THE ANCIENT DEFENCES OF SOUTHAMPTON.
AT the head of the inlet known as Southampton Water, between its two principal tributaries of the Test or Anton and the Itchen, intervenes a considerable neck or tongue of gravel, which is thus bounded on three sides by water, and is a position of considerable natural strength, and the more valuable that it overlooks a fine roadstead, having the Isle of Wight for its breakwater. By whom this spot was first occupied is unknown. Bittern, an unquestionable Roman station, under the name of Clausentum, is nearly two miles farther up the Itchen, and upon the opposite bank. Even the origin of the present name of the town is a subject of dispute. The Anton presents a tempting source, but it seems most probable that the name means simply “the town of the southern dwelling,” as opposed to Northam, a place close to the Roman station. Certainly the name has no reference to Northampton.
“Hamtunscire” is mentioned in the “Saxon Chronicle” in A.D. 755, and the town was a Saxon place of some mark, coining money in the reign of Athelstane, and occasionally plundered by the Danes. Canute held it, and his experiment upon the advancing tide is said to have been tried in Southampton Water.
Southampton is named in Domesday, and the Normans found it a convenient port both for military and commercial purposes. It was visited and maintained by the Plantagenet monarchs, who here mustered and embarked their troops for Normandy. Hence the town was fortified from an early period, both after the Saxon and the Norman fashion.
The walls enclosed a roughly rectangular space, averaging about 370 yards east and west, by 770 yards north and south, but in actual circuit about 2,200 yards, or 1¼ mile. This area is divided lengthways by the main street, but the western is the larger moiety, partly because it contains the older castle, and partly because of an irregular projection upon what is called the “tin shore.” The north and south gates were upon the main street. There was an east and a west gate, but not at all opposite to each other, nor were the roads cruciform. There is no reason for attributing to the moderately rectangular plan a Roman origin. It was probably dictated by the general figure of the ground.
The surface of the area varies from 15 feet to 35 feet above the adjacent sea level. The northern half is higher than the southern, the western than the eastern. The highest ground, therefore, is in the north-west quarter, where was the castle.
In consequence of this, the wall of this quarter, towards the west, is built against a scarped bank, and is a revetment 30 feet high, whereas elsewhere the wall is built upon ground nearly level, or at best not above 3 feet or 4 feet higher on the inner than the outer side. Besides the castle there is no considerable earthwork, and no reason, therefore, for attributing the defences of the town proper to a period earlier than the incoming of the Normans.
The earthworks of the castle are, however, considerable. The naturally high ground was scarped and pared and somewhat raised, and near the centre of the area the highest point was surrounded by a circular ditch, the contents of which, thrown inward, converted the raised platform into an artificial mound. This, beyond doubt, was the Saxon fortress.
The rectangular area was also well defended. It had the sea for its ditch nearly at the foot of the wall along the west and south fronts. Along the east a broad and deep ditch, wholly artificial, and in part, at least, admitting the sea, ran along the foot of the wall, and divided the town from a strip of lower land, which slopes towards the Itchen, and is now covered by an important suburb. Along the north front a ditch, also artificial, was cut across the ridge; it is said, to a depth allowing it to be filled from the sea. As this would involve a depth of about 40 feet, with a corresponding breadth, the tradition is probably an exaggeration.
The north and east walls, least affected by any irregularities of ground, and nearly straight, are in length about 318 and 790 yards. The south and west fronts are curved and broken to suit the ground, and measure about 320 and 650 yards. The south-west angle is largely rounded off. Of recorded gates, there were the north or Bargate, still standing; the east gate, removed; the spur gate, remaining; the south, or water gate, removed; the west gate and the postern, preserved; Biddles, or Bridle Gate, gone; and the castle water gate, closed up.
The mural towers were chiefly drum, or half round. The north front is flanked by two drum towers, and west of the Bar is one, and east of it two, half-round. Upon the east wall, north of the east gate, was one; and, south of it, six, of which one remains, half-round, and one rectangular. At the south-east angle, the south wall was prolonged eastwards as a spur-tower, covering the ditch; this remains. Upon the south wall there were six towers, including the south flank of the spur gatehouse, and, on the opposite flank, the Bugle Tower. All but one are half-round. The west wall had many buttresses, and few towers. There was one where the south wall of the castle joined the town wall; and near the north end is a fine half round tower,—an addition.
