Ely, Cambs.
Ewias Harold, Hereford.
Eye, Suffolk.
Fig. 17.
Ewias, Herefordshire ([Fig. 17]).—The brief notice of this castle in Domesday Book throws some light on the general theory of castle-building in England.[436] William FitzOsbern, as the king’s vicegerent, rebuilt this march castle, and committed it to the keeping of another Norman noble, and the king confirmed the arrangement. But in theory the castle would always be the king’s. This is the only case in the Survey where we hear of a castle being rebuilt by the Normans. We naturally look to one of King Edward’s Norman favourites as the first founder, for they alone are said by history to have built castles on the Welsh marches before the Conquest. Dr Round conjectures that Ewias was the “Pentecost’s castle” spoken of in the (Peterborough) Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1052.[437] No masonry is now to be seen on the motte at Ewias, but Mr Clark states that the outline of a circular or polygonal shell keep is shown by a trench out of which the foundations have been removed. The bailey is roughly of half-moon shape and the mound oval. The whole area of the castle, including the motte and banks, is 2-⅓ acres.
Exeter.—This castle is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but Ordericus tells us that William chose a site for the castle within the walls, and left Baldwin de Molis, son of Count Gilbert, and other distinguished knights, to finish the work, and remain as a garrison.[438] In spite of this clear indication that the castle was a new thing, it has been obstinately held that it only occupied the site of some former castle, Roman or Saxon.[439] Exeter, of course, was a Roman castrum, and its walls had been restored by Athelstan. In this case William placed his castle inside instead of outside the city walls, because, owing to the natural situation of Exeter, he found in the north-west corner a site which commanded the whole city. Although Domesday Book is silent about the castle, it tells us that forty-eight houses in Exeter had been destroyed since William came to England,[440] and Freeman remarks that “we may assume that these houses were destroyed to make room for the castle, though it is not expressly said that they were.”[441]
Exeter Castle stands on a natural knoll, occupying the north-west corner of the city, which has been converted into a sort of square motte by digging a great ditch round the two sides of its base towards the town.[442] That this ditch is no pre-Roman work is shown by the fact that it stops short at the Roman wall, and begins again on the outside of it, where, however, the greater part has been levelled to form the promenade of the Northernhay or north rampart of the city. On top of this hill, banks 30 feet high were thrown up, which still remain, and give to the courtyard which they enclose the appearance of a pit.[443] On top of these banks there are now stone walls; but these were certainly no part of the work of Baldwin de Molis, who must have placed a wooden stockade on the banks which he constructed. One piece of stonework he probably did set up, the gatehouse, which by its triangle-headed windows and its long-and-short work is almost certainly of the 11th century. It has frequently been called Saxon, but more careful critics now regard it as “work that must have been done, if not by Norman hands, at Norman bidding and on Norman design.”[444] It was no uncommon thing at this early period to have gatehouses of stone to walls of earth and wood. Of these gatehouses Exeter is the most perfect and the most clearly stamped with antiquity.