Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)

by George Thomas Clark

CHAPTER VI.

THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

HOWEVER numerous may have been the castles destroyed under the Convention of Wallingford, or during the subsequent reign of Henry II., they seem to have been almost entirely fortresses of recent date, in private hands, and of little importance as regarded the general defence or the orderly administration of the kingdom. Among those that played at all an important part in the internal wars of the sons or grandsons of Henry, there are missing but very few known to have been built or restored by his predecessors or by himself; and the names that occur in the chronicles of the period, or are entered from time to time in the records of the realm, show that the country continued to be amply provided with castles, and that almost all of the first class were occasionally repaired at the cost of the Crown, and were governed by castellans holding office during the king’s pleasure, whom moreover it was the custom frequently to change. It is here proposed, at some length, to enumerate the fortresses of England and in the Marches of Wales, as they stood at the close of the reign of Henry II., so far at least as their names and positions or any account of them can be recovered.

Taking London as the centre, military and political, of the kingdom, we have, upon the Thames, the Tower, the first and chief fortress founded by the Conqueror, and which he considered sufficient to protect and overawe the city. In the city itself, also upon the banks of the Thames, near the outlet of the Flete, was Baynard’s Castle, the stronghold of the Barons Fitz-Walter, standard-bearers to the City of London, and an important branch of the House of Clare. At various distances from this centre, according to the disposition of the ground, were posted within the northern and southern passes of the chalk ridge, Berkhampstead, an appanage of the earldom of Cornwall, and Guildford, the early keep of which stands in part upon an artificial mound. Also, to the immediate south of London, were the episcopal castle, still inhabited, of Farnham, and Earl Warenne’s castle on the hill at Reigate, of which some traces remain. Higher up the Thames were Windsor, Reading, Wallingford, and Oxford, all fortresses of high antiquity and of the first rank. Between the Thames and the sea-coast the country was well guarded, and the communications with Dover, Portsmouth, and Southampton, so important to sovereigns with possessions on the Continent, rendered secure. Dover, called by William the Conqueror, according to Matthew Paris, “Clavis et repagulum,” the key and bolt of the kingdom, was one of its oldest, largest, and strongest fortresses, and covered a nearly impregnable area of thirty-five acres. It crowned the crest of a chalk rock which seemed to rise out of the sea, and steep by nature was rendered still more so by art, and bore traces of Norman, English, Roman, and probably British occupation. Its well of water is particularly specified, according to M. Paris, in Harold’s celebrated covenant with Duke William. Indeed, there seem to have been two wells in the keep, besides another, no doubt that of Harold, in the outer ward, probably a Roman work. The town also was walled. In the rear of Dover lay the city of Canterbury, mentioned in “Domesday” as fortified. It was strong to the landward, with a formidable bank and ditch, revetted by a Norman wall, and towards the water was covered by the marshes of the Stour, at one time navigable up to the quays of the ancient city. At one angle and just within the area, was a strong rectangular keep, a Norman addition, and near it was the Danejohn, a far older moated mound, older even than the bank and ditch of the city, which were laid out at an angle to include it. Near to Canterbury was Chilham, a Norman tower of peculiar form, on the site of a work burned by the Danes in 838–51; and at no great distance was Saltwood, given to the see of Canterbury in 1036, and said to owe the formidable banks and ditches which still surround it to a son of Hengist. West of Dover William d’Abrincis had built the castle of Folkestone, now, with the cliff it stood upon, swallowed up by the sea. It was preceded by an earlier work in earth a little further inland; Sandwich, one of the cinque ports, was also embanked and walled. Between Dover and London, upon the marshy windings of the upper Medway, stood the mound of Tonbridge, with its Norman walls and shell keep, a place of immense strength, and the subject of a long contest between the archbishops and the earls of the race of De Clare. Again, in the rear and upon the same road was the castle of Rochester sharing its defensive strength with the oldest tower of the contiguous cathedral and the walled city standing within or on the lines of a Roman enclosure, and commanding the lowest bridge upon the deep and rapid Medway. Many of the castles of Kent, especially those in private hands, were founded in the thirteenth century, or later; but Horton, Eynsford, and Lullingston, on the Darent, and that of Sheppy, on the Swale, are far more ancient. Besides these Otford, an archiepiscopal castle, was the “caput” of an Honour. Cowling is mentioned in Mercian charters in 808. The manor belonged to Leofwin, brother of Harold, and was held by Bishop Odo. Allington Castle was demolished by the Danes and afterwards held by Earl Godwin, and later on by Odo. The Norman additions were probably the work of Earl Warenne. Near to Maidstone is Malling, thought to be as early a Norman keep as any in England, and tolerably perfect though small; Thurnam or Godard’s Castle also has a square Norman keep and some early earthworks, and near to it were the very perfect moated mounds of Binbury and Stockbury. Ledes Castle, still inhabited, has a detached and water-girdled keep and a very complete barbican. The keep of Sutton, afterwards Sutton-Valence, seems to be Norman. Tong Castle, in Bapchild manor on the Swale, attributed to Hengist, was built as a castle by the St. Johns. Bayford Castle occurs in Sittingbourne; and Queenborough, in Sheppey, though called from the queen of Edward III., is probably of much older date. At Alfrington Alfred is said to have had a strong place, called afterwards Burlow. At Verdley, and Castlefield in Hartfield, are vestiges said to represent castles.

