These donjons were usually entered at the first-floor level, either by an exterior stone stair or by one of timber; or sometimes, as at Pembroke, by a drawbridge, which dropped upon a detached pier, whence an inclined plane or a flight of steps descended to the ground level. In their elevated entrance, and in some other respects, these donjons recall the isolated towers erected during the decline of the Roman Empire, of which a good example, but square, remains at Autun. There are only two instances in England of the application of a fore-building to cover the entrance of these towers, but these—Chilham near Canterbury, and Orford in Suffolk—are late Norman, not Early English. Dolbadarn, in North Wales, a rather later tower, but cylindrical, has an exterior stair of stone, which, however, may be an addition.
There were commonly three floors. The basement was for stores. The central floor contained the principal apartment, usually with a fireplace, and sometimes with mural chambers, one of which is almost always a garderobe. The flues of the fireplaces and the shafts of the garderobes are often vertical, and contained within the wall. The upper floor was either for the soldiery or for a bedroom for the lord. The walls are ordinarily 10 feet to 12 feet thick, and there is often a well stair—as at Skenfrith, in Monmouthshire—from the first floor, leading to the upper chamber and the battlements. In some of the ruder towers—as in that by the church of Aghadoe, near Killarney, the ascent from the first floor is by the narrow steps projecting from the interior face of the wall into the chamber. In the larger towers, as at Coucy, there is often a small chamber in the wall, over the main entrance, for the working of a portcullis. Now and then the staircase begins at the ground-level, ends at the first floor, and begins again at the opposite side, as in the rectangular keeps. Thus no one could leave his post on the battlements without the knowledge of the captain, who lived in the main chamber.
Where the cylindrical tower formed the donjon or keep, it was commonly placed within the area, as at Brunless and Skenfrith. At Coningsborough it stands upon the outer wall; at Pembroke on the wall of the inner ward; but in neither case is there any communication between the tower and the rampart of the wall. At Coucy the tower stands on an inner wall, but is girt about with a low concentric wall covering the foundations. At Launceston the annular space thus created between the tower and the girdling wall was roofed over, and there is something similar round the tower of Penrice in Gower. At Tretower a round tower has been built within an older rectangular keep, and the space between roofed over. In these cases the outer wall was about half the height of the tower. At Lillebonne and Coucy the tower has its proper ditch.
Coningsborough on the Don is the most complete English example of the Early English or Transition Norman cylindrical keep. Pembroke, though rather later, and of far inferior workmanship, is also, in its proportions and dimensions, a very fine building. Launceston, Tretower, Penrice, Skenfrith, Brunless, and Dolbadarn, are good examples, as are the Danes’ tower at Waterford, and the small and rude, but very curious, tower at Aghadoe. At Nenagh also is a very fine tower, apparently of the Early English type. The round keep of Barnard Castle, though of nearly similar pattern, is of later date. At Whitchurch, near Cardiff, are, or recently were, the foundations of a detached round tower of considerable diameter, the base mouldings of which showed it to be of Early English date. At Caldecot, a fine old Bohun castle, admirably described by Mr. Octavius Morgan, is a round tower, probably Early English, having a ditch of its own. This tower crowns a small and evidently artificial mound. It is now a mural tower upon the line of the outer wall, but it seems to have been cased, and the core is probably, or possibly, the keep of an earlier castle.
Those English towers, though curious, are far inferior to those of the same period remaining in France, whether keeps, such as Étampes, 1160, the plan of which is a quatrefoil; or Roche-Guyon, where one-half of the cylinder is absorbed in a triangular spur; or mural towers, as the King’s Tower at Rouen, that at Carcassonne, and a specially fine one, lately restored, at Pierrefonds. The keep at Nuremberg is also a good example. The tower of the Louvre has long been destroyed, but its base was recently laid open, and found to contain two shafts—those of a well and a sewer.
