[345] This date is given in the 43rd Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, p. 71. The licence, as the castle was within the palatinate, was granted by Bishop Skirlaw.
[346] The licence to Thomas de Heton to “make a castle or fortalice” of Chillingham bears date 27th January 1343-4 (Pat. 18 Edw. III., pt. 1, m. 46). Some of the masonry in the angle-towers is, however, of a much earlier date than this.
[347] The mount remains at the west end of the enclosure, but the shell-keep on its summit has been removed.
[348] The gatehouse and barbican in the east curtain, as well as the older portion of the dwelling-house, were the work of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d. 1369): Cæsar’s tower and Guy’s tower were the work of his son Thomas, who died in 1401.
[349] This-is the usual date given for the tower, which is entered from the first floor of the great donjon, and from the lower floor of the “lesser donjon” attached to one side of the keep. E. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Le Château de Coucy, p. 82, departs from the usual date to assign the tower to Philip Augustus, two centuries earlier. The details certainly appear to be of a period much earlier than the fifteenth century.
[350] The turrets attached to some of the towers at Conway and Harlech are at the side, not in the centre. Such raised turrets were useful as look-out posts, and a watcher posted upon them could inform the defenders on the rampart-walk below of movements which they might not be able to follow for themselves.
[351] Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 1, m. 22.
[352] Pat. 9 Rich. II., pt. 2, m. 24.
[353] An interesting gatehouse, belonging to the later years of Edward I., is that of Denbigh, which was probably built by Henry de Lacy, the last earl of Lincoln (d. 1310). Here a noble archway, flanked by two octagonal towers, gives access through a passage to an octagonal central hall, beyond which is a smaller octagonal guard-room. The inner gateway to the enclosure is set in a side of the octagon, obliquely to the outer entrance. The plan is apparently unique. The upper portion of the gatehouse is badly ruined, and the walls have been much stripped; but there is a statue, probably of the founder, left above the entrance archway, which is set in a niche and panel treated with a considerable amount of ornamental detail.
[354] The barrel-vault of a basement chamber in one of the curtain-towers retains the marks of the wattled centering on which it was built. This is persistently asserted to be a mark of Roman origin. As a matter of fact, no part of the present castle can be proved to be earlier than the beginning of the twelfth century, when Roger of Poitou may have moved the head of his honour here from Penwortham, south of the Ribble. The castle, however, lies partly within, and partly outside the limits of a Roman military station.