British Castles

by Charles Henry Ashdown

HERSTMONCEAUX CASTLE, SUSSEX.

Although Herstmonceaux has never undergone any struggles in the "fell arbitrament of war," yet painful memories cling to the ruins. Thomas Fiennes, the ninth Lord Dacre, succeeded to the estate at the age of seventeen. The youth had already laid the foundation of a brilliant career at Court when an escapade, planned by himself and some madcap companions, whereby they essayed to play the rôle of poachers upon a neighbouring estate, led to the death of a keeper whom they encountered. His three companions were arrested and hanged for murder near Deptford; Dacre was also tried and condemned, and the sentence was duly executed at Tyburn in 1541, the young man being twenty-five years old at the time.

Tattershall Castle, on the Witham in Lincolnshire, is contemporary with Herstmonceaux, and constructed likewise of Flemish brick bonded with exquisite workmanship. The tower still standing contains four stories with a total altitude of 112 feet; large Gothic-headed windows occur filled with Perpendicular tracery, and these windows are repeated on a smaller scale in the four octagonal towers which clamp the angles of the building. Massive timber balks once supported the various floors, and a number of carved chimney-pieces are to be found. The walls are about 14 feet thick at the base, and many passages and apartments have been made in their thickness. The well in the base is covered by a massive arched crypt, upon which the Castle has been erected. But perhaps the most notable feature in this beautiful relic of the past is the grand and markedly-perfect system of machicolation combined with the bretasche, which is exemplified in the cornice surmounting the tops of the curtain walls. Upon massive stone corbels is built a substantial stone wall pierced with square apertures for an all-round fire with various arms; in the floor of the alur are the openings for dropping missiles upon assailants at the base of the walls; above this again are the merlons and embrasures giving upon the battlement walk.

The Castle was erected by Ralph, Lord Cromwell, treasurer to King Henry V., whose vast wealth sought for an opening in which to display itself, and probably could not have done so more effectively than in the rearing of a magnificent pile of buildings of which but a small portion, the tower described, now remains. In its later years it suffered a partial dismantling during the Commonwealth period, followed by a rifling in the eighteenth century similar to that which overtook the sister castle of Herstmonceaux.

After the middle of the fifteenth century castles were no longer built, and we have to look to the fortified manor-house such as was designed by the Lord Cromwell above mentioned at Wingfield, Derbyshire, or that at Exburgh in Norfolk; these when surrounded by moats were capable of being placed in a good state of defence, and many a thrilling tale is told of the sieges they underwent during the Civil War when the stout resistance they made was nearly or quite equal to the defence of the massive ramparts and cyclopean bastions of the earlier castle-builder.

PENSHURST PLACE. KENT.

Penshurst Place.—This was originally an embattled mansion of the fourteenth century, and gradually expanded by constant additions into an excellent example of a combined castle and a manorial dwelling-house. The licence to crenellate is dated the fifteenth year of Edward III., and stands in the name of Sir John de Pulteneye. This opulent knight erected a stately mansion in the form of an irregular square as to plan. It reverted to the Crown in the reign of Henry VI. and was held by the Duke of Bedford, Regent for a time, and then by his brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. The Staffords held it afterwards, but at the decease of the Duke of Buckingham Edward VI. gave it to Ralph Fane and then to Sir William Sydney, one of the heroes of Flodden Field. Its associations with Sir Philip Sydney form one of its chief claims upon the public. The spacious Hall measures 60 feet in length by the same in height; it is 40 feet wide, and is a grand example of fourteenth-century architecture. The beautiful windows reach from the floor to a considerable height, the roof is open, there is a minstrels' gallery, and an elaborate arrangement for the fire in the middle of the Hall. Adjacent is a range of buildings much altered in the Elizabethan period, containing state rooms, the Queen's drawing-room, etc. Portions of the wall of enceinte are to be found upon the south and east.

Ightham Mote.—This building is undoubtedly one of the most perfect examples of the combination of domestic convenience with an efficient system of defence to be found in England. It stands about two miles from Ightham village in Kent in a deep hollow, through which runs a rivulet flowing into the moat surrounding the House, from which the latter takes its name. Ivo de Haut possessed the Mote in the reign of Henry II.; it reverted to the Crown for a time in the reign of Richard III., but was restored to the family, and subsequently passed through the hands of many owners.