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

by George Thomas Clark

The walls are built mainly of flint nodules, laid in courses with as thick or even thicker, beds of mortar. Occasionally are seen single and double flat courses of red tiles and tile-stone, and sometimes of herring-bone work, characteristic peculiarities, especially strongly marked in the bastions. The work seems late in the Roman period. The walls have been patched with Caen stone, and by later builders with coursed flint, and more recently with brick. Here and there the parapet may be Norman, but this can scarcely be the case with much of it, which must have been frequently renewed. The two missing bastions to the east, to judge by the patching up, were probably gone when the Normans took possession. One on the west face was evidently standing in the Perpendicular period; that at the south-east angle fell but a few years ago. There is still an east and west, a water and a land gateway, nor do there appear to have been more in the Roman period.

The east face is washed by the sea, here a good defence, because too shallow for boats, and too deep for land operations. On this face the curtain is especially high, reaching 40 feet, and at the base of its parapet is a row of small holes, as though to carry a timber gallery or brétasche, no doubt a post-Norman addition. Between the south face and the sea there intervenes a triangular strip of flat land, at its widest end 60 yards broad. To command this, and protect the foot of the wall, a berm or platform of earth has been thrown up against the wall, about 6 feet high and 24 feet broad, in front of which is a light ditch, prolonged westward to the advanced ditch to check any approach round the angle of the place. The curtain here is about 30 feet high.

On the north front the margin of land is much broader, and is cut off by a deep and broad ditch communicating with the sea, and which turns the north-west angle, and extends along the west or main front nearly as far as the great gate; it would seem that originally this ditch covered the whole front, and extended onward to the sea, but the drawbridge of the gate has been replaced by a causeway, and the further traces of the ditch are but faint, as it has been filled up south of the causeway with some care.

In addition to these special defences the whole work is covered by a deep ditch with a high interior bank of earth, which has been cut from sea to sea right across the tongue on which the castle stands. This is about 300 yards in length, and from 50 yards to 100 yards to the west of or in advance of the west front, forming a broken curve with its salient near the centre. In outline it is rude, and as it bears no trace of masonry was probably stockaded. The notch for the entrance is placed considerably to the north of the main gate, so that the approach was oblique and exposed to be enfiladed from the castle. This work looks rather like an English addition before the arrival of the Normans. There is no trace of any rectangular camp or earthwork of earlier date than the walls. They are built upon the natural ground, and there is little or no difference between the interior and exterior level. In what condition the Romans left, or their successors found, the works which have thus been described, is not known. So convenient an enclosure, so well posted, could scarcely have been neglected by any people. In Domesday, “Porcestre” is a manor, and is the subject of a long and rather detailed entry. Mention is made of a “halla,” or mansion-house, or hall, but none of the castle. It had possibly been disused as a fortress, though probably then and long before a parish, with a church within its girth.

The Normans were for a time content with the existing wall; for it was not till about 1133 that Henry I. here founded a priory for Augustine canons, and built the small and plain, but very complete, Church of St. Mary, which was also the parish church, and most of which remains uninjured. Probably a little before this, judging from the internal evidence of the buildings, he proceeded to convert the Roman into a Norman fortress. This was effected by placing a rectangular keep at the north-west angle, about 10 feet in advance of the line of wall, removing for this purpose about 60 feet of the adjacent curtain on each face, and the capping bastion of the angle. The projection of the keep is mainly inwards. It seems to rest upon the natural soil, at that corner slightly elevated. It has been thought to stand upon an artificial knoll, but more probably its base has been banked round by the earth removed from the ditch, which is here both deep and broad. The keep required defence from the large interior court, as well as from the field. To afford this, and also to divide the castle from the church, Henry further enclosed a base-court, of about 67 yards east and west, by 47 yards north and south, or about one-fourteenth of the whole area, in which detached space the keep stood, and of which the great curtain formed the north and west sides. The entrance was in the south face, near the south-east angle, and this inner wall was covered by a wet ditch, fed by a culvert in the north curtain from the exterior tidal ditch, and which completed the isolation of the inner from the outer ward.

