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

by George Thomas Clark

THE Hundred of Atiscross, in which Hawarden is an important parish, is, in Domesday, included in the county of Chester; and in that Hundred, as in very many parts of the Welsh border, the Saxons, as is well known from history and still evident from the prevailing names of places, early and in strength established themselves. But although the power of the Earls of Chester and the perfectly Saxonised condition of the peninsula of West Chester gave the invaders a secure hold over the open country on the west bank of the Dee, their sway was contested on the higher and more rugged ground, and though such names as Hope, Northop, Holywell, Whitford, Newmarket, Soughton, and Ryden show that they had settlements in the central and northern parts of Flintshire, the presence of a still larger number of Welsh names shows that their occupation was actively contested and the very reverse of secure.

The length and severity of the struggle is also made evident by the number and magnitude of the various military earthworks which still attract attention. Such of these as are situated on the summits of hills, are of irregular form and bear Welsh names, may safely be attributed to the Welsh; while those of English origin, usually on more accessible ground, have a tendency to a circular form, and in some very marked instances are characterised by a mound or motte.

Hawarden, the Haordine of Domesday, and in Welsh called “Penard Halawg,” said to mean “the steep head of the marsh,” is, as its name declares, a Saxon settlement, and its fortress, so long preserved, presents in a remarkable degree the features of a well-known class of earthworks found both in England and in Normandy. The parish, containing about 16,000 acres, occupies the eastern or English end of the first high ground that rises west of the Dee. It includes the commencement of a wooded ridge, which runs for some way parallel to the estuary, and then trends inland to be lost in the higher country around Northop.

The castle stands at the south-west end of a considerable area of level sward, upon which is built the later house of Hawarden, and which, with a ravine bounding it on the south and west, is included in the park.

The ground occupied by the castle and its earthworks covers an irregular circle of about 150 yards diameter. It rises steeply about 50 feet from the level area, and almost abruptly 150 feet to 200 feet from the ravine that protects it on the south, south-east, and west.

At the central and highest point of this ground, composed in part of rock and in part of the red sandy soil of the district, has been formed, by scarping down with perhaps some little addition in height, a conical mound, the flat top of which is about 70 feet diameter, having steep slopes all around. On the north-east side, or that towards the house, the descent is about 30 feet, at which level is a platform occupied by the main ward of the fortress, and beyond it, near the foot of a further but gentle slope, a broad and deep ditch, dry and wholly artificial, which sweeps round this the weakest side and cuts it off from the area already mentioned.

About the other two thirds of its circumference, towards the south and west, the mound descends rapidly to the ravine, but on its way the slope is broken by concentric banks, ditches, and shelves, of somewhat irregular height, depth, and configuration, owing, no doubt, to their having been originally natural, but converted and strengthened by art.

This kind of fortification by mound, bank, and ditch, is well known both in England and Normandy, and was in use in the ninth and tenth, and even in the eleventh centuries, before masonry was general. The mound was crowned with a strong circular house of timber, probably constructed like the walls of Greenstead chancel, and such as in the Bayeux tapestry the soldiers are attempting to set on fire. The court below and the banks beyond the ditches were fenced with palisades and defences of that character.

The Normans in Normandy, towards the middle of the eleventh century, and in England a little later, and onwards into the reign of Henry II., commonly replaced these defences by more substantial walls of masonry, which, being of great thickness and solidity, have often remained to the present day, though more frequently they were removed in the reigns of the earlier Edwards, to be replaced by structures of more scientific though less solid design, affording more accommodation within the enceinte. At Hawarden, the course of action seems to have been different. Here are no traces of Norman work or of the Norman style, and though the keep is unusually substantial, it bears evidence of being the work of one period, and that the close of the reign of Henry III. or early in that of Edward, his Welsh-compelling son. If this be so, it must be concluded that the Norman barons, who were known to have held Hawarden in the twelfth century, were content to allow its defences to be formed of timber, as any masonry constructed by them would scarcely so soon have needed to be removed.

The Keep (A in the plan) very nearly covers the top of the mound. It is circular, 61 feet across at the base, and originally about 40 feet high. The base gathers inwards to a height of 5 feet, where the cylinder is 59 feet across, and from hence to the summit it further diminishes to 57 feet. The interior is vertical, and 31 feet diameter throughout; hence the wall, which is 15 feet thick at the base, and 14 feet a little above it, is 13 feet at the level of the rampart walk; dimensions of unusual solidity even at the Norman period and very rare in England under Henry III. or the Edwards.