The adjacent church was rebuilt, or nearly so, in excellent taste, in 1850. It has a western tower with a broach spire, a nave, chancel, and round apse, and two transepts, of which that to the south is old, and mainly in the Decorated style, though with some traces of Norman work.
Dr. Robertson, the historian, was born in the manse, which, however, has been rebuilt.
THE CASTLE OF BÔVES.
THE Castle of Bôves is here introduced as a good example of a moated mound on the other side of the Channel. The castle and village stand upon the left bank of the valley of the Noye, in the old province of Picardy, above and about a quarter of a mile distant from the stream. The Noye rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Grand, beyond Bretuil, and flows across a district of chalk. Both a little above and immediately below Bôves, it inosculates with the Avre, which rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Petit, and the combined stream, flowing past Longeau, joins the Somme immediately above Amiens, which city is about five miles distant from Bôves. Both the Noye and the Avre exhibit the features which are still more strongly marked in the Somme. They flow sluggishly across broad, flat tracts of peat and gravel, contained within steep and high banks of chalk. The peat has been extensively excavated for fuel, and the cavities are filled with dark peaty water. The supply of coal by railway and canal seems somewhat to have checked the demand upon these turbaries, and the uncut surfaces are highly cultivated as nursery gardens, which appear in patches amidst the pools, and are chiefly reached by boats. The poplar is the prevailing tree of these damp, gloomy districts, and it there attains a very considerable size. Below the peat, and at the base and up the sides of the chalk hills, the rock is more or less thickly covered up with beds of gravel and light loam, in which are found the flint implements which have been the subject of so much speculation.
The village of Bôves contains under 2,000 persons, whose chief employment is bleaching in the open fields the cotton cloths manufactured in the neighbourhood. The church, the only public building, is a heavy Doric temple, of modern date. The village is built at the foot of the chalk hill upon which stands the castle, and which has been quarried for building purposes into a cliff of 50 feet to 80 feet high.
The castle, now a mere ruin of no great extent, is chiefly remarkable for its earthworks. It stands upon a chalk ridge, perhaps 150 feet above the valley, and has been isolated towards the south by a curved ditch, about 50 feet deep by 60 feet or 70 feet broad, and about a furlong in length. This ditch works out upon the face of the cliff towards the village, and upon the natural slope in the opposite direction. The ground without, or upon its counterscarp, has not been disturbed. The contents have been thrown inward, and cause the scarp to be crowned by an elevated bank.
On the highest part of the ground, just within the ditch and near its centre, is a mound or motte, with very steep sides, about 50 feet high, and a circular flat top about 100 feet in diameter. This motte has a basis of chalk rock, which has been scarped, and the material added to the summit. The bank proceeds from the mound along the edge of the ditch, and probably was connected with or covered the entrance into the work upon the motte. To the east and north of the motte the ground is tolerably level as far as the edge of the cliff, and of a deep hollow way ascending from the village. This space is now partially occupied by a public cemetery and some farm buildings. West of the motte is a sort of lunated platform, beyond which the slope is again scarped by art. Probably the principal buildings of the castle and its offices occupied these platforms under the motte.
The only masonry remaining stands upon the motte, and consists of the ruins of a tower and a fragment of wall. The tower stands at the junction of the scarped bank with the motte, upon the edge of the ditch. Its remains are quadrangular, with thick walls, of which only the north and south remain. It was of three floors, a basement vaulted in round-headed barrel; a first floor, with timber ceiling; and a second floor, higher, and evidently a room of state. In the basement walls remain three rectangular loopholes, or small window-openings, high up. The upper room may have been vaulted. Its walls show a round-headed gable, but this may have belonged to a coved plaster ceiling. Outside, against one wall, is a plain buttress, 3 feet by 3 feet. The material is chalk rubble, without flints, and faced, within and without, with chalk ashlar, the stones being coursed, and about 9 inches long by 6 inches high, with rather open joints. This tower may have contained a small portal. From it extends a fragment of curtain, along the edge of the motte. This has one broken opening, perhaps a window, with a round head. It is difficult to form an opinion upon the age of this masonry. It is possibly late Norman.
There are marks of the foundations of a shell of wall all round the edge of the motte, and of a central rectangular court. At present the summit is planted with trees, and the slopes covered with brushwood.