Passing to the details, the north gate, called the Bar, is a large, handsome structure, about 60 feet broad by 60 feet deep in the centre. It is of two stages, pierced below by a central and two lateral passages, and contains above a chamber, 52 feet long by 21 feet broad, used for public purposes. In each wing is a staircase. That to the east is old, that on the west may have been so. The side passages are modern. They communicate with the central roadway by two cross arches on each side, of which the two next the north are original, and probably led into the flanking towers. An examination of the central passage shows the original gate to have been late Norman; at least a round-headed portal there placed is probably in that style, though it has rather a Decorated aspect. Then in the early Decorated time two bold half-round flanking towers were added, and still remain. At this time the rear was probably refaced, and four windows and a centre niche inserted, and the council-chamber enlarged, and probably the east staircase added. The Norman gatehouse had an upper room, of which a round-headed door, with a foliated head, remains. Next, in the Perpendicular period, a bold projection, three sides of an octagon, was added to the front. The gateway, thus advanced, is flanked by two bold, narrow buttresses, which run up to a very bold corbel table, having six machicolations in the central face, and three in each of the oblique lateral ones. The battlements are good Perpendicular, and carried round the rear towards the town; one embrasure is occupied by an alarm-bell. This gate has been much injured by restorations. The openings to the rear, archways and windows, have been refaced; but they preserve much of their old type, and have a Decorated aspect. The main passage has been cut away and widened, and the portcullis grooves are gone. When the ditch in front was filled up, a century ago, all trace of the drawbridge was lost. It appears that this bar was formerly a prison, and the curious cross arches were part of the arrangement for that purpose.
West of the Bar much of the wall remains, but is so blocked in by houses as to be invisible. Forty-six yards from the gate is the site of a half-round tower, beyond which the wall extends in a straight line to Arundel Tower, so called from Sir John Arundel, an early governor. This is a drum, 22 feet in diameter, which caps the north-east angle of the town. This tower is 50 feet to 60 feet high, and seems to rise out of a rectangular mass of masonry, possibly added to strengthen it. Here the internal level is 30 feet, or more, above the external, being a part, no doubt, of the old earthworks.
Continuing along the west wall, at 763 yards is a bold, half-round tower, 20 feet diameter, and 30 feet high, of excellent rough ashlar, with bold machicolations at the level of the adjacent curtain. This is Catchcold Tower. Built against the bank it looks solid, or like a bastion, but it is said to be hollow, though how entered does not appear. This tower, with the adjacent wall for some feet, is apparently a Perpendicular addition to what seems to be a Decorated wall. Beyond the tower is a flight of steps, modern, ascending 30 feet to the summit of the wall, which is there common to both town and castle. The wall then runs forward obliquely, probably to allow of the inclusion of the earthworks of the castle. It seems in substance Norman. The salient is capped by a rectangular buttress, the hollow angles of which on each side are crossed by low, pointed arches, pierced as garderobes, as at Porchester. This buttress tower is of Decorated date.
Then follows about 134 yards of straight wall, probably Norman, about 38 feet high, and backed to the summit with earth. Upon it a small rectangular buttress marks the junction of the north wall of the castle with the town-wall. Further on are five rectangular buttresses of various dimensions. The three first are evidently additions upon the Norman wall, the rest seem original. Part of the wall here is divided into two stages by a bold horizontal bead. Below are two narrow windows of about 18 inches opening, resembling large loops, and which seem to have had square heads. Above are traces of two windows, apparently round-topped. There must have been an interior chamber, now closed. The central buttress is broad and flat, and here are traces of the old water-gate of the castle, which must have been reached by steps, the ground behind being above 30 feet high. Close north of this water-gate is a large vaulted chamber, built against the town wall, and now closed. This part of the wall now ends in a rectangular projection, probably the root of a tower, and marked the junction of the castle south wall with the town wall.
From hence the wall is low and thin for about 33 yards, marking the end of the castle ditch, and out of the regular line, having, no doubt, been rebuilt in modern times. On the rising ground of the castle counterscarp is the root of another square tower, marking the recommencement of the regular town wall, which then turns inwards so as to protect Biddles or Bridle Gate.
