[1164] Unfortunately the greater part of these valuable Rolls is still unpublished. The Pipe Roll Society is issuing a volume every year, and this year (1910) has reached the 28th Henry II.
[1165] The keeps of Richmond and Bowes were only finished by Henry II.; Richmond was begun by Earl Conan, who died in 1170, when Henry appears to have taken up the work. Bowes was another of Earl Conan’s castles. Tickhill is now destroyed to the foundations, but it is clear that it was a tower. The writer has examined all the keeps mentioned in this list. It will be noticed that most of the towers took many years to build.
[1166] Henry built one shell keep of rubble and rag, that of Berkeley Castle, which is not mentioned in the Pipe Rolls, having been built before his accession. It is noteworthy that he did not build it for himself, but for his ally, Robert Fitz Hardinge.
[1167] The basement storey of Chester keep (the only part which now remains) is also vaulted, but this can scarcely be Henry’s work, for though he spent £102 on this castle in 1159, it must have been begun by Ranulf, Earl of Chester, in Stephen’s reign. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the vaulting, which is covered by whitewash, is really ancient.
[1168] Leland says of Wark, “the dongeon is made of foure howses hight,” but probably he included the basement.
[1169] The earliest instance of a portcullis groove with which the writer is acquainted is in the basement entrance of Colchester. It is obvious to anyone who carefully examines this entrance and the great stair to the left of it that they are additions of a later time than William’s work. The details seem to point to Henry I.’s reign. The keep of Rochester has also a portcullis groove which seems to be a later addition.
[1170] King, paper on Canterbury Castle in Archæologia, vi., 298. We have not observed in any English keeps (except in this single instance) any of the elaborate plans to entrap the enemy which M. Viollet le Duc describes in his article on Donjons. He was an imaginative writer, and many of his statements should not be accepted without reserve.
[1171] Wark was also an octagonal keep, but there is considerable doubt whether this octagonal building was the work of Henry II., as Lord Dacre wrote to Wolsey in 1519 concerning Wark that “the dongeon is clerely finished,” and mentions that all the storeys but one were vaulted with stone. This makes it almost certain that the castle of Wark was entirely rebuilt at this time, after having been demolished by the Scots in 1460. It is now an utter ruin, and even the foundations of the keep are buried.
[1172] At Thorne, near Doncaster, where the great earls Warenne had a castle, there are the foundations, on a motte, of a keep which seems to resemble that of Orford; it ought to be thoroughly excavated.
[1173] These measurements are from Grose, Antiquities, v., 74.