HOPTON CASTLE.—Ground Plan.
Scale—¹⁄₂₀ inch = 1 foot.
Hopton Castle or Tower stands about half a mile south of the parish church. It occupies a knoll or patch of gravel, which rises out of a marshy bottom, caused by the waters of the brooks which here fall into the main stream. There is a central mound, low but well defined, which is surrounded by a circular ditch, and beyond this ditch are the traces of two or three platforms, but slightly elevated, and which have been fortified by ditches fed with water by a streamlet from the west. No doubt the place was occupied by some tenant of Edric, for its earthworks are certainly pre-Norman, and perhaps of the tenth century. It is probable that its Norman tenant and his descendants, who derive their names from the place, were for some centuries content with such defences as they found ready to their hands, for there is no trace of masonry, either of the eleventh or twelfth centuries.
The castle consists of a single tower, quadrangular, 48 feet by 50 feet, with walls 10 feet thick. It stands upon the mound, which is not above 6 feet high, and through which the foundations are no doubt carried. It has a basement at the ground level, a first or main floor, and an attic in the roof. The exterior is plain, having a double-scroll stringcourse from 4 feet to 6 feet from the ground. Each angle is capped by a pair of broad pilasters of slight projection, which ascend to the summit, and probably carried four square turrets. The doorway is on the north side, not far from its west end, and nearly at the ground-floor level, ascended from the exterior by three or four steps. The south front has a square projection at its west end, in which is a garderobe. The doorway, the only entrance, is 6 feet wide, and has an equilateral arched head. Its mouldings are two convex quarter circles divided by a step. Their character is plain but excellent Decorated. Over the doorway was a triangular hood, now broken away. There is no portcullis, only a strong door.
Entering, a vaulted passage leading to the basement has a small door on the right, which leads into a well-stair, 6 feet in diameter, occupying the north-west angle of the building, and ascending to the roof. At the first floor is a lobby, with a small window above the outer door. This is the only staircase. The basement chamber is 29 feet by 21 feet. In the north wall is a deep recess, 7 feet wide, containing a small square-headed loop. Opposite, in the south wall, is a similar recess and window, but in the jambs are two doors, which by short passages lead into two chambers in the two southern angles. That in the south-east angle is 7 feet by 6 feet, with two loops. The other is a garderobe, with one loop. Both are covered in with overhanging slabs. In the west side is another window, in a recess, similar to those above described, and a fireplace with a vertical tunnel. In the east wall are two recesses, one blank and one pierced with a loop. From the jamb of this latter a door opens into a small chamber in the north-east angle.
The first floor is lofty. The joists and boards are gone, and the walls and window recesses are so thick with brambles and so inaccessible that the details are not to be seen. This floor seems to resemble the basement, save that it is higher, and the windows are larger.
The remains of two gables in the north and south fronts show that there was a ridge roof, with a small window at each end. Altogether this is a very peculiar building, much more like a Scottish than an English castle. It is all of one date, probably the work of Walter de Hopton, who died in 1304–5, and seems to have been a man of considerable wealth and power.
HUNTINGDON CASTLE.
IT has generally been supposed that the town of Godmanchester, upon the right bank of the Ouse, represents the Roman station of Durolipons. It is traversed by the Ermine Street, which here receives the Via Devana from Cambridge, and another Roman road from the station at Salenæ, or Sandy. The Roman town, however, seems, as was often the case, to have been destroyed in the centuries of war that followed on the departure of the Roman armies, and its memory is chiefly preserved in the termination of “Chester” suffixed to its later name. The northern invaders did not much care to build upon or employ Roman foundations, and in this case they passed over from the low and watery side of the old station and established themselves on the higher position of the Hunters, or Hunting-down, on the opposite, or left and northern, bank of the river. By whom, or precisely when, the capital of the future county was founded is not known. The first mention of it, or rather of Huntingdon Port, in history, is in A.D. 657, when it occurs in the foundation limits of Medehampstede (Peterborough). As a military post it is named in A.D. 918, when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, the Danish army from Huntingdon and East Anglia threw up a work at Tempsford, and for it deserted another at Huntingdon. That work must necessarily be the earthworks now remaining, which may either have been thrown up by the Danes or by earlier Saxons. Later in the year, King Eadweard with his West Saxons brought the Danes of Northampton and Welland to obedience, “reduced the burgh at Huntingdon, and repaired and renovated it, where it was before in a state of ruin.... And all the folk that were left there of the peasantry submitted to King Eadweard, and sought his peace and his protection.”
Henry, Archdeacon of Huntingdon, who wrote towards the close of the eleventh century, mentions the three burhs (tria castra) of Buckingham, Bedford, and Huntingdon. The castle is mentioned several times in Domesday. It was within the borough of Huntingdon. The Bishop of Lincoln had a residence (mansio) in the place of the castle (in loco castri). In the place of the castle were twenty residences (mansiones). “Besides these were and are LX. ‘mansiones’ waste ... and on account of these are VIII. ‘mansiones’ waste.” William the Conqueror was at Huntingdon 1068, when he ordered a castle to be built, evidently on the site of the old fortress restored by Edward the Elder in 918. The names in Domesday show how complete had been the removal of the larger English landowners. The new castle was probably built by, and in the hands of, Eustace, one of the most rapacious of the Norman sheriffs; but the earldom was given to Judith, the king’s niece, and descended to and through Maud, her daughter, by Earl Waltheof. Maud married, first, Simon de St. Liz, in her right Earl of Huntingdon. The earldom, on his death, was held by David, afterwards King of Scots, Maud’s second husband, and, with the castle, was long a subject of contention between the two families, until David, the third son of Henry, son of Maud and David, laid siege to and took the castle, on which Simon de St. Liz, the son of Maud, retook it. The result was that Henry II. had the castle demolished, nor does it appear ever to have been rebuilt. The town occurs from time to time in the public records, and the honour remained attached to the earldom. The king also had a prison there; but there is never any allusion to a castle. In 1205 King John granted to Robert Rufus the demesne and mill at Huntingdon, and in 1218 and 1219 the sheriff had order to give seizin, under certain limitations, to Alexander, King of Scotland, as custos of the honour. The junior branch of the house of Hastings took the title of Huntingdon, to commemorate the descent of the elder line from the Scottish earls.