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

by George Thomas Clark

Of importance beyond all these more or less local castles was that of Bristol, founded by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, but found too valuable to be intrusted to his successors in the earldom. Its square Norman keep stood between the Frome and the Avon, and was strong both in works and in position. After centuries of contest for its possession between the earls of Gloucester and the Crown, it ceased to be of military value and was taken down. Upon and beyond the Tamar, as at Montacute, Wallingford, and Berkhampstead, may be traced the footsteps of the powerful noble who held the great earldom of Cornwall. Their principal Cornish castles,—Trematon, Launceston, where the town also was walled, and Restormel,—were the work originally of Robert, half-brother of the Conqueror. Their remains are considerable, and their strength and position were such as to give them immense influence in that wild and almost impenetrable district. St. Michael’s Mount remains strongly fortified; Carnbrea, the work of Ralph de Pomeroy, still marks the rocky ridge whence it derives its name, and there are traces of Boscastle, the hold of the Barons Botreaux, and of the Arthurian castle of Tintagel. There are besides in Cornwall a few fortified houses, and a multitude of strong places,—camps rather than castles, very peculiar in character, and probably the work of the native Cornish before the arrival of the stranger.

It appears, then, that south of and upon the Thames and Bristol Avon there stood, at the close of the twelfth century, at least eighty-nine more or less considerable castles, a very large number of which were kept in repair by the sheriffs of the counties and governed by castellans appointed by the king and holding office during pleasure. Of these, at least thirty contained shell keeps placed on moated mounds, and were in some form or other far older than the Conquest; and about seventeen were characterised by rectangular keeps, of which two only, Guildford and Christchurch, were associated with mounds, and of these very few indeed were of pure Norman foundation. Of the remaining forty-two the particulars are doubtful, so they cannot be counted with one class or the other, but most of them are also older than the Conquest.

Passing into the middle belt of country extending from the Thames and Avon to the Tees and the Lune, and from the German Ocean to the Severn, the provision for defence is found to be fully equal to that in the South. In the East Anglian province, in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, the chief strongholds were Colchester, Hedingham, Bungay, Framlingham, Castle Acre, Castle Rising, Norwich, and Cambridge. Colchester, the work of Hubert de Rye or his son, acting in some measure for the Crown, is built of Roman, or quasi-Roman, material upon a Roman site and within the area of a town mentioned in “Domesday” as fortified. It commanded the inlet of Harwich and the Blackwater, and in its rear, higher up the Coln, was the De Vere keep of Hedingham, still a very perfect structure, and unusually though severely ornate. This keep stands upon a natural mound, protected by a formidable ditch, and appended to it is an outer enclosure, older evidently than the keep. In the same county is Rayleigh, celebrated for the extent of its earthworks, and, with Clavering, attributed to Swegen or Suenus, sheriff of Essex under the Confessor, and ancestor of Henry de Essex, Henry I.’s disgraced standard-bearer. The earthworks of both places are, however, probably much earlier than the masonry. There also is Plessy, a Mandeville restoration in masonry, with the parish church within its enclosure; Ongar, for the time the castle of Richard de Lucy; and Stansted Montfichet, the remaining earthworks of which indicate its site. Bishops Stortford, or Weytemore, was an early manor of the Bishop of London, who there had a castle. These four last-named castles all had moated mounds. At Bures also was a moated mound eighty feet high, hence its name of Mount Bures; also at Birch Castle, near Colchester, and at Benyngton were castles. Canewdon was either a castle or a very old fortified house, dating from the time of Henry de Essex, and at Canfield, called from its castle, “Canefield ad Castrum,” the De Veres had a fortress of which the mound is still seen.

Framlingham is the chief castle of Suffolk. It is attributed originally to Redwald, king of East Anglia, at the close of the sixth century. Here there is at present no keep, but the Norman walls, of unusual height, forty to fifty feet, and eight feet thick, still enclose the court, and are protected by enormous earthworks, deep and high and of great extent. This was the chief of the Bigot castles, said to have been built by Hugh Bigot in 1176, and to the same powerful family belonged Bungay, “hard by the river Waveney,” with grand earthworks, a mound, and the remains of a square keep. Walton, another Bigot castle, was destroyed by Henry II. Clare, the manor whence the earls of Gloucester and Hertford derived their family name, retains its mound with part of a polygonal keep, and outworks in earth and masonry on a scale commensurate with the power of their lords. The area is occupied in part by a railway station. Eye, the mound of which remains, was a castle at Domesday, the seat of Robert Malet, and afterwards was given by Henry II. to Ranulph, Earl of Chester. Dunwich, though not a walled town, was protected by a deep ditch and high bank, upon which as late as the reign of Henry III. was a palisade.

