Tynemouth.—The priory and castle of Tynemouth (for it was a combination of both) occupied a prominent position among the mediaeval coast defences of England. The office of Prior of Tynemouth was one of great importance. The person who held it was possessed of vast spiritual and worldly influence. He maintained his own armed force, just as the Bishop of Durham did, and the gate-house[18] of the priory was in reality a military fortress, a building of great solidity and strength. It was approached by a barbican, the passage-way being vaulted and furnished with a gate at each end.[19]
Scarborough.—This place was defended by walls or earthworks and a fosse before the time of Henry III. Its castle was built as early as the time of Stephen, and rebuilt or enlarged in the reign of Henry II. During the Civil War Scarborough Castle was besieged. It was surrendered in 1645, and has long been in ruins. It enclosed nineteen acres of land and occupied a romantic site 300 feet above sea-level.
Hull.—From an early period this seaport has been defended by fortifications. In the seventeenth century these comprised a moat and a complete system of walls, fortified gates, and drawbridges. It possessed five gates, called Hessle Gate, Myton Gate, Beverley Gate, Low Gate, and North Gate, and two sally-ports. The whole fortified walls were 2,610 yards, or slightly less than one-and-a-half miles in circuit. In front of the principal gates were drawbridges and half-moon shaped batteries. In the year 1540 the eastern side of the town was defended by two blockhouses, erected by Henry VIII. These were known as the North Blockhouse and the South Blockhouse, and both mounted guns when the town was besieged during the Civil War. A castle was also built on the eastern side of the town by Henry VIII.
King’s Lynn.—The eastern side of this important town was in former times defended by a wall strengthened by nine bastions, and by a broad and deep fosse over which were three drawbridges leading to the principal gates. One of the latter and fragments of the wall remain. From the statement of Stow in his “Chronicle,” and from certain illustrations of the walls as they existed in 1800, we may infer that the walls at any rate belonged to the first half of the thirteenth century. The East Gate and the West Gate were rebuilt on the sites of earlier gates in the fifteenth century.
FIG. 19. NORTH GATE, YARMOUTH, 1807
Yarmouth.—The town-wall, of which some traces remain, measured between six and seven thousand feet in compass, and possessed ten gates and sixteen towers. Swinden,[20] the historian of Yarmouth, states that the building of the wall
“was begun on the east side, and very probably at the north-east tower in St. Nicholas’s churchyard, and so proceeded southward: for in the 11th of Edward III we find them at work at the Black Friars, at the south end of the town; and afterwards we trace them to the north end, which, I presume, was the last part that was finished.
“And there is a tradition, that the north gate was built by the person or persons who had amassed considerable sums of money by being employed in burying the dead in the time of the plague.
“As soon as the walls were finished, there was made a moat or ditch round the town, with bridges at each gate: the whole so complete that boats could pass with their lading to any part of the town, for the conveniency of trade and commerce. And so careful were the magistrates to preserve the said moat from being filled or stopped with earth, rubbish, stones, etc., that in the rolls of the leets, there appear several fines, levied on different persons for offending in that behalf. Thus the tower being fortified with a wall and moat, towers, gates, and bars, was deemed a sufficient defence against all assailants with bows and arrows, slings, battering-rams, and all other missive engines of those times. But afterwards, when great guns of various denominations were employed in sieges, the aforesaid fortification, it was adjudged, would make but little resistance against them, without several additional works, as mounts, ravelins, etc.”