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

by George Thomas Clark

West of this district came Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire. Windsor, Wallingford and Reading have been mentioned. The keep of Windsor has a late Norman base, and the foundation of a gateway is of that date, as is the entrance to a very curious gallery in the chalk, which ran from the interior of the place beneath the buildings and the wall and opened as a postern upon the scarp of the main ditch. The mound upon which the round tower is placed is artificial and was surrounded by banks and ditches much on the plan of Arundel. Reading was an early castle and strongly posted between the Thames and the Kennet, upon an earthwork long before contested between the Danes and the Saxons. The castle is supposed to have been demolished by Henry III., in pursuance of the treaty of Wallingford: no trace of it remains. Wallingford has had better fortune: its mound and enclosure, the seat of the English Wigod, occupy one corner of the rectangular earthworks of the town, and rest upon the river. It was attached to the earldom of Cornwall, and was a place of great strength and splendour. A few fragments of masonry still remain, and some traces of Stephen’s camp on the opposite bank at Crowmarsh. There were also castles, though of small consequence and doubtful age, at Newbury, Brightwell, Farringdon, and Aldworth, the latter the seat of the Barons de la Beche.

Oxford Castle was a place of great antiquity and very strong, and formed a part of the defences of the city. The mound remains and a crypt within it, but the keep is gone. There is seen, however, above the river bank a rude and early square tower of Norman work, now a prison. At Banbury, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, built a castle in 1125, which was held by the Crown under Edward II. At Middleton was a strong castle, held by Richard de Camville in the reign of John, and there were others, smaller buildings, at Bampton, Bedington, Dedington, and Watlington, possibly demolished by Henry II. Broughton, the castle of the Lords Say, is in this county. Woodstock, though a royal manor, does not seem to have been fortified. The castles at Ardley and Chipping-Norton were destroyed by Stephen. The latter had a moated mound.

In Gloucestershire, besides Bristol, which was more connected with Somerset, is Berkeley Castle, mentioned in the survey, but in its present form built for its lord by Henry II. in acknowledgment of services rendered to the Duke of Anjou, which remains marvellously little altered to the present day. Gloucester, a royal castle, stood on the Severn bank at one angle of the Roman city. It had a mound and a shell keep, now utterly levelled, and the site partially built over. It was the muster-place and starting-point for expeditions against South Wales, and the not infrequent residence of the Norman sovereigns. Sudeley and Winchcombe were early castles; the latter stood near St. Peter’s Church, and was the seat of Kenulph, a Mercian king. There were also castles at Dursley and at Brimpsfield, built by Osbert Giffard. The only Gloucestershire castle of any consequence beyond the Severn was St. Briavels, built by Milo, Earl of Hereford, probably about 1130, upon or near the site of an earlier work, represented by an artificial mound. In the reign of Henry I. it was in the hands of the Crown. It is the special head of Dene Forest, of which the constable of the castle was warden. Here were held the miners’ courts, the usages of which were very peculiar. St. Briavels formed the connecting link between Gloucester and such of the Monmouthshire castles as were in the hands of the Crown. Of smaller castles in this district may be mentioned one at Aylesmore near Dymock, one near Huntley, and others at Ruardean and Penyard.

North of Gloucestershire came the castles of the more purely midland shires of Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, Northampton, Leicester, and towards the eastern seaboard, Lincoln. The castle of Worcester stood on the bank of the Severn, hard by the cathedral. The mound, now removed, was occupied with masonry by Urso d’Abitot, who, however, did not always get the best of it in his conflicts with the bishop. Also on the Severn was Hanley, long since destroyed, and Emly, also a Beauchamp seat. Hartlebury, the episcopal castle, is further inland, as is Dudley, the seat of the Barons Somery, a place of high antiquity and great natural strength.

