CHAPTER IX.
THE RECTANGULAR KEEP OF A NORMAN CASTLE.
IN a preceding chapter an attempt was made to describe the appearance and to give an outline of the history of those earthworks in England and Normandy upon which the Norman and Anglo-Norman barons founded their chief strongholds, and which, therefore, are connected with the military architecture of either country. It is now proposed to describe the buildings themselves, whether placed within the ancient earthworks or altogether of original foundation, which constituted the fortresses of England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, through the periods known in ecclesiastical architecture as the Norman and Transition, and which, in military architecture, include the Norman form of castle. What is known as the Norman style of architecture prevailed in England from the Conquest to the close of the reign of Stephen,—that is, from 1066 to 1154; but this latter is necessarily an arbitrary date, since it was by degrees only that one style of architecture passed into another, and the Norman features, though found in all buildings, and especially in castles, down to the end of the reign of Henry II., or 1189, became more and more mixed up with those of the succeeding style.
The castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, whether in Normandy or in England, were of two distinct types,—those with the rectangular and those with the shell keep. The former type was almost always employed when the site selected was a new one, the latter where the site was old, and where there existed a “motte” or mound. There are exceptions to this; that is to say, the rectangular keep is occasionally found on an old site, but the shell keep is never found on a new one. The distinction was mainly due to the fact that the massive heavy tower could only be safely founded upon solid ground, whereas the lighter and more widely-distributed weight of the shell keep was better suited to that which was artificial. The shell keep was the most numerous of the two; but the tower type, being of a more solid and more durable character, has lasted longest, and is at this time so much the most common that it has been designated by writers of authority as the type, instead of as but one of the two types of a Norman keep. The rectangular and the shell keep never occur in the same castle; and, as a rule, where there is a mound there is no rectangular keep. The only known exceptions to this rule are at Christchurch, Guildford, Clun, Saffron Walden, Mileham, Bungay, and Bramber. At Christchurch and Mileham the mound is low, and the keep walls seem to be carried through it to the solid ground. At Guildford, as at Clun, where the mound is large, the keep is built on its slope, so that the lower end and one-third of the contiguous sides are seen to rest on the solid ground, and thus effectually counteract the tendency of the upper part to slide down. Walden has not been carefully examined, nor is it known whether the foundations at Bungay are carried down to the solid earth. At Bramber there is an oblong natural hill, surrounded by a very deep ditch, in part artificial, while at one end of the hill is a square keep, and near the other a small mound. At Llwchwr, in South Wales, a small square tower stands upon a low and small mound, mixed up with the bank of a Roman camp. The tower, indeed, is not actually Norman, though no doubt early, and it most probably descends to the natural ground. The large rectangular tower at Oxford is not the keep, but a mural tower, though of unusual bulk. The keep there was a shell, and crowned the mound. At Kenilworth there seems to have been a small mound, which has been included within the keep, the walls of which rest upon the natural rock. The mound in this way fills up the basement of the keep, the ground-floor of which is thus raised 12 feet to 15 feet above the exterior level, as in the shell keep of Berkeley and in some degree at Pontefract.