In Sussex each rape had its castle, founded probably by the Jutish settlers. Of these under the Norman rule Hastings, almost equal to Dover in its natural strength, though of smaller size, was the head of the barony of the earls of Eu. It is first mentioned in the Bayeux tapestry, where in one of the compartments is written, “Iste [comes Moretaine] jussit ut foderentur castellum ad Hasteng.” This probably relates to the double line of ditches by which the castle is cut off from the body of the hill. The town also was walled. Pevensey, strong in its Roman wall and added English earthworks, was the castle of De Aquila, the seat of the Honour called by the English of “The Eagle.” Here, in 1118, the Custos of Windsor expended £118. 4s. in repairing the palisades (“palicii”) of the castle. Lewes, with its mounds crowning each end of an isolated hill, was the favourite strength of the Warennes, Earls of Surrey. The natural platform, added ditches and mound, and square keep of Bramber, on the Adur, rendered almost impregnable this seat of the turbulent and powerful Barons Braose of Gower, who also owned Knepp Castle, nearer the head of the river, where a mound and some Norman masonry may still be seen. Knepp was afterwards held by King John on the attainder of William de Braose, and in 1216 was ordered to be destroyed. Arundel, the only castle named in “Domesday” as existing in the reign of the Confessor, and the seat successively of Earl Roger of Montgomery, of d’Albini, and the race of Fitz-Alan, still overlooks the dell of the Arun, and wears many of its older features; and finally Chichester, also a Montgomery castle, long since destroyed, or reduced to its primal mound, stood within the fortified area of the Roman Regnum. Besides these there seem to have been Norman castles at Eastbourne and Firle, all traces of which have, however, disappeared. Mention is also made of Sedgewick Castle, near Horsham.

More to the west in Hampshire, upon the Havant water, was Boseham, a very famous castle long since swept away; and upon the inlet of Portsmouth, Porchester, a noble combination of Roman and Norman masonry. Within its area is contained a parish church and churchyard, and here was the favourite muster-place for troops destined for Havre. On the opposite side of the Solent, in the centre of the Isle of Wight, is Carisbroke, celebrated for its keep and mound, and its wells of unusual depth, and on the opposite mainland, at the marshy junction of the Stour and the Wiltshire Avon, stands the ancient keep of Christchurch, placed exceptionally upon the mound of the earlier Twynham. Here also is preserved the Castle Hall, a late Norman building, almost a duplicate of a corresponding structure in Fitzgerald’s castle at Adare, near Limerick. Upon the verge of Southampton Water, between the Anton and the sea, occupying a strong peninsula, is the town of that name, still preserving the remains of its Norman walls, and of the keep of a very formidable castle once included within its area.

Inland of this line of castles from the sea northwards to the Thames, the counties of Wilts and Berks showed with Hampshire an abundance of strong places. There, though actually in Hampshire, was Winchester, the British Caerwent and the Roman Venta Belgarum, which in its English days contested with London the supremacy of the South. Strongly fortified with broad and high earthworks and deep ditches, it contained, attached to one angle, the royal castle, and within another, its diagonal, the episcopal keep of Wolvesey, of which the one is now represented by its noble hall, and the other by its rectangular Norman keep. The Hall at Winchester, though of very early English date, is after the Norman type, having three aisles. The castle was the prison of Archbishop Stigand in 1066. Before its gates, in 1075, Earl Waltheof was beheaded. Here, in 1102, was tried the memorable dispute for precedence between York and Canterbury. In 1141 it was defended by the Empress Maud, and here Henry II. held several Parliaments, and Cœur de Lion paused when in the adjacent cathedral he was a second time crowned on his return from captivity in 1189.