This gate, now removed, opened into a steep and rather narrow ascent called Simnell-street, out of which, on the north side, opens Castle-lane, thought to represent an old entrance to the castle.
At Biddles Gate commences a very curious part of the wall, which, as far south as a little beyond Blue Anchor postern, is unlike anything known in England. The original wall, here about 30 feet high and 4 feet thick, with the soil nearly level within and without, seems to have served not only for the town wall, but for the wall of several dwelling-houses within it, the doors and windows of which are visible in the wall, though now closed up. These openings show the wall to have been Norman, and of a moderately early period. This wall was not found sufficiently strong for the purpose of defence, and a second wall, also 4 feet thick, was built against it on the outside. But this second wall was built like an aqueduct, as an arcade, upon tall and slender piers, about 2 feet 2 inches broad, from which, at 10 feet 6 inches high, spring arches mostly semicircular, but some pointed, and two very flat and probably much later, above which was the parapet. The arches are about 12 feet span. The result was to increase the rampart to a walk of 5 feet, with a parapet of 2 feet, and probably a rear wall of 1 foot. Of course, an arcade so placed afforded great shelter for those attacking the wall from without; but to obviate this, while the piers touched the wall, a space like that for a portcullis, a chase about 2 feet broad, was left between the arch and the wall, by means of which any one standing at the base of the wall could effectually be molested with missiles or a long pike. Eighteen arches of this arcade remain. The arrangement is a very curious one, and supposed to be singular. This masque or outer wall may be of late Norman date, but is possibly early English. The piers interfere much with the earlier doors and windows. The wall, where double, is 35 feet high. There are traces of some kind of building outside a part of the wall.
A hole broken through the wall into Blue Anchor-yard shows the rear of the wall, and a little further south is Blue Anchor Postern, an original archway in the wall, much cut about and enlarged, but of which the portcullis chase, worked from the battlements, as at Fishergate, York, still remains. From the postern a very steep, winding narrow lane leads up into the town, between lines of ancient houses, of which two, one on each side, next the gate, are Norman. Both are curious, but that on the south side especially so. It is the shell of a Norman house, of the age of the older part of the wall. It is called, locally, King John’s Palace, but is, in truth, an ordinary Norman private house, and a fairly perfect one. The principal room was on the first floor. The roof is gone, but the door and windows remain. These are coupled, small, round-headed, and divided by a short column, with a slightly sculptured capital. The space within the walls is 43 feet by 45 feet. There is a good Norman fireplace, with hood and flanking columns. In the south and part of the east wall is a mural gallery. The house on the northern side of the lane is 44 feet by 15 feet. There is a good view of the town wall, and a plan of the two houses, in Parker’s “Domestic Architecture of the Twelfth Century,” p. 34.
South of the postern the wall ceases to be double, and is all of one date, and about 6 feet thick. In this part is a flattish rectangular mural buttress tower, much blocked in with houses, but having its south hollow angle crossed by a squinch arch carrying a garderobe. Near this is a high pointed doorway, evidently an insertion, of 24 feet opening, leading into Collis-court, and about 60 feet further is the west gatehouse.
This is a perfect and plain rectangular gatehouse, 30 feet deep by 24 feet broad, without buttresses, flush with the wall outside, and of bold projection within. It is pierced by a high pointed vault, of 12 feet opening. The passage has been a good deal mutilated with a view to widening it. Near the centre was a good recessed doorway, the profile of the head of which is still traceable where it has been roughly cut from the wall. Between this and the inner face are two square portcullis grooves, and just within the inner entrance is a chase, 18 inches broad, over the head of the arch. In the vault, in front of the central door-case, are nine holes, about 4 inches square, three in the crown line, and three along each haunch. These latter converge towards the central line.
The gatehouse has a portcullis chamber on the first floor, and a second floor above this. An open stair against the south side leads to the battlement, from which a door, an insertion, opens into the portcullis chamber. These upper rooms are plastered and papered, and nothing can be seen in them.
South of this gate the wall continues in a fairly perfect state for 80 yards, and finally has been pulled down and removed. It may be traced as far as the site of a half-round tower, and some remains of an arch. Beyond this, also, the line of the wall may be traced as far as the site of Bugle Tower, 180 yards from the west gate, and which caps the south-west angle of the town.
