Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

The well of the tower, a most necessary feature in case of siege, was in the floor of the western chamber of the basement, near its south-western angle, and was cased with ashlar. Only three fireplaces remain, all in the east wall, two on the first, and one on the second floor: the smoke escaped through holes in the adjacent wall. The use of the rooms on the various floors is uncertain, and it is possible that they may have been separated by wooden partitions into smaller rooms. The basement chambers, however, were obviously store-rooms; and the great western chamber on the third floor was used by many of our kings as a council-chamber. The first-floor rooms may have been intended for the use of the garrison, while the larger room on the second floor was probably the great hall of the tower, and the smaller room the king’s great chamber. The upper room, next the council-chamber, may have been for the use of the queen and her household. Accommodation, suited to the scanty needs of the times, was thus provided for a large number of persons; and the great size of the chapel alone indicates that the tower was intended as an occasional residence for the royal family. The palace hall at Westminster, however, was in building, when Rufus made his wall round the Tower; and it is clear that the cold and dark interior of the fortress was planned mainly with a view to defence, and with little respect for comfort.

The great tower of Colchester castle ([47]), which is of the same date as the White tower, covers an even larger area. The internal measurements of the ground-floor, excluding the projections at the angles, are 152 feet north and south by 111 feet east and west. This, the greatest of all Norman keeps, has unfortunately lost its two upper stages, and, with them, the chapel, which, like that in the White Tower, was built with an apsidal projection covering the junction of south and east walls. The crypt and sub-vault of the chapel, however, remain. In this respect, and in the division of the floors into larger and smaller chambers by a cross-wall running north and south, the likeness between these two great towers is very marked. The rectangular projections, on the other hand, which cap three of the angles of the tower at Colchester, are far more prominent than those of the Tower of London, and form small towers in themselves; and, even at the angle where the apse of the chapel is extended eastward, the south wall has been built of a thickness to correspond with the projections at the north-east and north-west angles. That at the south-west angle differs in plan from the rest, being longer from east to west and wider on its western face than the others. Its south face also is recessed from the level of the south wall of the tower, but projects in a large rectangular buttress at the point where it joins the main wall. This south-west tower contained the main staircase. The entrance was on the ground floor, immediately east of the buttress just mentioned, and not, as in most rectangular keeps, upon the first floor. The ashlar with which the exterior of the tower was cased has been stripped off, and the rubble core of the walls, with its bonding courses of Roman tiles, is now exposed. Below the ground floor the walls spread considerably: this can be seen upon the north and west sides, where the hill drops towards the river, and the upper part of the solid foundation is above ground. Between the angle towers the walls are broken, on the east and west sides, by two rectangular buttresses of slight projection: on the north side there is only one, and on the south side none. The ground floor and first floor were lighted by narrow loops, splayed inwardly through about half the thickness of the wall. In each of the east, north, and west walls of the ground floor there are three of these. The south wall has only two: one lights the well chamber on the east of the entry, while the other, at the opposite extremity of the wall, lights the sub-vault of the chapel. The wall between the two, being on the side of the tower most open to attack, is of great solidity, and is unbroken by opening or buttress. In each face of the first floor, exclusive of the angle towers and apse of the chapel, there were four loops. The window openings of the upper stages were probably larger. One of the most striking features of this tower is the plentiful use of Roman tiles among the masonry, especially in the cross-wall, where they are arranged in a very regular and beautiful series of “herring-bone” courses ([101]). This employment of Roman material gave rise to a tradition, not yet wholly extinct, that the tower was a Roman building. It need hardly be said that nothing would be more natural than for the Norman masons to adopt the economical principle of applying to their own use material which lay ready to hand among the ruins of the Roman station.

Dover

Clun

The towers of London and Colchester are exceptional in their date and in the hugeness of their proportions. Although the towers of the later part of the twelfth century have many features in common with them—the division by means of cross-walls, the well-stairs in one or more of the angles, the pilaster buttresses projecting from the outer walls, and the mural galleries and chambers—no tower was subsequently attempted upon their scale. The tower of Rochester (frontispiece), which appears to have been begun somewhat earlier than 1140, and is therefore intermediate in date between these two exceptional examples and the later towers, is 113 feet high to the top of the parapet, and is 70 feet square (exterior measurement) at its base. The tower of Dover ([126]), built in the early part of the reign of Henry II., measures 98 by 96 feet at the base. The walls, however, have the exceptional thickness of 24 to 21 feet, so that the internal measurements are considerably reduced, while the height to the top of the parapet is only 83 feet. The towers of London and Colchester are also exceptional in the importance given to the chapel in their plans. The great prominence of the angle turrets at Colchester is an unique feature, while the position of the main entrance upon the ground floor, although not unique, is very unusual.

The later towers differ from those of London and Colchester in the fact that they were additions to enclosures already existing, instead of being the nucleus of a castle founded for the first time. Although they have a general family likeness, neither their position on the plan, which was necessarily dictated by the nature of the site, nor the details of their arrangements, are uniform. Most of the castles in which they occur are divided by a wall, built across the enclosure from curtain to curtain, into an outer and inner ward or bailey. The tower, standing at the highest point of the inner ward, was placed so as to command both these divisions of the castle. If the outer ward were entered, the besiegers were confronted by a second line of defence, the wall of the inner ward, in conjunction with which the great tower, with its superior height, could be used by the defenders. Finally, if the inner ward were taken, the tower still remained as a formidable refuge for the garrison.