Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Kenilworth

The internal divisions of the keeps are not uniformly the same, and do not always correspond to the height. The usual arrangement in the loftier keeps, as at Hedingham, Porchester, Rochester, and Scarborough, is a basement with three upper floors; but at Corfe, which is 80 feet high, as at Guildford, which is only 63 feet high, there are only two upper floors. At Dover, 83 feet high, and Newcastle, 75 feet high, the second floor was surrounded by a mural gallery, high above the floor-level, so that the second and third floors were combined into one lofty room.[176] At Norham, however, there were four upper floors. Kenilworth, only 10 feet lower, had a lofty basement with only one floor above it. At Bowes there were two floors. At Middleham and Castle Rising, there was one main floor; but, by the subdivision of the rooms on this stage, a second floor was made in portions of the building. As a rule, the walls grow thinner as they rise: this was achieved by rebating the inner face at each floor to provide a ledge for the floor timbers. In exceptional cases, there is an off-set on the exterior of the tower; and at Rochester the walls are thinned from 12 feet at the base to 10 feet at the top by a slight exterior batter. At Porchester the walls are 11 feet thick at the base: this is reduced to 7 feet at the first floor, and, by an off-set at the level of the original roof, to 6 feet in the upper stage. The thickest walls, next to those at Dover, appear to be at Newcastle, where their thickness at the first floor is 14 feet.

Many of these towers, such as Rochester and Dover, are built of rag-stone or coursed rubble, with dressings of ashlar. The masonry at Guildford ([128]) is extremely rough, and “herring-bone” coursing is extensively used: the date of the tower, however, to judge by its internal details, is not earlier than the third quarter of the twelfth century.[177] On the other hand, not a few have their walls cased with ashlar. Hedingham and Porchester are noble examples from the east and south of England; Bridgnorth and Kenilworth from the midlands. Of the towers of Yorkshire, Bowes, Richmond, and Scarborough have ashlar casing; Middleham is of rubble with ashlar dressings. Ashlar facing is used throughout at Bamburgh, Newcastle, and Norham: at Norham the ashlar is of two distinct kinds, small cubical stones being used in one part, and larger stones in another.[178] As at Colchester, Dover, and Kenilworth, the foundations of the larger towers spread considerably, and rise above ground in a battering plinth, into which the buttresses at the angles and on the face of the walls die off without interruption. At Newcastle there is a roll string-course above the plinth, and at Bamburgh ([91]) the plinth is moulded with a very imposing effect. Where the tower is built on an uneven site, as at Middleham or Scarborough, the plinth appears only on the faces where the ground falls away from the tower.

The angles of the tower were always strengthened by rectangular pilaster buttresses of the ordinary twelfth century type, formed by thickening the two adjacent walls. In most cases these meet, forming a solid exterior angle. Occasionally, as at Guildford, Hedingham, and Rochester, a hollow angle is left between them, which, at Castle Rising and Scarborough, is filled by a shaft or bead. Above the line of the parapet the angle buttresses are continued into square turrets. Within one or more of these angles, there was a vice. At Newcastle ([139]) the angle buttresses are of such breadth and projection as to form distinct towers: this is even more noticeable at Kenilworth, where there are angle towers not unlike those at Colchester. On the faces of the tower between these angles there were usually one or more pilaster buttresses of slight projection. These varied in number according to the plan and site of the tower. At Dover there is one on each face, with the exception of the side which is covered by the forebuilding. At Kenilworth there are four on one face, three on another, two on a third: the remaining wall has disappeared. At Porchester there is one on each of the west and north faces, none on the east or south: when the tower was heightened, neither angle nor intermediate buttresses were continued upwards. It is worthy of note that one of the angle towers at Newcastle is polygonal, not rectangular, in shape. This points to a transition in methods of fortification, of which more will be said hereafter. The south-east angle at Rochester is rounded; but this is the result of a repair of the tower which took place in the thirteenth century.

HEDINGHAM: great tower

As the main object of these towers was defensive, their external architectural features were generally confined to their excellent masonry. A moulded plinth, as at Bamburgh, is of very rare occurrence. At Norwich and Castle Rising a wall is arcaded or recessed: this, however, is quite contrary to the usual practice. String-courses, where they were used, were generally confined to the buttresses, as at Kenilworth; although in a few cases, as at Richmond, they were continued along the wall. The necessary window openings were few and small. Here, however, a distinction must be made. It has been remarked already that the donjon of a castle sometimes formed the residence of its lord as well as a strong tower in time of war. The towers of London and Colchester were certainly planned upon their liberal scale with this double end in view; and, destitute of comfort as they seem to us to-day, the upper floors of the White Tower were at any rate well lighted. Similarly, at Rochester, there was a large provision of single-light windows in the floors above the basement. And, as a rule, while the basement was lighted by a very few narrow loops, set high in the wall, and the first floor, which was not above the range of missiles, was lighted sparingly by narrow loops with wide internal splays, the second floor, which formed the main apartment, had much larger windows. These, as in the Tower of London, or at Dover, Hedingham, and Scarborough, were sometimes of two lights, divided by an intervening shaft or piece of wall. At Newcastle, where the second floor, owing to the thickness of the walls, in which separate chambers are contrived, is very dark, there is a wide single opening in the intermediate buttress of the east face, which externally has a moulded arch and jamb-shafts ([139]). At Richmond, a tower the single object of which seems to have been defence, the window openings, with one exception, are narrow loops with internal splays; and, of all twelfth century towers, this was probably the darkest and least comfortable ([93]).[179]

The main entrance of the tower was usually on the first floor, although sometimes, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Norwich, it was on the second floor, and led directly into the main apartment. It was obviously unsafe to make an entrance in the basement, where the doors could be easily forced or burned. At the same time, there is, as we have noticed, a basement entrance at Colchester, where the approach was protected by a strong ditch. The rocks on which Bamburgh and Scarborough stand made the position almost impregnable, and in both cases the main doorway of the tower is on a level with the soil of the ward in which it stands.[180] When the outer opening of the original gateway at Richmond was removed to make way for the new tower, the inner opening was left, forming a direct communication between the interior of the castle and the basement: this also was permitted by the natural strength of the site; but the main entrance to the tower was in the south-east corner of the first floor, from the rampart-walk. At Ludlow, both openings of the gateway were walled up ([94]), and a stair was made to the first floor against part of the west wall of the tower.[181] Even in the tower on the mount at Guildford, the main entrance was on the first floor ([128]). Where the doorway led into the chief apartment of the tower, it received special architectural treatment. That at Newcastle is a wide opening with a semicircular arch of three orders and shafts in the jambs: it has been rebuilt, but probably follows the original design closely. On the other hand, the first-floor entrance at Kenilworth, which led into the main room, is exceedingly plain, with a segmental arch, and a semicircular relieving arch in the wall above.