Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Porchester; Plan

As already indicated, the details of these gatehouses are very simple, and it is only where an attempt is made at ornament that their date can be fairly judged. Thus at Porchester, the entrance archway, masked by defensive work of a more advanced period, consists of an unmoulded ring of voussoirs, divided from the jambs by plain impost-blocks. The outer bailey or base-court of the castle, which is still surrounded by the Roman walls with their semicircular bastions, has two gatehouses. These occupy the sites of the west and east gates of the Roman enceinte, and the east or water-gate is in part Roman. The western gatehouse was rebuilt at a date contemporary with the enclosure of the castle proper within the north-west quarter of the Roman station, and was much altered at a later period. The archways of the Norman building remain, and show no attempt at ornament, the inner one alone having impost-blocks below the arches. The work at Porchester is usually attributed to the early part of the twelfth century, and the ashlar facing of the side walls of the inner gateway appears to be of that date. A similar severity of detail is seen in the parallel case of Lewes, where the original gatehouse was also covered in the fourteenth century by a barbican ([98]). The great gatehouse of three stages, at Newark castle ([99]), was the work of Alexander, bishop of Lincoln from 1123 to 1148, whose uncle, Roger, bishop of Salisbury (1107-39), appears to have built the gatehouse at Sherborne. The archways of the lower stage at Newark are of great width, and are as simple in detail as those at Porchester. The outer or northern wall of the tower is faced with finely-jointed ashlar, and the archway on this side has a hood-moulding, with billet ornament.[119]

Lewes; Barbican

The position of the gatehouse in relation to the curtain varies. At Richmond, Porchester, and Exeter the inner face of the gatehouse was flush with the curtain. At Ludlow, Newark, and Tickhill it was partly outside, but mostly inside the curtain. At Lewes the projection was wholly internal. Its measurements also vary. Porchester was 23 feet in length by 28 feet in breadth: Exeter and Lewes were about 30 feet, Tickhill about 36 feet square: Ludlow was 31 feet broad, but was some feet longer. The area of the gatehouse at Newark is larger than any, and the general proportions and elevation were those of a rectangular donjon rather than a mere gateway-tower.[120]

Newark; Gatehouse

Stress has been laid on the occurrence of early stone fortifications on rocky and precipitous sites, where the ordinary earthworks were at once impracticable and unnecessary. It will be noted, however, that the gatehouses which have been described are not found wholly in such positions. Tickhill and Lewes were mount-and-bailey castles with strong earthworks. Porchester is on level ground, open to Portsmouth harbour on two sides, and defended by a ditch on the sides towards the land: the site was already walled, but the rectangular keep appears to stand upon the base of an earlier mount, which may have been thrown up so as to enclose the Roman tower at the north-west angle of the station. Newark ([157]) stands on a moderate height above the meeting of the Devon and an arm of the Trent, with a deep ditch on the north and east sides towards the town. There was no castle here before Alexander began to build in or about 1130; and his work from the beginning consisted of a rectangular enclosure without a mount, in which the gatehouse had something of the importance of a keep. The necessity of defending the entrance of the castle, whatever the nature of the site might be, led to the construction of stone gatehouses at an early date; and, at Tickhill or Lewes, the gate-towers were probably constructed at a time when the mounts and embankments of the bailey were still defended by timber.

Stone curtains which display “herring-bone” masonry may generally be assumed to be early in date. It has been customary to look upon “herring-bone” masonry as indicative of pre-Conquest work, and many buildings have been described as “Saxon” on the strength of this detail alone. On the other hand, it never occurs in direct association with details which may be regarded as definite criteria of pre-Conquest masonry; and the dimensions, apart from other features, of churches in which it is found in any quantity, usually afford suspicion of its post-Conquest origin.[121] Its use in castles, which, as has been shown, were a Norman importation into England, demolishes its claim to be regarded as a distinctive sign of Saxon work; and its employment in Normandy, especially in the donjon of Falaise, where almost the whole of the inner face of the walls shows “herring-bone” coursing, may be set against any theory which would attribute it to English masons after the Conquest.[122] It was used by Roman builders, and much of it may be seen in the towers of the enceinte at Porchester. Saxon builders, however, did not copy Roman methods of walling, and the surest criterion of Saxon work is the thin wall, wholly composed of dressed stone, or of rag-work without facings. Norman builders, coming from a country where the continuity of Roman influence was never broken, used the ordinary Roman method of a compound wall, in which a solid rubble core was faced with ashlar on one or both sides. It is only natural that in early stone castles, which were constructed as quickly as possible, the facing should be of a rough description, of coursed rubble or of “herring-bone” courses laid in thick beds of mortar. At a subsequent date, when masonry was added to already fortified sites, the work could be pursued in a more leisurely manner. The most striking example of “herring-bone” work in an English castle is in the cross-wall of the great tower at Colchester ([101]), which is unquestionably a building of the eleventh century. Here the work was evidently hurried on, with the object of securing the greatest amount of strength in the least possible time, and Roman tiles were re-used in large quantities as bonding courses for the rubble walls, and for the “herring-bone” coursing of the dividing wall. At Richmond, as has been noted, there is a certain amount of “herring-bone” work in the curtain. The castle was founded on an entirely new site by Alan of Brittany: earthworks were out of the question, and the date of the older masonry of the stone wall is beyond dispute.