Probably the round towers, or keeps, are the oldest examples of the form, but very soon afterwards they came into use in England and France as mural towers, flanking and strengthening the enceinte wall. They were especially used to cap an angle or to flank a gateway. There is an example of a round tower capping an angle, of this date, in the Tower of London, known as Bell Tower. Marten’s Tower at Chepstow is a good example of a mural tower of the Early English period, having a fine oratory attached. Its interior is a complete cylinder, but the exterior, or gorge wall, seen within the court, is flat. At Rochester, the angle of the ward next the keep has a circular tower, or rather a buttress tower, as it is not higher than the curtain. In such positions their passive strength was a great advantage.
In the latter part of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth centuries, much was done to introduce domestic comfort into castles. Fireplaces, which in the Norman keeps were but recesses in the wall, often with a mere lateral orifice for a smoke-vent, as at Colchester and Rochester, are now adorned with hoods, often of stone, sometimes of wood and plaster, and the flues are capacious and calculated to carry off the smoke. The stone hoods are usually of excellent masonry, and, even when plain, of much elegance of design, resting upon brackets, and these on clustered columns flanking the hearth. The vent or flue is often capped by a chimney-shaft and smoke lanthorn, such as may be seen at Grosmont and St. Briavels castles, or in the remains of the priory at Abingdon. Where the hood was of wood or plaster, with a shaft of the same, or where there was an opening or louvre in the roof, all traces are, of course, gone, and thus is explained the absence of fireplaces in rooms evidently intended for ladies and persons of rank.
In the Norman keeps boarded floors were a necessity, and very ill-jointed and cold they no doubt were, but with the vault the floors were composed of beaten lime and sand. Garderobes continued to be frequent, both in mural chambers and on the battlements, and the shafts were usually vertical, and descended within the wall, having an outlet at the foot of it. The hall chapel, and other buildings, placed usually in the inner ward, were more ornate than in the Norman period.
In addition to the flanking defence afforded by towers upon the line of the enceinte wall, there was in general use a contrivance called a “Brétasche.” This was a gallery of timber running round the walls outside the battlements, and at their level, supported by struts resting upon corbels, and covered in with a sloping roof. Sometimes, in large towers, there were two tiers of these galleries, the upper projecting beyond the lower, and thus affording a very formidable defence. As these galleries concealed the top of the wall, this part was often left in a rude state, and now that the brétasche is gone, such towers, as at Caerphilly, have a very unfinished appearance. The brétasche was only put up when a siege was expected, and examples of it are very rare indeed, although it is evident in numerous instances that it was formerly in use. There remains a fragment of the actual brétasche over the Soissons gate of Coucy; and at Ledes, over the outer gate, is the place of its main beam. The tower of the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence shows by its lines of corbels that it was intended to carry a brétasche, and a door is seen, as at Norham, in the wall, which could only have opened upon a timber gallery. Château-Gaillard, the work of Richard I., has what is not unlike a brétasche, executed in stone.
The best example in England of the kind of tower which succeeded to the rectangular and shell keep of the Norman period is the keep of Coningsborough, which, though containing certain Norman ornaments and details, belongs to the Transition period. It stands on the summit of a natural hill, and forms a part of an earlier enceinte wall, which has been clumsily broken to admit it. The tower, about 70 feet high, is cylindrical, about 50 feet diameter at the base, and 40 feet at the summit, but the cylinder is supported exteriorly by six buttresses of great breadth and bold projection. There is a basement domed over with a central hole above the well. The only entrance is in the first floor, about 12 feet from the ground. The upper floors and the roof were of timber. The staircases are in the wall, winding with it. There are two garderobes, two fireplaces, no portcullis, and in the upper part of one of the buttresses is an oratory. The roof was a cone, but sprang from a ring wall, about 3 feet within the battlement wall and the rampart walk. By this means the tower could be defended without a brétasche, which would not have been the case had the roof rested on the outer wall. A similar arrangement may be seen at Marten’s Tower at Chepstow, and at Pembroke.