Scarcely second to Winchester in strength, and its equal in undefined antiquity, is Old Sarum, a hold of mixed but uncertain origin, where the concentric lines of masonry, girdling and crowning the central mound, included the cathedral of the diocese, and to which, according to the historians of Wiltshire, King Alfred caused an exterior bank and palisade to be added. In Wilts was also the Devizes, reputed the finest castle on this side the Alps. “Divisæ quod erat Salesberiensis Episcopi castellum, mirando artificio, sed et munimine inexpugnabili firmatum,” but of which there now remains little besides the gigantic mound and profound ditches. Of Marlborough the burh alone remains, while of Malmesbury, an encroachment of the secular upon the lands of the regular clergy, all traces are removed. Over the Hampshire border is Old Basing, where the Saxons were worsted by the Danes in a pitched battle in 871, which became the “caput” of the fifty-five lordships held by Hugh de Port in “Domesday,” and afterwards of the St. John’s oldest barony. Even in the time of Henry II. it was called the old castle, and in a rather later reign Robert, Lord St. John, had a licence to fix a pale along the base of his mote at Basing, and to maintain it so fortified during the king’s pleasure. The original circle of earthwork is nearly all that now remains. At no great distance is Odiham, once a possession of the see of Winchester, where is an early tower, stripped of its ashlar, and surrounded by marshy ground once famous for its forest sport. Castle Coombe was a famous and very early Wiltshire castle, now reduced nearly to an earthwork, and Warblington, a stronghold of the Montacutes, and the castle of Cirencester are both gone, the latter destroyed by Henry III.

Still further to the west are the castles of Dorset and Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. Wareham, the ancient Frome-mouth, placed between the Frome and the Piddle, once marked the limits of Poole harbour, and was a place of great strength and fame. As early as 876 its west side, the root of the twixt-waters peninsula, was criticised as weak. In one corner of its rectangular and pseudo-Roman area, a moated mound has been thrown up, as at Tamworth, by the river-side, and its earthworks and position justify its reputation as the key of Purbeck, of which Corfe was the citadel. Corfe, perched upon the summit and slope of a chalk hill between two clefts whence it derives its name, is now a magnificent ruin. Half its noble rectangular keep still stands, and incorporated into the wall of its middle ward is a fragment of the palace of the old West Saxon kings, probably the only material evidence extant that they ever employed masonry in their military works. Of Sherborne, an ancient episcopal seat, the spacious earthwork still contains much of a late Norman keep, and is still entered through a Norman gatehouse. Ilchester and Shaftesbury Castles are gone, and only a part of the earthworks of that of Dorchester remain. West of Purbeck, in Portland, is Bow-and-Arrow Castle, upon the sea-cliff, a curious and somewhat peculiar structure of early date, built or occupied by the De Clares. From Portland to the mouth of the Exe there do not appear to have been any strong places of importance.

Just within the mouth of the Exe is Powderham, the work of an Earl of Eu and of De Redvers, and their Courtenay successors, and higher up and opposite, Rougemont, the citadel of Exeter, which still exhibits the high banks, deep ditches, and ancient gatehouse, fragments of the defences behind which the citizens braved the fury of the Conqueror. Inland from the Exe is Okehampton, the earliest of the English possessions of the great family of Courtenay, and the work of Baldwin of Exeter, of the lineage but not bearing the name of De Clare. He was the builder also of Tiverton Castle which is now destroyed, as also is Bridgewater. Among the early castles of the district was Stoke Courcy, now a ruin; Stowey, “pulchrum et inexpugnabile in pelagi littore locatum”; and Dunster, the strongest place in the west, the “Domesday” castle of the Mohuns, and after them, as now, of the Luttrells. In the west of Devon there remains the mound of Plympton, a Redvers castle, and the shell keep of Totnes, the work of Joel of that place, and afterwards inherited by the Barons Braose. Barnstaple town was probably walled, and certainly had four gates. At Taunton a Norman keep and part of a Norman hall still stand on the banks of the Tone, and rise out of earthworks attributed to King Ine. At Montacute, the high ground marked by an immense Romano-British camp, ends in the sharp-pointed hill which William Earl of Moretaine selected for his castle, of which the name, appropriately transported from his Norman castle, alone remains, and but little more of Castle-Carey, the Lovell seat, besieged and taken by Stephen, or of the Norman keep of Harptree, in a pass in the Mendip range.