The rectangular keep is, of all military structures, the simplest in form, the grandest in outline and dimensions, the sternest in passive strength, the most durable in design and workmanship, and in most cases by some years the earliest in date. Of the five great fortresses which covered the road from Dover to London, Dover itself, Canterbury, Rochester, and London have square keeps; the fifth, Tonbridge, having an earlier mound, has a shell keep. Farnham and Berkhampstead, Windsor, Wallingford, and Oxford,—fortresses guarding London from the west,—having mounds, have not square keeps. Hedingham and Colchester to the east, having square keeps, are without the mound, though Hedingham, like Corfe and Bramber, stands on a natural hill. Northwards, Warwick and Kenilworth confirm the rule, one having had a mound and no square keep; the other a square keep which has absorbed the mound, if mound there was. At Belvoir, the mound, a natural hill, is capped by a shell, as were the artificial mounds of Bedford, Cambridge, Clare, Eye, and Ongar, while rectangular keeps are, or were, found at Chepstow, Ludlow, Bristol and Wattlesborough, Lancaster and Newcastle, and on the moundless sites of Bamburgh, Carlisle, Corfe, Norham, Norwich, Nottingham, Porchester, Scarborough, Knaresborough, Helmsley, and Richmond, and in the less distinguished lordships, some of Norman foundation, of Appleby, Brough, Brougham, Bowes, Castle Rising, Clitheroe, Castleton, Goderich, and Prudhoe. Where there is a rectangular keep it rises high over every part of the fortress, and gives, as at Bamburgh, unity and grandeur to the architectural composition. It is usually, as at Rochester, Dover, Richmond, and Scarborough, placed upon the highest ground within the enclosure, and very rarely indeed in or near the centre, although, as in London, it may have been rendered central by the removal of its original enceinte and the substitution of new and extended lines. At Malling, perhaps the earliest in England of these keeps, and at Helmsley, probably the latest,—for that of Knaresborough, though square, is of Decorated date,—the keep stands on one side of, and forms a part of the enceinte. At Bamburgh, Bramber, Canterbury, Carlisle, Clitheroe, and Rochester, the keep stands clear of, but very near to, the outer wall, of which, at Porchester, it forms one angle. At Kenilworth and Bridgenorth the keep forms an angle of the inner wall; at Norham one face ranges with the outer and one with the inner wall; and at Ludlow the keep is placed on the inner wall, close to the main gateway. At Ogmore it occupies an angle, having one face on the outer and one on the cross or inner wall. Dover stands detached in the middle of what appears to be its original enclosure, and so, probably, did Hedingham and Castle Rising. At Mitford, near Morpeth, is a singular example of a rectangular keep, of which three angles are right-angled, and the fourth face is broken into two planes meeting at a low salient. It is probably late in the period.
These keeps vary in dimensions from 25 feet to 80 feet and even 100 feet in the side, and they are usually from one and a half to two diameters in height to the base of the parapet. Many, perhaps most, have been raised a stage, as Porchester, Bridgenorth, Richmond, Brough, Brougham, Kenilworth, and Norham. In most of these cases the addition was made within the Norman period, and possibly contemporaneous with the substitution of a covering of lead for one of shingles or stone tiles.
Usually the flat exterior faces are relieved by broad pilaster strips of slight projection from 5 feet to 10 feet wide, by 6 inches in depth, one at the end of and flanking each face, and in the larger keeps one, or even two, between them. The flanking pilasters are commonly placed so as to cover the angle, the two meeting; sometimes, however, they do not quite meet, and the solid angle is replaced by a hollow nook, occasionally, in late keeps, as at Castle Rising and Scarborough, occupied by a bold bead or engaged shaft. In all but the very small keeps these flanking pilasters are continued 8 feet to 10 feet clear above the parapet as the outer faces of square turrets, now usually ruined. At Hedingham one, partly perfect, remains. Those on the White Tower and at Rochester are in part original, and certainly represent, very closely, original structures. At Bowes there seems to have been but one turret, covering the stairhead. The intermediate pilasters usually stop either just below the base of the parapet or below an upper window. At Dover they are carried into the parapet and support slight internal recesses there, but this is very rare. The pilasters usually are divided by strings into stages, marking the levels of the different floors, and all rise from a common plinth, sometimes slight, but sometimes, as at Malling, Kenilworth, Guildford, Scarborough, and Norham, where one side rises from lower ground, the plinth is on that side 8 feet to 10 feet high, and has at Kenilworth and Norham a very bold base. The set-off and string-course are sometimes carried along both wall and pilasters. At Colchester and at the White Tower a projecting half-round forms the apse of the chapel, and the pilasters appear upon it; at Rochester a rounded corner is solid, save at one story, but this is probably due to a reconstruction. The pilasters are one of the most marked features of the Norman style, and their presence at once distinguishes a keep of that period from the fine fourteenth-century towers, as Borthwick and Lochleven, found in Scotland, as well as from towers of Early English date, where the pilasters are bolder and narrower, and often, as at Exeter Castle, chamfered at the angles.
