owner of Tamworth Castle, while Earl Ferrers, the male heir of the Shirleys, is Viscount Tamworth, by creation in 1711.
From the Norman Conquest to 20 Edward I., the castle descended through five generations of Marmions; from thence to 7 Henry V., through six of the house of Frevile, and from thence to 1680 through eleven descents of the name of Ferrers; being twenty-two lords from the Conquest to 1680. King James and Prince Charles lodged here in 1619.
The castle is composed of a mound, a platform, buildings upon the mound, a curtain-wall ascending it, and the remains of a gatehouse.
The mound is wholly artificial, about 50 feet high, circular, and about 100 feet diameter at its flat summit. Its sides stand at the natural slope of mixed dry earth and gravel, the débris of the new red sandstone of the district; and its base may be about 12 feet above the river.
South-east of the mound is a triangular platform, also more or less artificial, and raised about 15 feet above the river. One side is straight, and fronts the water. That to the east is at present a hollow curve, and has evidently been retained by a wall against which it formed a terrace. This side extends northwards to the ruined gatehouse, indications upon which seem to show that part of the platform has been removed, and that it originally extended a few yards eastwards into the present brewery; so that this front was, no doubt, straight, and not, as now, concave.
The third side, or hypothenuse, of the platform lies towards and partly encircles the mound, and is therefore concave; and between the two is a ditch. Excepting this “valley of elevation,” there is no present trace of a ditch at the foot of the mound.
Below the south front, between it and the Tame, and close above St. Mary’s Bridge, is the castle mill, rebuilt in modern times. It is worked by the Anker, which, sweeping round the south-east front of the castle, serves as a mill leat. Above the mill, and between the leat and the line of wall, is a narrow strip of land, now a garden, and probably once a pasture beneath the castle wall.
North of the platform a curtain wall runs from the gatehouse up the mound, with the summit of which its top is level. This wall in plan is angular, or slightly convex, towards the exterior or town side. It is 10 feet thick, and has a rampart wall of 7 feet, a parapet of 2 feet, and a rere wall of 1 foot. The rampart walk or allure was probably the only way from the gatehouse to the top of the mound. It rises gently, but has no steps. It is about 20 feet high at the central part, ending and commencing at nothing. It is of herring bone masonry, of flat stones laid obliquely on edge, each course being separated by a horizontal bed, sometimes single, sometimes double, of small stones, resembling flat pebbles. At the deepest there are twenty-one courses. Here and there the surface has been patched, but on the whole the wall is in its original state, very rough, but perfect. The joints are very open. The exterior face is less perfect, and is, besides, concealed by clumsy buttresses, perhaps of Tudor or earlier date. The herring-bone structure is not seen in the rere wall, which is probably a restoration, but it appears in the front parapet for a foot or two above the rampart walk. This is a very remarkable wall, and should be photographed in detail.
The continuation of the wall to the upper lodge or gatehouse from the town is in part old, but of later date than the curtain. The gatehouse itself is chiefly modern, but part is old; and connected with it are the remains of an arch jamb and portcullis groove, probably traces of the main entrance to the castle. This gate leads by a short lane into the market-place. The lower lodge, or entrance from the bridge side, was built in 1810, and with its adjacent wall is wholly of that date.
The mound is crested by a many-sided shell of wall, about 9 feet thick, and from 30 feet to 40 feet high. This wall is in part very old. The base has been supported by a modern facing, which batters considerably, and is about 2 feet high; but above this, for 6 feet or 8 feet, the workmanship is open-jointed rubble, with stones of large but irregular size and shape. The quoins are, however, of ashlar, rude but sound. Above this to the rampart height, the wall seems to have been rebuilt in early times in a better manner, but as though the old work had been left where sound, so that the two run much into one another.
The upper 10 feet of the wall, all parapet, seems of still later date. It is crenellated, and occasionally looped at the rampart level. At the south-west quarter is a loop about 6 feet from the ground, and two others higher up, all which are apparently of the age of the wall, and being near the well probably lighted the offices. This wall is much obscured by ivy. It has been materially altered at two points; on the south side entirely rebuilt for several yards to form the outer wall of the southern private apartments; and on the opposite side by the insertion at the same time of several large late Tudor windows, to light the northern apartments. Under these latter are three heavy masses of stone-work to support balconies. One is of somewhat earlier date and of better design than the others.
