Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages

by A. Hamilton Thompson

Carcassonne; Plan

The concentric plan may be described as follows. The site on which the castle was built was surrounded, as usual, by a ditch. The inner scarp was crowned, and sometimes partly reveted, by a wall, flanked by towers at the angles and, in the largest castles, on the intermediate faces. Within this wall, and divided from it by a narrow space of open ground, rose a second and much higher wall, also flanked by towers at the angles and on the faces. This inner wall enclosed the main ward of the castle, the intermediate space forming the outer ward or “lists.” There was no keep: here, as in the plan of Conway and Carnarvon, reliance was placed on the curtains. The entrances, however, were elaborately defended by large gatehouses and by sundry ingenious devices, as at Beaumaris, for perplexing a foe; and the castle was sometimes reinforced, as at Caerphilly, by special outer defences both of earth and stone. An enemy, attacking such a fortress, was exposed first to a double fire from the two curtains. If he effected an entrance, he had to fight every step of his way into the inner ward; while, if he was driven, by determined resistance at the gateway, into the narrow space of the outer ward, he was not merely in danger from the archers on the inner wall, but also might find his way blocked by one of the cross-walls which broke up the space in which he was confined.

Kidwelly Castle; Plan

Such a plan, although it might lack some of the advantages of a plan worked out on a new site, could be applied to the new defences of an old castle. Both at Dover and the Tower of London during the reign of Henry III., additions were made which gave each castle a concentric plan.[277] The effect at Dover was to ring the imposing keep about with a double wall: the inner circuit, however, is largely of the same date as the keep, and the outer is spreading and irregular in plan. At London the defences were more closely planned in harmony, and one feature of the additions is that, when the buildings are examined close at hand, the White tower, originally the most important feature of the fortress, becomes comparatively insignificant in the defensive scheme. The inner and outer curtains, with their towers, are of more than one date, from the end of the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but the most important work was done in the reign of Henry III., during which the concentric plan of the fortress was developed. The best idea of the fortifications can be obtained from the open space before the west front. Between the city and the castle lies the formidable ditch, which runs round three sides of the fortress, the fourth side being guarded by the Thames and a narrower ditch. Dug by the Conqueror’s workmen, the ditch was widened and deepened by Richard I.’s chancellor, William Longchamp: it originally seems to have admitted water at high tide. The entrance to the castle is at the south-west angle. A gatehouse, called the Middle tower, which was covered by an outer ditch[278] and outwork, stands on the counterscarp of the great ditch, on this side 120 feet broad, and gives access to a stone bridge. This crossed the ditch to the Byward tower, a gatehouse at the south-west angle of the outer curtain. This curtain has been much altered, and its angles along the north face are capped by bastions which belong to the age when the cannon had taken the place of the catapult. Along its south face, towards the narrow ditch, the quay, and river beyond, it is flanked by towers, the chief of which is St Thomas’ tower, the water-gate of the castle, well known by its name of Traitors’ gate, and, like the Byward and Middle towers, originally a work of the thirteenth century.[279] From the bridge leading to the Byward tower, the curtain of the inner ward, flanked by three towers, the Beauchamp tower in the middle, the Devereux and Bell towers at the angles,[280] can be seen commanding the narrow outer ward. This approach was apparently defended by three rows of archers, like the south curtain of Carnarvon. The highest row occupied the rampart-walk and towers of the inner curtain. Loops were made in the face of the same curtain, below the rampart-walk, for a second row, on the raised ground-level of the inner ward; while a third row could be stationed behind loops in the outer curtain. The outer ward varies in breadth, but the passage to the gateway of the inner ward, along the south face of the inner curtain, is very narrow, and is flanked by the Bell tower and Wakefield tower.[281] The inner gateway is in the ground-floor of the Bloody tower, which joins the Wakefield tower; and is immediately opposite the water-gate in St Thomas’ tower. At intervals the outer ward was traversed by cross-walls, so that an unhindered circuit of it was impossible: one of these crosses it on the east side of the Wakefield tower, and is continued across the ditch to the river bank.[282] The well-flanked approach from the Byward tower, arranged so that the gateway to the inner ward must be entered by a right-angled turn, may be compared with the entrances at Conway and Beaumaris, or with the earlier approach to the main bailey at Conisbrough.

Chepstow; Basement chamber

In some respects, the alterations undertaken at Chepstow ([104]) towards the end of the thirteenth century give it a place among concentric castles. The ridge on which the castle stands, between the town ditch and a sheer cliff above the Wye, was too narrow for concentric treatment, and the actual plan shows us four wards on end, each on higher ground than the last. The first and lowest ward was the Edwardian addition. The second ward formed the lower part of the bailey of the early castle. The third ward, at a very narrow point in the ridge, was almost filled by the great hall, which was virtually the great tower or keep of this castle; and there is only a narrow passage mounting the slope between the hall and the low curtain above the river. The fourth ward, at the highest point, and divided from the third ward by a deep rift in the rock, contains a wide gateway, which, as at Kidwelly—the nearest parallel—was the back entrance to the castle. We have only to imagine the ditch next the town filled up, and the outer curtain continued so as to embrace the second ward and great hall, and to unite the first and fourth wards; and we have what is virtually the plan of Kidwelly ([267]). Free ingress and egress for the garrison, so well studied in concentric plans, was provided by the two gateways at Chepstow. The exposed condition, however, of the lower ward, at the foot of the ridge, prompted an addition to the plan which recalls the Eagle tower at Carnarvon, or the strong towers at the later manor-castles of Raglan and Wingfield. Projecting from the lowest angle of the curtain, commanding the approach from the town, and covering the gateway, is the tower now called the Marten tower, rounded to the field and flat at the gorge. This tower, entered from the ground-level of the ward, had its own portcullised gateway, and a doorway, also portcullised, from the first floor to the rampart-walk of the curtain. Its three floors were very amply planned, and, projecting from the second floor, and partly built on the battlements of the curtain, is a small chapel or oratory, with an east window containing geometrical tracery. The Marten tower is a valuable example of the protection of a dangerous angle. Its flanking capacities were improved by a spur or half-pyramid built against the base: this may be compared with the rectangular plinths of the two western angle-towers at Carew, from which spurs rise against the rounded surfaces of the towers themselves. The first ward at Chepstow contains a lesser hall and other domestic buildings on the side next the river: these, with the vaults below them ([268]), contain work of great beauty. All the Edwardian work at Chepstow has that simplicity and adequacy of design, admitting here and there of beauties of detail, which is found in the best military work of the age ([249]).[283]