Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Tattershall Castle

Tattershall Castle; Plan

Brick-work was employed in all these Lincolnshire towers: they lie in a district where stone was not abundant, and where brick-making on the spot was a more simple process than the conveyance of building-stone from Ancaster or Lincoln. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, brick was very freely used for domestic architecture in the eastern counties; and houses like Oxburgh in Norfolk or the rectory at Hadleigh in Suffolk, with their gatehouse towers, are prominent examples of late fifteenth-century work.[374] The old hall at Gainsborough in Lincolnshire is a large mansion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This again is chiefly of brick, but with a considerable amount of timber and plaster employed in the hall and one of the wings; while the bay-window of the hall is of the grey Yorkshire limestone in large blocks, which was much used in the churches of the lower Trent valley. At one corner, however, is a polygonal tower entirely of brick, with cross-loops in the walls of the ground-floor, and battlements at the top. These battlements are corbelled out, so as to give an impression of machicolation: there is, however, no machicolation at all, and the spaces between the corbels are arched and filled with simple tracery. The principle here is the same as that at Wingfield and Tattershall: the residence is provided with its strong tower, which, at Tattershall, as at Warkworth, is identical with the residence itself. But while, at Warkworth, considerations of safety and comfort were fairly balanced, with perhaps a slight inclination of the scales to safety, at Tattershall, in spite of the covered gallery with its machicolated floor, the balance is on the side of comfort. Both at Tattershall and Wingfield the splendid residence is studied in the first instance, while the defensive stronghold is a secondary idea. The tower at Gainsborough is simply an imitation of the strong towers of the past, conceived in admiration of their strength and conservative love of their beauty, but with no serious idea of practical utility.[375]

The fine manor-house of Compton, in a secluded Devonshire valley a few miles west of Torquay, was probably built about 1420 by one of the family of Gilbert. The main entrance, in the centre of the east front, beneath a tall archway including the ground-floor and first floor in its height, is flanked by bold rectangular projections finishing in corbels some feet above the ground. It does not lead, however, into a vaulted passage barred by portcullises and flanked by guard-rooms, but into one giving direct access to the hall. This no longer exists, and a modern building covers part of the site, but the weathering of the high-pitched roof still remains, and at its south end we can still see the entrances of the kitchen and buttery, and the stair-door of the minstrels’ gallery. The courtyard and domestic buildings are enclosed by a wall with a continuous rampart-walk, from the parapet of which are corbelled out at intervals machicolated projections which are so arranged as to be directly above doorways and windows, and thus to protect the most vulnerable points of the house, such as the large four-light east window of the chapel, north of the hall. The house was not surrounded by a ditch; but the space between it and the road probably formed a base-court, although any remains of fortification have disappeared. The whole building is a good example of the reversal of the usual process. The dwelling-house has not grown up within a castle, but has been converted by a very thorough process of walling and crenellation into a fortified post to which the name of castle may well be applied. The situation is anything but commanding, but the house lying hidden in its valley, might be a formidable obstacle, like the neighbouring castle of Berry Pomeroy, to marauders pushing their way inland from Tor Bay.

Hurstmonceaux Castle; Chapel

The character of house first, and castle afterwards, which is remarkable at Wingfield, is also prominent in two of the great Yorkshire residences of the house of Percy, Spofforth and Wressell, princely manor-houses dignified by the name of castle. But perhaps the best example in England of a castle which is one only in name is the brick house of Hurstmonceaux in Sussex. This splendid building was begun about 1446 by Sir Roger Fiennes. Its position, in a sheltered hollow at the head of a small valley, has no military advantages: it may be compared with the secluded site of Compton Wyniates, or with the low sites, within easy reach of water, which the builders of Elizabethan houses were fond of choosing. The house was surrounded by a wet ditch—a feature shared by Compton Wyniates, Kentwell, and other Tudor houses.[376] The imposing gatehouse is in the centre of the south front, a rectangular building flanked by tall towers,[377] with its portal and the room above recessed beneath a tall arch which at once recalls the machicolated archways that guard the entrance to castles like Chepstow and Tutbury. The gatehouse has certain military features: its rampart and that of the towers is machicolated, and the entrance was closed by a portcullis ([323]). If cannon had made the curtain of comparatively little importance, it was still advisable to defend the gatehouse. There was no base-court, like that at Wingfield, in advance of the main buildings. The castle was simply a collection of buildings arranged round a series of courtyards, none of which was of any great size, or corresponded to that distinctive feature of the military stronghold—the open ward or bailey, which served as the muster-ground for the garrison. The hall was in its usual position, on the side of the first court opposite the main entrance. Most of the private apartments were against the east wall, from which the chancel of the chapel ([359]) projected in a half-octagonal apse.

An unrivalled opportunity for studying the progress of the castle in England is provided by a comparison of Hurstmonceaux with its neighbours at Pevensey and Bodiam. Pevensey, taking us back, in its outer circuit, to the Roman era, is, so far as the actual castle area is concerned, a Norman mount-and-bailey stronghold, with stone fortifications chiefly of the thirteenth century. Bodiam represents one of the last and highest efforts of perfected castle building in England. Hurstmonceaux is a house designed for ease and comfort, but keeping something of the outer semblance of the stronghold of an English landowner. A further step was taken at Cowdray, near Midhurst. Here the house, nominally a castle, was built about 1530 by Sir William Fitzwilliam: the battlements of the great hall and its beautiful porch-tower are the only relic of military architecture which it retains; and these are really no more military in character than the battlements of a church tower or clerestory. The comparison and contrast between these Sussex buildings may be further extended by including in the list the early fortresses of Lewes and Hastings, and the episcopal castle of Amberley.[378] In these, with what remains of the early castle of Arundel, we have as perfect an epitome of the history of the rise and decline of castle architecture in England as any county can afford.