In the circuit of the wall, to the south, and commanding the way up the curtain, is a tower 24 feet square, and having 5 feet projection from the wall. Its angles within are plain, but those without are flanked by two narrow pilaster strips, leaving a free angle between them. These strips rise about 20 feet, and clumsily pass into a sort of octagon, which at the top of the tower becomes a cylinder, and is so seen on the battlements. These, however, may be an alteration. The tower is about 40 feet high, and the walls are 7 feet thick. It somewhat batters. On its exterior face are two Tudor windows; and about half-way up a string-course, stopped by the pilasters, which in the centre rises as a half-round drip, probably once heading a Norman window. This tower is of rubble, of the date of the wall, with ashlar pilasters. In its outer wall is a very serious crack, which seems to be getting worse.
A few feet south of the tower, and therefore close to the curtain ascent, is the doorway into the keep. This is of small size, with an equilateral arch, plain square jambs continued up through the arch moulding, which is very plain, the angle only being rounded off. The drip, if one there was, has mouldered away. This doorway traverses the wall rather obliquely. The inner front has a ribbed head, and two faces carved upon it near the springing. There is neither portcullis groove nor large bar hole. The defence was a single door.
Between the door and the tower a sort of oriel has been corbelled out at an early period, possibly to defend the approach. At present it has a loop in its basement, and two Tudor windows above, and is surmounted by a small gable of the same date.
Round the base of the wall is a terrace, about 10 feet wide and 8 feet high, above the slope of the mound. The retaining wall is in part old, and is supported by short stout buttresses, apparently of Decorated date. This wall has been patched, and in places rebuilt, in Tudor and later times, and its low circumscribing parapet is mostly modern. What it was, or when constructed, is uncertain. It may have carried a low parapet, a sort of chemisette, defending the base of the keep wall, and intended to supplement the ditch at the foot of the mound. In the last century it was crossed on the south side by a wall, with a gate in it, but this probably was not original.
The buildings within the shell are next to be described. The entrance lies beneath a sort of gatehouse, of the date of the other buildings, having on the right the tower court, and on the left a small court having the outer wall for one of its sides, and in that wall a small doorway, whence a mural staircase ascends, winding with the wall, to the battlements. The inner entrance, opening to the private apartments and hall, is a rather elaborate doorway of the style of James I. This opens into a passage or lobby, having on the right the great hall, on the left a buttery, or modern housekeeper’s room, and in front the way to the kitchen.
The hall lies north and south, and occupies nearly the centre of the enclosure. At each end of it are distinct suites of apartments, having no direct communication save through the hall. On its east side is the tower and tower-court; on its west side the kitchen and kitchen-court.
The hall is 40 feet by 20 feet, the end of honour being the north. The entrance-door is on the middle of the south end. The north end is blank. Of the east side, about the south half is occupied by a large oak window-frame, with square apertures, glazed, reaching from about 5 feet high to the eaves of the roof, and looking into the tower-court. In the same side at the north end a door leads by a stair to the northern apartments and the tower. On the west side, in the centre, is a large fireplace; to its north a window similar to the other, but rather smaller; and to its south a door, opening on a stair, leading to the southern apartments.
The roof of the hall is of open-work, supported by two detached and two engaged principals, one against each gable. The stone floor has lately been replaced by boarding. The three doorways are round-headed, of the age of James I. The aspect of the hall is gloomy, the roof heavy and unskilful, the windows unpleasing, and the walls thin and of brick. There are here four good wrought-iron candelabra about 6 feet high.
The southern apartments upon the basement are, with the exception mentioned, private. On the first floor are the library and drawing-room, and one or two private rooms. The library is panelled with oak to the cornice, and along the upper tier of panels are painted Ferrers and his matches. The fireplace is very handsome, and above it is a large atchievement, carved in black oak, of Ferrers and his quarterings, crest, supporters, and motto. The drawing-room, also panelled and larger, has a good fireplace. Each room has a large Tudor window to the south, and is exceedingly cheerful. The second floor is not shown.
The northern apartments lie between the hall and the north wall, in which the windows are pierced. The basement is composed of cellars, on the ground level, opening from the tower and kitchen courts. The first floor contains a large drawing-room and two smaller lateral rooms. All are dismantled, stripped of the panelling, and in a state of decay. The second floor contains bedrooms, also disused. From this floor a door opens upon the rampart of the enceinte wall, where it is seen to be 7 feet thick, and to have a parapet about 10 feet high. Below is the kitchen-court, and against the wall may be seen a sloping water table marking a roof, probably of an early kitchen. At the other end these rooms communicate with the tower, the floors of which are ruinous. The tower basement is entered from the court. The stairs throughout are in rectangular staircases, and each step is a heavy log of oak.