The keep wall is from 7 feet to 14 feet thick, and at the base of the foundation sometimes 20 feet. That of Colchester is reputed to be 30 feet. That of the Tower of London is said to have taken six weeks to pierce, with all modern tools and appliances. The lower 14 feet of the keep of Newcastle is thought to be solid. The wall usually diminishes in thickness as it rises, sometimes by external sets-off of 6 inches, more commonly by an internal step of 1 foot at each floor level. Occasionally the exterior face slopes inward or batters, but this is unusual. The summit at the level of the allure or battlement walk is seldom less than 6 feet, and often 7 feet or 8 feet thick. Within, the larger keeps are divided by a cross wall, usually ascending to the summit, and pierced in each floor. Sometimes this wall is confined to the basement and first floor. Kenilworth, a large keep, had no cross wall; Norwich and Canterbury had two, and some have chambers walled off at the ends by secondary cross walls, as Castle Rising, Wolvesey, Colchester, and the White Tower. At Bowes two walls divided the basement into three chambers. Usually these dividing-walls were pierced by doorways, but the openings in the main floor were larger. At Scarborough was, and at Hedingham still is, a single large arch; at Rochester and at Middleham are several arches. At Porchester are only small doorways. Where there is no cross wall its place was, no doubt, supplied by posts of timber. The smaller keeps have a basement and a first floor; the larger, a second and third floor,—the latter being often an early addition.
The basement chamber is almost always at the exterior ground level, and never much below it; it is commonly from 12 feet to 15 feet high, aired, rather than lighted, by one or more narrow loops in each face, splayed and stepped up to within: Richmond has not even these. The basement was evidently always a storeroom. Now and then, as at Scarborough, but not often, its walls contain chambers; more commonly they are solid. In small keeps, as Ludlow and Carlisle, the first was the main floor, or room of state; in the larger, as Rochester, it seems to have been a barrack. The apertures were rather larger than those below, but not much. In the walls were commonly chambers. In the large keeps the main floor, usually the second, was from 25 feet to 30 feet high, generally with windows 2 feet or so broad, and often coupled under a single arch outside. Inside, the recess was splayed, and sometimes descended to the floor level, while in the jambs were door-openings into mural chambers. Some of these castle halls must have been noble rooms. Where there was a cross wall, as at Rochester, Norham, and Middleham, there were two rooms; at Kenilworth the large open space was probably subdivided by a brattice. Usually, in the larger castles, the wall of the main floor is pierced, high up, by a sort of triforium gallery, into which the outer windows open, and which opens into the chamber by lofty and larger arches of 3 feet to 4 feet opening. Possibly these galleries and their windows were intended to give another line of defence; but they must have destroyed the privacy of the hall and made it very cold. Above the main floor was an upper floor, probably occupied as private rooms, bratticed off by partitions of wood. Where this floor was not a part of the original building, to gain it seems to have been one object of the addition. It was placed immediately below the roof. The original roof seems to have been inclined at a moderate pitch, such as was necessary to carry off the water from a covering of shingles. The gables did not rise above the parapet, so that there was thus a great loss of space. In the smaller keeps the roof was a simple ridge with lateral gutters; where there was a cross wall the roof was double, with a central as well as lateral gutters. That this was the usual arrangement is clear from the old weather mouldings, which remain in the end walls wherever these have been raised. The original roof having its ridge rather below the parapet, had its side gutters in deep hollows. Of course, no military engine could have been placed on such a roof. Where the walls have been raised the roof has been replaced by a floor, and an upper story introduced with either a flat, or nearly flat, and leaded roof. These additions are almost always late Norman; but at Brougham they are Decorated. At Ludlow, where there was a central ridge with two lateral gutters, the interior has been re-arranged, and a flat roof laid at the ridge level of the old one, gaining a floor without raising the walls. The gables never seem, as in the Scottish towers, to have risen above the parapet. Probably one reason why the Norman roofs were lifted and flattened was to allow of military engines being placed upon them, and the use of lead must have come in rather suddenly just before the close of the Norman period.