B.
(Page 22.)
BRIDGNORTH CASTLE.
The sole remaining fragment of this Castle was very carefully examined and measured by King, the author of “Munimenta Antiqua”; in which work he gives the following description of it. (pp. 346-7) He was of opinion indeed that it was a Saxon fortress; but in this he must have been mistaken, as the testimony of history is very clear as to the fact, that it was erected by the Norman Earl, Robert de Belesme.
“The exceeding solidity of whose structure [the leaning Tower] has defied the decay of ages, the blast of gunpowder, and the continually active force of gravity, notwithstanding it is apparently in a tottering state.... It evidently contained three apartments, one above another, each of which were of small dimensions, being only 23 feet 10 inches in length, and 21 feet 2 inches in breadth, and the entrance was manifestly by an arched doorway up a flight of steps on the outside, The marks of the places for the timbers supporting every floor are still visible.... The walls are between 8 and 9 feet thick, or rather more, but not quite uniformly so on each side; for the external measure of the Tower is nearly about 41½ feet square. The outside wall next the town has not even a loophole in it. This side however is very oddly covered with iron hooks, which are said by tradition to have been placed there so late as in the time of Charles I., during the civil wars, to hang wool packs upon, in order to protect the walls from the effects of the cannon: but as this tale is not credible, and the hooks themselves have the appearance of being much more ancient, they serve rather to remind one of a savage custom which sometimes prevailed in early ages, of fastening the bodies of enemies slain on the outside of the walls of fortresses.”
C.
(Page 42.)
WOODEN FORTIFICATIONS
OF THE TOWN.
A further grant was made for the same purpose by Henry III. “On May 10, 1220, King Henry III., being at Worcester, orders the Sheriff of Salop to aid the Burgesses of Bruges in the enclosure of their town, allowing them out of the Royal Forest near Bruges, as much of old stumps and dead timber as would suffice to make two stacks (rogos). This was to be done with as little injury as possible to the Forest.” (Antiquities of Shropshire, Vol. 1, p. 299.) Notwithstanding this caution, however, a good deal of damage was done, on account of the large amount of timber which was required for this purpose; for in the Sheriff’s report of the state of the Forest in 1235 there is the following notice:—“Item. The Bosc of Worfield was viewed—much wasted by ancient waste, to wit, in the time of the great war [the Barons’ war], and also in the time of R., late Earl of Chester, who, whilst he was sheriff, sold 1700 oak trees there, besides other wastes made in his time for the Castle of Bruges, and besides delivery of timber made for enclosing the Vill of Bruges, before it was fortified with a wall.” (Ibid, Vol. 3, p. 215.)
D.
(Page 44.)
THE CHARTER OF THE BOROUGH.
The earliest written Charter was granted to the Borough in the reign of Henry II., a.d., 1157, and is as follows:—