Warwick was one of the greatest, and by far the most famous of the midland castles, famous not merely for its early strength and later magnificence but for the long line of powerful earls, culminating in the king-maker, who possessed it and bore its name. It was founded as a burh early in the tenth century, and the keep, said to have resembled Clifford’s Tower at York, stood upon the mound: both are now removed. The castle as usual formed a part of the enceinte of the town, and the wall from the west gate to the castle stood upon an early earth bank. Near to Warwick is Kenilworth, the chief fortress of the midland, including a large area, and strongly though artificially fortified. Of the English Kenelm nothing is recorded, but the founder of its Norman work was the first of the house of Clinton, one of Henry I.’s new earls, probably the only extant family descended in a direct male line from the builder of a Norman keep of the first class. The square keep and much of the existing wall are original, but the broad lake, which added so much to its strength and is now drained and converted into meadow, was probably a rather later addition, of the age of the gatehouse on the dam, and of the curious earthwork covering its head. The central earthworks are probably very early. Of Maxtoke, also a Clinton castle, there are remains. Of the castle at Fillongley, the chief seat of the Lords Hastings till they married the heiress of Cantelupe, and removed to Abergavenny, only a few fragments remain. Ralph Gernon had a castle at Coventry. Brownsover, Sekington, and Fullbrook castles were probably adulterine, and are known only by vague tradition, and it is doubtful whether the castle of the De Castellos included the burh at Castle Bromwich or was on the site of the later manor house. The burh at Sekington is very perfect. The Limesis had a castle at Solihull, of which the moat long remained, as had the Coleshills at that place. The Birminghams had a castle in the manor of that name, near the church; there were early castles at Erdington, at Studley on the Arrow, and at Oversley, long the seat of the Butlers, whose ancestor was “Pincerna” to the Earls of Leicester. Beldesert, built by Thurstan de Montfort soon after the Conquest, received a market from the Empress Maud, and Dugdale mentions Simili Castle, probably the seat of a family of that name. Ragley was a later castle. Coventry was strongly walled.

The line of the Trent on its passage through Staffordshire was amply fortified. Stafford, otherwise Chebsey castle, constructed by the Conqueror, probably upon the burh thrown up by Eathelflaeda in 913, was destroyed before the date of the Survey, and was, therefore, probably not a work in masonry. The town was fortified. The castle of the Barons Stafford was near the town, but outside it. Its foundations are original. Of the Ferrers castles Chartley is only indicated by a mound. Beaudesert and Burton are destroyed. Tamworth, their chief seat, as that of the Marmions before them, still retains its shell keep and part of the curtain wall, remarkable for its herringbone masonry. It was a royal Saxon residence in the eighth century, and the mound on which stands the keep was thrown up in 931. As at Wareham and Wallingford, it is placed near the river in one corner of a rectangular earthwork open on that side. Tutbury, also a Ferrers castle, occupied a natural knoll above the Trent, raised on one side by an artificial burh, and covered on the other by extensive works in earth of early date, probably original. The present masonry is chiefly the work of John of Gaunt, but the fine old Priory church, founded by the early lords, still stands just outside the ditch. Lichfield is reputed to have had a castle at the south end of the town. At the north end is the cathedral, “Lichfield’s moated pile,” defended by a broad and deep ditch, and on one side by a lake or pool. It is not improbable that these works, which are rectangular in plan, were executed by the Romanised Britons, and that their existence caused the selection of this spot as the seat of the bishopric. The Bishop’s castle of Eccleshall has lately been alienated. There was a castle at Heley, and at Alton, now Alton Towers, and at Stourton. Of the castle of Newcastle-under-Lyne, held by the Earl of Chester for John, all trace is lost.