The south wall is almost wholly destroyed, and the foundation either removed or covered up by the broad and handsome quay which now intervenes between the base of the wall and the sea. This front was more or less convex, or rather polygonal, the angles being capped with drum towers. There are some traces of the south gatehouse. In the rear of this part of the wall are the site of St. Mary Magdalene’s Hospital, and in Porter Lane what was called Canute’s Palace. A representation of the south gate before 1784 is preserved by Grose. It had a low, broad Edwardian arch, with bold machicolations above, and toward the east it was protected by a long flanking wall, parallel to its approach. It was removed 1830–40.
Forty yards from the south gate was another half-round tower, and thence the wall ran straight east for 83 yards, when it reached the south-east angle of the town. In the rear of this part of the wall, in Winkle-street, is “God’s House,” a Norman church, now restored very badly, and converted into a French Protestant place of worship.
At the south-east angle of the town, in the end of the east wall, is a gate, called God’s House Gate, or South Gate, but which should be called Spur Gate, as it opens upon a work of that class. This gatehouse is rectangular, quite plain, and without buttresses, having two upper floors. Its dimensions are 28 feet broad by 23 feet deep, and the south end projects as a low salient of two faces, upon the south wall, now removed. The passage is vaulted with a high pointed arch 12 feet broad. Like the west gate, it had a central recessed doorway, now much cut away, and two portcullis grooves. The vault in front of the door is supported by two, and in rear of it by three, cross-ribs. Altogether, in substance, this gatehouse resembles that of the west gate, and is of early Decorated date. Its front may have been rebuilt when the spur tower was added.
The spur work projects from the northern flank of the entrance of the gatehouse for about 80 feet. It is composed of a sort of lofty gallery, or curtain, terminating in a rectangular tower, about 22 feet square, with buttresses capping the two east or outer angles diagonally. It is of three stories, and is built across the eastern ditch, no doubt to contain and protect its sluice communicating with the sea, which originally flowed up to the wall of the tower. There are seen large arches in the north and east faces, which look as though there had been a passage for boats; but these seem really to have been arches of construction only, intended to throw the weight of the building upon the corners, which probably are more deeply founded than the curtain. In the north face is also a large modern arch, a relic of the canal which was to have been carried beneath the tower. The spur-work and the gatehouse were long used as a Bridewell. All still bear marks of that degrading occupation. The whole spur-work is good Perpendicular. Leland calls this the south gate, and the spur tower the Castellet. Grose gives a view of it about 1770. From the Spur Gate the town wall is tolerably perfect as far as the first half-round tower, 60 yards. From hence the wall may be traced 35 yards to a flat buttress, 14 feet broad and 3 feet deep, of which there are some remains. Beyond this, at 37 yards, is the site of a rectangular tower, 30 feet broad and 24 feet deep These two are said to be additions of the time of Edward VI. They look much older.
From hence to the north-east angle of the tower the wall has been pulled down, but its line may be traced, partly by occasional foundations, partly by its materials which have been used in the houses built on its site, and partly by the direction of the lane called “Back o’ the Wall,” which runs along its rear, and by the parallel road which runs along the counterscarp of the ditch, and is called “Canal Walk,” from an abortive canal which was carried along the line of the ditch at the commencement of the present century.
The east gate spanned East-street, and was taken down in 1772. Grose gives a drawing of it, and attributes its erection to the year 1339, 13 Edward III. Between this gate and the north-east angle was one mural half-round tower.
Of Polnymond Tower, which caps the north-east angle, there are considerable remains. It is a three-quarter drum tower, about 28 feet diameter. From it to the bar, 160 yards, the wall, or part of it, remains, but so clustered with buildings as to be inaccessible to ordinary visitors. Here are remains of two half-round towers, and a breach in the wall, called York Gate, probably representing a postern.
The east ditch is marked by a depression, in part due to the canal. The north ditch is completely obliterated and built over, and its breadth is not recorded, and has not been ascertained by probing. If Hanover Buildings mark its counterscarp, it was 46 yards broad; but if, as is much more probable, its limit is marked by Cold Harbour, it was only 24 yards, which tallies with that along the east front.