The Tower, or castle proper, was a shell of masonry, circular, or nearly so, about 64 feet diameter, placed upon and covering the top of the knoll, the sides of which were scarped down to a dry ditch about 30 feet diameter, and now about 8 feet deep. Of this shell the outline of the whole foundation is to be traced, and towards the north-west are fragments of the wall and of ruined chambers; and to the north-east a small, low mound probably conceals the foundations of a mural tower.
There are the ruins of a rectangular building about 28 feet square, with walls about 4 feet thick, parts of which retain their original facing of coursed limestone (apparently lias) roughly dressed with the hammer. The walls are about 10 feet to 12 feet high, and one forms a part of the enceinte. These fragments may probably be parts of a small gatehouse, covering a narrow doorway, which would be all that could be needed for so small an enclosure. The masonry is evidently original; and the tower, probably, is of the reign of Henry III., which seems to have been the date of a somewhat similar but superior structure at Whitchurch. Llanquian then belonged to the powerful family of Nerber of Castleton in St. Athan’s, under whom it was probably held by the family of De Wintonia or De Wincestria, afterwards Wilkins, still extant, whose occupancy is preserved in the mead below, designated in the Ordnance Map as “Pant Wilkin.”
Across the site of both tower and camp are written in black letter, on the same map, the words Twr Gron, which appears to be a new name, compounded of those of the two very distinct remains. It is also singular that, in a map usually so very correct, the name of Llanquian does not appear.
About half a mile south-east of the Tower, a part of the Cowbridge road is still known as “Pant y lladron,” that is, via latronum, or the robbers’ way: a name indicative of the former bad character of the spot, and suggesting a suspicion that the inhabitants of the strong place either connived at the robberies or perpetrated them themselves.
THE TOWER OF LONDON.
ALTHOUGH Britain presents numerous examples of military works, and her Welsh and Scottish borders are very thickly set with castles, the circumstances of the country have not been favourable to the production of military buildings of the first class. Our insular position has enabled us to dispense altogether with grand frontier fortresses; and our great nobles, although they often held their own against the Crown, and even encroached upon its legitimate powers, drew their resources from estates more or less scattered in position, and seldom possessed whole provinces, or ruled over a territory sufficiently compact and extensive to justify the construction of a great castle-palace like those of France, for the defence of the lordship and the residence of the baron. The keeps of Arques, Etampes, Provins, and Vez; the towers of Coucy and Beaucaire; the walls of Avignon; and the fortresses of Château-Gaillard, Carcassonne, Villeneuve-les-Avignon, and Pierrefonds, the details of which are familiar to the readers of the exhaustive work of M. Viollet-le-Duc, are due to a period when France was divided into provinces, the rulers of which were scarcely subordinate to its Crown, and were either actual monarchs elsewhere, or held much of the state privilege and power of independent sovereigns.
It happens, however, that, in that particular class of fortress of which the quadrangular Norman keep is the type, we have less to fear comparison, seeing that castles of this description are confined, or very nearly so, to our own country and to Normandy. Whereas, on the continent of Europe, in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, the earlier castles appear to have sprung directly from Roman, or debased Roman patterns, in Normandy a simpler and more original type prevailed, unlike what is seen in other parts of France, and which there is some reason to regard as the invention of the Normans themselves. These keeps, so remarkable for their simple quadrangular form and the immense solidity of their masonry, were erected in Normandy during the eleventh century, and are well known by such examples as Arques near Dieppe, Falaise, and Caen. By the Normans they were introduced into England.
An unaltered Norman castle is very rare, if indeed such exists at all. It is, however, certain that the keep had an enceinte defence and ditch, the latter sometimes part of an earlier earthwork; and in the base court thus formed were stabling and barracks, and other subordinate accommodations. These buildings were at first often of timber, and the enceinte a stout palisade, the object having been to afford protection to the garrison as rapidly as possible. Both at Dover and Windsor the enceinte wall, part of which is of late Norman date, stands upon the scarp of the ditch of an earlier earthwork, the solid chalk of which, as at Arques, is traversed by subterranean galleries. Where, as at Cardiff and the Tower, the wall is of great strength, and of the twelfth century, it is probable that the palisade was retained longer than usual, and the wall now seen the first constructed. No regular Norman wall would so soon have required reconstruction.
Where the Norman wall was of light construction or insufficient area, it had to be removed, and in the larger works replaced by a double and concentric ring of defences. These additions, usually due to the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., show that military engineering had made great progress, and that less dependence was placed upon passive strength, and more upon the skilful distribution of material. Having regard to the state of the military art at that period, and to the cross and long bows, catapults, rams, scorpions, and movable turrets that formed the weapons of attack, it would be difficult to improve upon these concentric works, either in general design or in detail of construction, or to show greater skill in flanking defences than appears at Corfe, Caerphilly, Conway, or Beaumaris, or in other of the castles built in the reigns of Henry and his son. This science, so successfully grafted upon the pure Norman works, was no doubt in some considerable measure derived from the East, where Cœur de Lion seems to have acquired the skill displayed in the construction of Château-Gaillard, and which, in the opinion of M. Le Duc, places him at the head of the military engineers of his day.