Between the hall and the west wall is the kitchen, fitted up with a modern roof and appliances, but, no doubt, on an old site. At one end of it is the well, about 5 feet diameter, lined with ashlar, and descending to the level of the river. At the other end is the kitchen-court, in which is seen a closed doorway leading into the basement of the northern apartments. It may be of Decorated or early Perpendicular date.
Looking to the rectangular and oblong outline of the defences, the cross-roads, and the position with one open side upon a river, it is difficult not to regard Tamworth as of Roman origin, or as modelled by Roman occupation. The Icknield-street, in its course from Birmingham towards Lichfield, passes, it is true, no nearer to Tamworth than Wall, the ancient Etocetum, six miles distant, where it is crossed by the Watling-street; but this latter, in its course to Atherstone or Mancetter, passes through Fazeley, only a mile south of Tamworth; and had it not been for its considerable angle at Wall, it would have passed directly through the town. Nevertheless, Roman towns are generally indicated by history or tradition, or the remains of Roman masonry, or articles of domestic use, and these evidences appear here to be entirely wanting.
But whatever may be the origin of the rectangular bank and ditch, there can be very little doubt but that the mound and platform of the castle were the works of Æthelflaed or her Saxon predecessors, the one to support the usual timber stronghold of the Saxon thanes, the other for the huts and sheds of their retainers and their cattle. Probably a ditch included both mound and platform on the three landward sides, and both these and the river front were strengthened by a palisade. As no mention is made of the town walls, no doubt a similar defence crested the bank all round. This is the arrangement well known to have been usual, both in Normandy and England, in the centuries preceding the Conquest, and a good and much earlier local example of it was given by the Romans at Wall, where a few years since the palisades were discovered preserved in a morass which formed their defence in front.
The Normans seem to have begun by building the enclosing wall, the remaining part of which is certainly Norman, probably early, and older than the keep. The domestic buildings were probably at first below the court at the foot of the mound; afterwards the keep seems to have been filled up by buildings. The main entrance was evidently by the upper gatehouse from the town.
The curtain wall cannot be much later than the Conquest. It is clear that it never was prolonged across the top of the mound, as the slope of its rampart walk only points to the level of the top; probably, therefore, when it was built there was a structure of some sort upon the mound. It is also uncertain whether the curtain recommenced on the opposite slope of the mound, and was continued down by the present lodge towards the mill, in which case the area of the castle would have been about 100 yards across.
The present shell, upon the mound, seems later than the curtain. The entrance door and the middle band of the wall seem additions of one age, perhaps of the reign of John or Henry III. The terrace and the oldest parts of the interior are probably later, perhaps of the time of Edward I. or II.
Leland, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., says, “The castle of Tamworth standeth on a meetly high ground, at the south part of the towne, hard upon the ripe of Anker, at the mouth of it. The base court and great ward of the castle is clean decayed, and the wall fallen down, and therein be now but houses of office of no notable building. The Dungeon hill yet standeth, and a great round tower of stone, wherein Mr. Ferrers dwelleth and now repaireth it.... The town of Tamworth is all builded of timber.”—[Itin. iv. 122.]
The base court evidently was the platform, and the great ward no doubt included all the ground south of the present curtain, and between the mound and the mill.
In the east window of the church was a painting, of which a copy is preserved by Dugdale. It represents the Conqueror enfeoffing Robert Marmion with the castle. The king stands in front of a considerable building, fronted by two drum towers of two stories, with conical roofs, and connected by a curtain. In one tower is a gateway, and behind the two are seen, in perspective, the stepped gable of a hall, and the chisel-pointed roof of a rectangular tower.
On the proper right of the king and of the building, in the distance, is the mound, crowned with a wall. This is, no doubt, a representation, rather exaggerated, of the castle, as it stood in the later Plantagenet times.
Dugdale, writing after the civil wars, says, “The Norman castle stood below, towards the mercate-place, where the stables now are.” The mercate-house, rebuilt in Queen Anne’s days, remains; the stables are removed to the other side, towards the bridge. The Norman castle means the domestic buildings.
13 Edward I., Philip Marmion had made a certain “pour presture,” or encroachment, to the injury of the king’s market, on either side of Tamworth Castle, containing a width of 8 feet and a length of 40 feet.
The Mr. Ferrers whom Leland mentions was probably Sir John Ferrers (died 1576), who married Barbara Cockaigne; and the domestic buildings now standing were his work, and, perhaps, the work of his son and grandson.
What originally stood within the shell is unknown, probably some lean-to houses of early English and Decorated date, which were removed, or nearly so, for the present structures. These latest works are mainly of brick, with freestone dressings and door casings.