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

by George Thomas Clark

Upon the south-west and west side the earth has been employed to form a large mound, about 40 feet high, and 70 feet across at its truncated summit, and which renders this front almost impregnable.

The space between the east bank and the west mound, forming the south front, is occupied by the castle buildings, which, built upon the natural soil, crown the scarp of the ditch, and overlook the town.

Opposite, also from the bank to the mound, is the north front, almost precipitous, and defended, therefore, by neither ditch nor bank. The space thus enclosed forms the base-court of the castle, and covers about three acres. It is in plan an irregular circle.

The best view of these magnificent earthworks is from the summit of the mound, which not only predominates over the court of the castle, to its east, but westward rises very steeply about 140 feet from the meadows. The counterscarp of the ditch is here seen to terminate on the north-west, at the base of the mound in a sharply-defined falciform ridge.

The masonry which has been added to these earlier defences is composed of a group of buildings on the south front, flanked by curtains which run, on the one hand, westward towards the mound, and, on the other, eastward, along the top of the bank by which that face is defended. This curtain is 6 feet thick at the top of its plinth, about 6 feet from the ground, to which level it is now reduced. There is evidence that it was about 20 feet high, with a rampart accessible from its flanking towers, and by a double flight of open steps from within. At one point is the vault of a large garderobe, marked in the “Vetusta” drawing by a bartizan turret. This east curtain is broken by a lofty rectangular mural tower, of which the interior wall with a square angle-turret only remains, and which faced the turn of the road up to the castle, on the opposite side of the ditch. The bank has been removed here, so that the tower is built upon the original soil, and its basement entered from the court on a level. This tower is Perpendicular in style, and has evidently been blown up by gunpowder.

At the north end of this curtain, at the north-east corner of the court, is the great gatehouse, a rectangular building pierced by a portal, and with lateral lodges. Above were other chambers of more pretention and larger size. This gatehouse is almost all outside the wall. Its south face rakes the ditch, and has a small projecting balcony at the first-floor level, communicating by a shaft with the basement lodge. Its north face looked towards the Dove; only its south and east walls remain. It had no flanking towers, the wall on one side of the gate being pierced by a loop. To it has been added, outside, flanking the gate and blocking up the loop, two thick solid cheeks of wall, from the front of which the drawbridge fell across the moat. The gatehouse seems to be of late Decorated date, its window recesses have half-round heads, and a window above the portal has something like Decorated tracery still remaining, and rudely indicated in the drawing given in the Vetusta Monumenta.” The portal has a flat segmental arch, and outside this is a low drop arch, part of the additions. The details of the drawbridge, to judge from the holes cut in the stone, were peculiar. Two portcullis grooves remain.

The masonry of the drawbridge has been removed, and the ditch here solidly filled up with earth. The road from below, to reach this gate, is continued for some way along the crest of the ditch, within reach of the walls. Lower down it is commanded by the two demilunes. From the gatehouse westward the edge of the steep north front was crested by a curtain wall, probably low and light, of which there are slight traces.

Upon the summit of the mound is a ruined round tower, evidently an erection of very modern times, probably as a summer-house, or an object in a view. There is said to have been an earlier building here, destroyed before the reign of Elizabeth, probably by John of Gaunt, and likely to have been a polygonal shell of masonry. It was called Julius Tower, Juliet being a not uncommon name for such structures.

The castle buildings have been broken down, but what remains is as sharp and fresh as though lately executed. The outer wall and altered windows remain of the great hall, 61 feet long by 29 feet broad, and a group of state apartments at the east end. Here are two very fine crypts, no doubt cellars,—fitting receptacles for the very best of drinks,—entered from the court by handsome doorways and six or eight descending steps. They have been covered with barrel vaults, one of which was ribbed transversely and diagonally, with large carved bosses, probably of the time of Richard II. Above these are handsome rooms, with flush flat-topped chimney-places, with mouldings set with flowers and the “hart lodged,” and what may be a conventional pomegranate. These buildings are in the best and purest Perpendicular style, and the profiles and details of the mouldings are admirably suited to that fine but sometimes rather friable material, red sandstone, here of very superior quality.

In the court is a deep well, still in use. At the west end of the great hall is a brick building, probably the work of some Crown steward or lessee, about the time of Queen Anne or George I.