The chief castle of Norfolk was Norwich, a place of immense strength and high antiquity. Its rectangular keep of great size and more ornate than usual, though much injured by injudicious repairs, and closed against the antiquary by its conversion to the base uses of a prison, still predominates grandly over the fine old city, of which it was long the glory and the dread. Its deep, single ditch, far older than its works in masonry, is now for the most part filled up and built over. The city also was strongly walled. Haganet, a Norfolk castle taken by the Earl of Leicester and his invading Flemings, is utterly destroyed. Mileham, of which the moated mound, though low, and a fragment of a square keep remain, was the work of Alan, son of Flaald, who held the manor from the Conqueror. To him also is attributed the adjacent castle of Burghwood, of which large earthworks remain. Orford, an almost solitary example of a Norman polygonal keep, is tolerably perfect. The keep of Castle Rising, though smaller in dimensions than Norwich, resembles it in type. It is the most highly-ornamented keep in England, and, though a ruin, is well preserved and cared for. Here also is that great rarity, a tolerably perfect and unaltered fore-building and entrance. This keep stands within a lofty bank, beyond which, on one side, is a spacious outwork, also heavily embanked. Castle Acre, best known for its Norman priory, contains also the mound and other earthworks and part of the shell keep of a large castle, and near to these is the town of Lynn, once strongly fortified, and still possessing an early gatehouse. At Thetford, girt by a double ditch, is the great mound thrown up by the Danes in 865–6 to command the then adjacent city, but this post, so important before the Conquest, does not seem to have been occupied afterwards. Other Norfolk castles were Buckenham and Tateshall, of which the date is doubtful, and Marnham, of which it was reported in the reign of Edward I.—“Quod erectio castri de Marnham est in præjudicium domini Regis.” Wirmegay, a Warenne castle, strong in its marshy approaches, was certainly earlier. At Weting, near the church, was a castle with a mound, on which a few years ago was a fragment of the keep. It was the seat of De Plaiz, who represented Mont Fitchet, and whose heiress married the ancestor of the house of Howard. There was also a castle at Kenningdale, near Diss.

Cambridgeshire contained but a few castles, the fens presenting little to attract the spoiler, and being in themselves a secure defence. At Cambridge, upon the banks of the sluggish and winding Cam, a prison has taken the place of the castle ordered by the Conqueror; but a part of the mound and a fragment of its subsidiary banks remain, and are not to be confounded with the still earlier Roman enclosure. At Ely a large mound with appended earth banks is thought to have been the site of the ancient castle of the bishop of that see. All traces of masonry are gone, as at Wisbeach. The camp at Castle Camps, the seat of the Saxon Wolfwin, once held a Norman castle, the work of the De Veres. Of Chevely, an episcopal castle, a fragment remains. Burwell, the masonry of which belonged to one of Stephen’s improvised castles, is remembered as that before which Geoffrey de Mandeville received his fatal wound. A fragment of its wall and the mound remain. Swavesey and Bassingbourne were early castles.

Hertford, Bedford, and Buckingham, the inland positions of which were insufficient to secure them from invasions from a foe beyond the sea, were not unprovided with castles. Hertford, visited by the Danes in 894, was fortified by Edward the Elder in 914, who there threw up a burh between the rivers Lea, Mineran, and Bean, and in the year following a second burh on the opposite bank of the Lea. Hertford, says Smith in 1588, has two castles, one on each bank of the Lea. These corresponded to the two banks already mentioned. Upon the still existing mound Peter de Valoines placed the keep ordered by the Conqueror. The Magnavilles next held it, and Henry of Huntingdon calls it, “castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum.” Berkhampstead, as old, and a far more considerable fortress, and the head of a great Honour, has been mentioned as one of the northern defences of the metropolis. Its mound, wholly artificial, still supports the foundations of a Norman shell keep, and appended to it is a large oval platform, the walls and entrances to which remain. The whole is partially encircled by several concentric lines of bank and ditch, the character of which shows that they were protected by stockades instead of walls of masonry. Here the Black Prince spent his latter days, and here he died.

The chief castle of Bedfordshire, the head of the Beauchamp barony, was at Bedford, where the Ouse, menaced by the Danish galleys, was protected early in the tenth century by a mound upon each bank, one of which is now removed and the other was crowned by the keep of the Norman castle. Bedford Castle is famous for two memorable sieges in the reigns of Stephen and Henry III. Of its works, once extensive, the masonry has been removed, the fosse has also been filled up, and the mound somewhat reduced in size. Risinghoe, The Giants hill, on the Ouse below Bedford, seems to have had a shell keep, and at Tempsford is to be seen a curious but small earthwork thrown up by the Danes in 921, and taken by Edward the Elder late in the year. Whether this was the site of the subsequent Norman castle is very doubtful. There was also a castle at Odell or Wahull, the seat of the barons of that name. It is uncertain when was founded Bletsoe, a castle and the head of a Beauchamp barony. Below Bedford, on the Ouse, are the earthworks of Eaton-Socon, also a Beauchamp castle, but dismantled at an early period.

The remains of the castle of Huntingdon, though reduced to banks, ditches, and a mound, nevertheless show how spacious and how strong must have been this chief seat of the broad earldom of Countess Judith and her descendants the kings of Scotland, earls also of Huntingdon. The Danes were encamped here in 921, and the burh which had been ruined was restored by Eadward in the same year. The ditches were fed from the Ouse, which expanded before the castle as a broad marsh, now a fertile meadow. Of the early military history of the castles of Connington, Kimbolton, and Bruck, but little is recorded.

The castle of the Giffards, earls of Buckingham, included one of the two burhs which were thrown up on opposite sides of the Ouse, in 915, to command the river and protect the town. The castle was probably destroyed in the reign of Stephen, and the further mound levelled. The Paganels had a castle at Newport; the Hanslapes at Castlethorpe; the Barons Bolbec at Bolbec, now Bullbanks, in Medmenham; and there seem to have been castles at Winslow, Lavendon, and Whitchurch.