Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

NEWCASTLE: great tower

Entrances on upper floors were necessarily approached by stairs, which were habitually placed against the wall, at right angles to the entrance, and sometimes, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Rochester, turned the angle of the wall in their descent. These were usually covered by a structure known as the fore-building, which provided a formidable covered approach to the main entrance. The fore-building formed a substantial annexe to the tower, and has some variety of plan. Indications of it are found in its simplest form at Scarborough, where it was of two stages. The lower stage was a vaulted passage against the south wall, from the end of which the basement doorway was entered at right angles; the upper stage was entered by a doorway from the first floor of the tower. The entrance passage was closed by wooden doors; if these were forced, an attacking party would still have some difficulty and danger in breaking into the tower, while missiles, hurled upon them through a hole in the floor of the upper stage, would make retreat from the passage a delicate matter. The fore-building at Kenilworth was also of two stages, enclosing an entrance stair, which led to the doorway on the first floor. The arrangement at Rochester was more complicated. Here the stair began against the north-west angle buttress, where it was covered by a small tower of two stages, the lower containing the doorway, the upper communicating with a vaulted chamber in the angle of the first floor of the tower. The stair then turned the angle, and, protected by an outer wall some 6 feet high, rose along the north wall of the tower to a drawbridge, with a deep pit below. At the further side of the drawbridge, the east part of the north wall was covered by a building in three stages. The middle stage, entered from the drawbridge, contained a chamber, in which was the main entrance to the first floor of the keep. The lowest stage was a vault, which communicated with the basement of the tower; the upper stage, entered from the second floor of the tower, contained a room, which may have been a chapel. At Dover and Newcastle the fore-buildings were even more elaborate, including a lower tower which protected the entrance and right-angled turn of the stair, a middle tower which covered the stair half-way up, and an upper tower at the head of the stair, beyond the platform from which the second floor was entered. The basement of the fore-building at Newcastle was the castle chapel; the lower tower was, as at Rochester, simply a gate-tower; the middle tower formed a covering to a second gateway on the stair; and the upper tower contained a vaulted guard-room commanding the platform of entrance. At Dover, the upper tower, solid at the base, had vaulted chambers on the first and second floors; the middle tower enclosed a well, the mouth of which was contained in a chamber entered from the platform in front of the main doorway of the keep; while the lower tower formed a large projection at the south-west angle of the keep, containing upon its first floor a covered landing for the stair, from which opened to the east a room, probably an oratory, and to the west a porter’s lodge. Upon the second floor was the chapel of the keep, entered from the main apartments. A vault in the basement of the lower tower of the fore-building communicates with the basement of the keep through another vault, which is common to the keep and fore-building. Similarly, the vault at the first-floor level of the upper tower communicates with the main first floor through another common vaulted chamber. The Dover fore-building is thus an integral portion of the keep.

Of all existing fore-buildings, that at Castle Rising ([143]) is in the best state of preservation. Here the main entrance to the keep is on the east face of the building, near its north end. The stair, which had a timber roof, ascends by the side of the east wall, straight from the ground. There is a gateway at its foot, and another gateway at a landing half-way up. The upper flight of stairs, which was also roofed with timber, passes through a third gateway into the upper floor of a tower, which, as at Rochester and Norwich, covers the main doorway of the keep, and is not placed, as at Dover and Newcastle, beyond the doorway. Each of the doorways of the fore-building has a rounded arch with an edge-roll, and shafts with cushion capitals in the jambs. The main doorway of the keep has five orders, the four outer orders being shafted, and the arch having rich late Norman mouldings. The chamber at the head of the stair is vaulted in two bays, but originally had a timber roof. There is a vaulted chamber beneath it.

There is an exceptional arrangement at Porchester ([131]), where the stair, instead of being covered by the fore-building, is set outside it, against its eastern face. From the landing at the head there is a straight passage, between the first-floor rooms of the fore-building, to the main entrance of the tower; while, from the same landing, another flight of stairs leads to the northern rampart-walk of the castle. Another exceptional fore-building is found at Berkeley ([142]). Here, however, the exception consists in the fact that it is a fore-building, not to a tower, but to a shell-keep of peculiar construction. The mount of the early Norman castle was reduced in height, and its base, forming a platform some 20 feet above the ground, was enclosed within a wall, 8 feet thick, which is strengthened by pilaster buttresses and rises to a height of 60 feet. Against the south-east face of this wall is a narrow fore-building. The stair, which was covered by a timber roof, passes through the lower stage of a gateway-tower, and ascends to a platform, from which, after another gateway has been passed, the interior of the shell is entered. The room upon the first floor of the gateway-tower is entered from the platform by a narrow ledge above the stair.

Berkeley