The church was placed in the south-east corner of the outer ward, diagonally opposite to the new ward, to which its enclosure corresponded. The conventual buildings stood against the church on the south side, and extended to the Roman curtain, which bears marks of Norman alteration. At Caister, in Norfolk, where the parish church stands within a similar enclosure, it occupies the south-west angle. The wall which, it is probable, cut off the monastery from the rest of the outer ward, is gone. The western or landward gatehouse of the outer ward was remodelled after the Norman fashion, but the eastern or water gate was left unaltered.

The keep answers to the usual conditions of such structures. It measures at its exterior base 65 feet north and south, by 52 feet east and west; and was, as originally built, about 55 feet, and as completed, 100 feet high. On its west front three broad pilaster strips, of slight projection, rise from the ground, independently of the plinth, to rather above half the present height of the tower. On the north front the arrangement is the same, save that the lower half of the pilaster to the east is united with the wall of the forebuilding that covered the entrance to the keep, on the east face. The south face has only two pilasters, that in the centre being omitted. The east face is again different; here the basement is covered by the forebuilding, and there is but one pilaster, at the north end. These pilasters in the north, west, and south faces, rise plain to the second-floor level, where both wall and pilasters are reduced by a set-off. The wall is not again reduced, but the pilasters have two or three rapid sets-off before they die into the wall. Near that was the base level of the original parapet. The angles are solid,—that is, without nooks. The two pilasters covering the south-west angle have a slightly bolder projection than the rest, and contain a well-stair, the head of which opens in a low turret. There are no turrets nor trace of them at the other three angles. They were the natural finish of the pilasters covering the angles, and as these are not carried to the summit it is possible that the usual turrets were also omitted. The present battlement is probably in substance of Decorated date. The north and south parapets are horizontal, but those to the east and west rise to the centre so as to form a very low-pitched gable, a very unusual outline in such a building, and for which there is nothing in the arrangement of the roof to account. The exterior of the keep is very free from ornament. The only exception is a string-course about 12 feet above the base on the west wall, which has on its under side a billet moulding of great delicacy. This string is confined to this face, and to the wall, being stopped by the pilasters.

The material of the keep, inside and out, is chiefly of Caen stone ashlar for facing, with hearting of chalk flints. The stones are from 4 inches to 6 inches square on the face; high up they are perhaps a little larger, but there is little difference between the original work and the additions. The stones of the parapet are still larger, and seem, from the accounts, to have come from the Isle of Wight.

The walls at the base average about 11 feet thick, and at the first floor about 7 feet. At the summit they are about 6 feet, the reduction in thickness being thus unusually small. The interior is divided throughout by a cross wall running east and west, from 5 feet to 3 feet 6 inches thick. It has a basement and four floors. The entrance was in the first floor, and a spiral stair, the only one, occupied the south-west angle and rose from the first floor, and it may be from the base, to the battlements, communicating with, probably, each floor, by doors, of which all but one are walled up. In the south-east angle was the pipe of the well, with similar communications. The floors throughout were of timber, the beams resting in holes in the wall. The interior sets-off, reducing the thickness of the wall, are irregular.

The two basement chambers are not quite equal, the southern being the larger. They are about 12 feet high, each has a loop in its west end and two in the north and south walls, six in all; these are of 6 inches opening, round-headed, and placed in splays of an hour-glass section, having recesses inside and out of 2 feet opening. The door to the well-pipe is visible, though blocked, but that to the stair seems to have been closed and obliterated. Each of these chambers is vaulted with a low-pointed barrel, running east and west, and stiffened by six very deep slender ribs, with hollow chamfers. These have been cut away from the vault, but the gable ribs remain attached to the wall, and sections of the others are seen at their springings. This work looks early Perpendicular, or, perhaps, a little earlier. It is excellent, and much too good for a cellar, though no doubt intended specially for the custody of the royal prisage wines, which formed a part of the revenue, and were often stored here. There is a door between the vaults, near the west end of the cross-wall, and an outer door in the east wall of the south vault, which latter was probably opened when the vaults were turned, and the spiral stair closed. This, however, may be an original door opening from the basement into a dungeon in the base of the forebuilding, or it may have been connected with an outer door in the forebuilding itself. It is difficult to be sure on this point.