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

by George Thomas Clark

Of the domestic buildings there is built against the keep and the west curtain the smaller hall, 18 feet broad by 30 feet long, one end abutting on the keep, the other on a retiring-room common to it with the great hall. It is of two floors, the lower on the ground level, having a handsome door and windows. The hall, with a timber floor and roof, occupies the upper floor. The fireplace is in the middle of the west side, let into the Roman curtain, which has been raised. In the east side are four windows looking into the ward, each of two lights divided by a transom, with cinquefoil heads.

Set against the keep, and also abutting on this hall, is a building of two floors, the uppermost of which seems to have been a chapel, superseding that of the keep with which it communicated. It has an east window flanked by two diagonal buttresses. Opposite to this, against the curtain, is the great hall. This is 67 feet long by 28 feet broad, also of two floors, the basement having been probably a cellar. In its north wall are arches as for a buttery, and some remains of the original Norman walling, probably of an earlier hall. In the north side are four windows, three to the west and one to the east of the great door, in front of which is a handsome Perpendicular porch with vaulted roof, and steps leading up to the hall. From the porch a well-stair and short gallery led to the music-gallery at the east end of the hall, and at this end also, in the south wall, is the great fireplace. If this was the daïs end, the gallery must have been above it,—not a usual arrangement. The hall had a wooden floor and a low-pitched roof. The porch seems later than the hall. East of the hall are other smaller rooms, abutting against the wall which flanks the entrance-gate. Beyond this gateway the remainder of the south wall, and the whole of the east wall to the kitchen tower, are occupied by buildings of Tudor date,—mere shells, probably servants’ lodgings, butteries, and rooms connected with the kitchen department. It is said there were buildings against the north curtain, but of such there is now no trace.

How the ramparts of the west, south, and east walls of this ward were reached is uncertain. There is no way to them from the keep or from the kitchen tower. The north curtain is reached by a short stair from the forebuilding. This curtain is here 10 feet thick, and has a rampart walk 6 feet high, with a high parapet and rere-wall. One of the old Roman bastions occurs on this part of the curtain. It is solid below, and has been raised to contain a small chamber, the floor of which is a little below the rampart level, from which a door opens into it. There is also a good west window of two lights, cinquefoiled, opening on the rampart walk, and a small fireplace; altogether far too comfortable a post for any officer on duty. East of this bastion the hollow angle between it and the curtain is crossed by an oblique arch or squinch, of two rings of voussoirs of excellent Decorated work, which supports a small garderobe, such as is seen on Southampton walls and at Ludlow.

There remains to be described the gatehouse, or entrance to this inner ward,—a very curious structure, of unusual length, and of three periods. First, approaching from the outside are two parallel walls, 5 feet thick and 9 feet apart, from within the ends of which hung the drawbridge, apparently without any special arch or gateway. In one wall is a squint loop, commanding the approach from the great gateway of the outer ward. From the drawbridge a passage, at first of 9 feet, and then of 10 feet in width, and 15 feet long, ends in a portcullis and gateway, the whole 2 feet deep and 9 feet of opening. Beyond this the passage continues 10 feet broad for 17 feet. So far, the road was either open or roofed with timber, and all is of Perpendicular date.

Next follows a remarkably fine archway of the Decorated period, deeply moulded and portcullised, with a rebate for a door. This leads into a sort of peristyle, 8 feet deep, vaulted and groined, with ribs and bosses, and ending in a second and rather lower portal. In this peristyle are two lateral doorways, of 3 feet broad, opening upon the scarp of the ditch between it and the curtain wall, just as at Hawarden, only there they open from a chamber on the counterscarp. The arch in which the peristyle ends is rebated for a door, but has no portcullis grooves. The Decorated work here ends, the portal being seen to mask the original Norman entrance. This is a perfect, plain, square-jambed Norman entrance archway, placed in the front and centre of the original gatehouse, which was a plain rectangular tower of 23 feet projection from the curtain, and 28 feet broad. Entering, the way lies between two lofty walls, 19 feet apart, and which for 22 feet are those of the old Norman gatehouse, with two lateral loops raking the curtain. There was a timber floor above this passage. The walls are then continued 28 feet further, on the left being the rooms attached to the great hall, on the right those of Tudor date. Thus the entrance to this ward is about 100 feet long, defended by a drawbridge, a portcullis, and two sets of gates.

The two gatehouses of the outer ward next require attention. The water-gate is, in substance, Roman. The gatehouse is 26 feet square, with walls 6 feet thick, having no projection outside the curtain. All is perfectly plain, without buttress, chamfered edge, or moulding. The way lies through two doorways, opposite each other, of 8 feet 6 inches opening. The inner arch is built of white limestone, with a few blocks of blood-red iron sandstone. The voussoirs are heavy, and a single ring. The walls generally are of coursed flint rubble, very open jointed. In the Decorated period a sort of porch, of 20 feet projection by 12 feet in breadth, was added upon the outer face, in the centre of which is an outer gateway, portcullised, and flanked by a pair of buttresses, placed diagonally. Over the gate is a small window, and in the side walls two loops raking the curtain. The old Roman doorway in the line of the curtain has also been altered and refaced in the Decorated period, and a rebate added for a door. The roof was of timber, and there was an upper floor, no doubt an addition. This was reached by a well-stair in the south-west angle, rebuilt for the purpose, and entered by an interior door.

A study of the water-gate will throw much light upon what has been done at the land-gate, which was evidently built originally upon the same pattern. Here the Roman work was either pulled down and rebuilt of the same dimensions, or, which seems more probable, the Roman core has been preserved, and a Norman facing applied. The inner gate is perfectly plain, save that the arch springs from a simple Norman abacus, which is continued outside the wall as a string. The outer gateway has not even the abacus; but it is masked outside by a handsome Decorated portal, with a drop arch and good moulded jambs, and an exterior drip. There is no portcullis, and no middle gate. The space between the gates, a square of 14 feet, was vaulted over from four heavy corbels in the angles, from each of which sprang five ribs, two placed against the walls. There was a plain but hollow chamfer, and they met in a central open circle, and four half circles against the four walls, connected by four ridge-ribs. The whole is of late Decorated or early Perpendicular character.

Here, also, an upper floor has been added, and remains pretty perfect. The chamber is barrel-vaulted, the axis being east and west, and strengthened by seven plain chamfered ribs, of which the springings remain; but the bodies of the ribs, with the vault, are gone. The vault seems to have been pointed, and looks Perpendicular. This room had windows over the gateways. It was reached by a straight staircase, placed in a projection parallel to the north wall, on the north side, and vaulted over. The stair-head opened on the left into the upper chamber, and on the right upon the curtain. There is another door on the south side of the chamber opening on the opposite curtain. This gatehouse has a perfect and very handsome parapet, with merlons and embrasures of equal size, and a bold moulding is carried round each.

A few yards north of this gatehouse a small lancet doorway has been opened in the Roman curtain, probably as a postern. At present it is a mere rough hole; but it looks old, and had it been very modern it would have been lined with brick.

The structural history of the castle is tolerably plainly written upon its walls. Henry I., probably before 1133, seems to have built the keep, and inclosed the inner ward, repaired the Roman curtain, rebuilt or restored the gatehouse, and placed a hall and other domestic buildings along the south side of the inner ward. It may be that Henry himself raised the keep before the works were completed, or this may have been done by Henry II., as late as 1160.