The Northamptonshire castles stood mostly upon the lines of the Nene and the Welland. Northampton, built by Simon de St. Liz, certainly upon an earlier site, was a strongly walled and celebrated place, the scene of important events in English history. Its castle has long been reduced to a few earthworks and a fragment of masonry, and very recently these also have been destroyed. Of Fotheringay, a very ancient fortress, the scene of a siege by Henry III., there remains little in masonry, although the bank and mound are perfect. It was dismantled by James as the scene of his mother’s execution. Barnwell Castle is probably late, as is the fine fortified gatehouse of the Sapcote family, at Elton. At Castle Ashby, all trace of the castle is lost in the grand old house which has succeeded to it. Of Lilbourne, a moderate mound and a rectangular earthwork are the sole remains of the castle. Near Towcester at Moor End in Potterspury, and at Alderton, were castles, probably built and destroyed in the reigns of Stephen and Henry II. Towcester itself does not appear to have been fortified by the Normans, nor the curious burh at Earls Barton, the moot hill for the earldom of Countess Judith. But of all the Northamptonshire castles the most interesting, both from its history and its remains, is undoubtedly Rockingham, founded by the Conqueror upon an old site, standing in its old shire and forest, and which has been always inhabited and cared for. Near to Rockingham, but in Rutland, is Oakham, built by Walkelin de Ferrars in 1180, where the keep is gone, but the original late Norman hall is quite perfect and still in use. Of the defences of this remarkable fortress there remain ditches and banks, with a part of the curtain wall and a large outwork of earth. Belvoir, well deserving of the name, the only other Rutland castle, was the seat of the Todenis, ancestors of the D’Albini and Ros families, and of its present lords. Like Windsor, its circular keep, rebuilt nearly from its foundations, crowns a detached hill, and from its terrace is one of the richest views in England.

In Leicestershire, Leicester Castle, the seat of its powerful and turbulent Norman earls, stood, and in part still stands, between the Soar and the Roman Ratæ, the walls of which are said to have been destroyed in 1173. Of Hinckley, the seat of the Grantmaisnils, and the “caput” of their Honour, the mound alone remains by the side of the Roman way. The castle was probably dismantled by Henry II. Groby, a Ferrers castle, has long been reduced to a small mound, and Mount Sorrel, once so strong, is utterly destroyed. By a convention at Mount Sorrel in the reign of Stephen, between Robert, Earl of Leicester, and Ralph, Earl of Chester, already cited, it was agreed that Ralph Gernon’s castle of Raunston should be destroyed and Whitwick strengthened, but that no new castle should be built between Hinckley, Donnington, Leicester, Belvoir, Okeham, and Rockingham. Should any be so built, the two earls agreed to demolish the works. Sauvey Castle was an early work. Of Castle Donnington, the house of the Zouches of Ashby, the early history is obscure.

The main castles of Lincolnshire were Lincoln and Axholme. Axholme, built in the fens of that name, was a place of immense strength, and the head of a barony of the Mowbrays, a race always on the side of disorder. The castle has long been destroyed, and the fen, to which it owed much of its strength, is drained. Lincoln Castle has been more fortunate. The hill of Lincoln has been thought to retain traces of British occupation, and its Roman buildings and English earthworks are very remarkable. Soon after the Conquest 166 houses were destroyed to make room for the castle itself, and 74 more to give space around it. Its enormous banks occupy an angle of the Roman station, and contain parts of the ruined wall and gate, both Roman. The great mound, the larger of two, is occupied by the original shell keep, which, placed at the foot of the cathedral, towers high above the city, and overlooks the broad plain beyond. Often visited by the Norman kings, Lincoln Castle is specially famous for the great battle fought beneath its walls in 1141, in which Stephen was taken prisoner by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, and his men from Glamorgan.

There was a Mowbray Castle at Epworth, now destroyed, and one at Kenefar, laid level by Henry, Bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry II. Bourne or Brun was in 870 the seat of a Saxon Thane, whose mound, after the Conquest, was occupied by the Lords Wake. It was at one time an important place, and the remaining earthworks show its area to have been considerable. Bolingbroke Castle, once the “caput” of an Honour, is now destroyed. Stamford-on-the-Welland was guarded by two mounds, thrown up in 922, of which one has disappeared, but the other, as at Bedford and Buckingham, was saved by its incorporation into a Norman castle, to be seen no longer. Sleaford, an episcopal castle, occasionally mentioned in the twelfth century, is now gone, as is the castle of Horncastle, restored to Adelais de Condie in 1151, but at the same time ordered to be demolished, and which probably stood within the walls of the Roman station, of which large fragments remain. Bitham also is gone, taken by siege and levelled by Henry III. in 1218. Folkingham, the “Mansio capitalis” of Ulf the constable, was held by Gilbert de Garod, and long afterwards fell to the Lords Beaumont. Boothby was a fortified house of the Paynells or Paganels, and is of late Norman date. Topclyve Castle was built by Geoffrey, bishop-elect of Lincoln, in 1174.