"According to the plan on the Ordnance Survey map, the walls enclose a quadrangular area roughly 640 feet long by 413 wide, the walls being 9 feet thick with a foundation 12 feet in width. The angles of the station are rounded. The eastern wall is strengthened by four solid bastions, one standing against each of the rounded angles, the other two intermediate, and the north and south sides have one each, neither of them being in the centre of the side, but rather west of it. The quaggy ground between the camp and the stream would be an excellent defence against sudden attack."
Burgh Castle
Burgh Castle, according to the late Canon Raven, was the Roman station Gariannonum of the Notitia Imperii. Its walls are built of flint-rubble concrete, and there are lacing courses of tiles. There is no wall on the west, and Canon Raven used to contend that one existed there but has been destroyed. But this conjecture seems improbable. That side was probably defended by the sea, which has considerably receded. Two gates remain, the principal one being the east gate, commanded by towers a hundred feet high; while the north is a postern-gate about five feet wide. The Romans have not left many traces behind them. Some coins have been found, including a silver one of Gratian and some of Constantine. Here St. Furseus, an Irish missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in 633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver, Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign foes.
In early days, ere Norman and Saxon became a united people, the castle was the sign of the supremacy of the conquerors and the subjugation of the English. It kept watch and ward over tumultuous townsfolk and prevented any acts of rebellion and hostility to their new masters. Thus London's Tower arose to keep the turbulent citizens in awe as well as to protect them from foreign foes. Thus at Norwich the castle dominated the town, and required for its erection the destruction of over a hundred houses. At Lincoln the Conqueror destroyed 166 houses in order to construct a strong motte at the south-west corner of the old castrum in order to overawe the city. Sometimes castles were erected to protect the land from foreign foes. The fort at Colchester was intended to resist the Danes if ever their threatened invasion came, and Norwich Castle was erected quite as much to drive back the Scandinavian hosts as to keep in order the citizens. Newcastle and Carlisle were of strategic importance for driving back the Scots, and Lancaster Keep, traditionally said to have been reared by Roger de Poitou, but probably of later date, bore the brunt of many a marauding invasion. To check the incursions of the Welsh, who made frequent and powerful irruptions into Herefordshire, many castles were erected in Shropshire and Herefordshire, forming a chain of fortresses which are more numerous than in any other part of England. They are of every shape and size, from stately piles like Wigmore and Goodrich, to the smallest fortified farm, like Urishay Castle, a house half mansion, half fortress. Even the church towers of Herefordshire, with their walls seven or eight feet thick, such as that at Ewias Harold, look as if they were designed as strongholds in case of need. On the western and northern borders of England we find the largest number of fortresses, erected to restrain and keep back troublesome neighbours.
The story of the English castles abounds in interest and romance. Most of them are ruins now, but fancy pictures them in the days of their splendour, the abodes of chivalry and knightly deeds, of "fair ladies and brave men," and each one can tell its story of siege and battle-cries, of strenuous attack and gallant defence, of prominent parts played in the drama of English history. To some of these we shall presently refer, but it would need a very large volume to record the whole story of our English fortresses.
We have said that the earliest Norman castle was a motte fortified by a stockade, an earthwork protected with timber palings. That is the latest theory amongst antiquaries, but there are not a few who maintain that the Normans, who proved themselves such admirable builders of the stoutest of stone churches, would not long content themselves with such poor fortresses. There were stone castles before the Normans, besides the old Roman walls at Pevensey, Colchester, London, and Lincoln. And there came from Normandy a monk named Gundulf in 1070 who was a mighty builder. He was consecrated Bishop of Rochester and began to build his cathedral with wondrous architectural skill. He is credited with devising a new style of military architecture, and found much favour with the Conqueror, who at the time especially needed strong walls to guard himself and his hungry followers. He was ordered by the King to build the first beginnings of the Tower of London. He probably designed the keep at Colchester and the castle of his cathedral town, and set the fashion of building these great ramparts of stone which were so serviceable in the subjugation and overawing of the English. The fashion grew, much to the displeasure of the conquered, who deemed them "homes of wrong and badges of bondage," hateful places filled with devils and evil men who robbed and spoiled them. And when they were ordered to set to work on castle-building their impotent wrath knew no bounds. It is difficult to ascertain how many were constructed during the Conqueror's reign. Domesday tells of forty-nine. Another authority, Mr. Pearson, mentions ninety-nine, and Mrs. Armitage after a careful examination of documents contends for eighty-six. But there may have been many others. In Stephen's reign castles spread like an evil sore over the land. His traitorous subjects broke their allegiance to their king and preyed upon the country. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that "every rich man built his castles and defended them against him, and they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their feet and smoked them with foul smoke; some by their thumbs or by the head, and they hung burning things on their feet. They put a knotted string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep, and they put sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called Sachenteges in many of the castles, and which two or three men had enough to do to carry. The Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go round a man's throat and neck, so that he might noways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot, and I may not, tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse. They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they called Tenserie,[18] and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they and burnt all the towns, so that well mightest thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find a man seated in a town or its lands tilled."
More than a thousand of these abodes of infamy are said to have been built. Possibly many of them were timber structures only. Countless small towns and villages boast of once possessing a fortress. The name Castle Street remains, though the actual site of the stronghold has long vanished. Sometimes we find a mound which seems to proclaim its position, but memory is silent, and the people of England, if the story of the chronicler be true, have to be grateful to Henry II, who set himself to work to root up and destroy very many of these adulterine castles which were the abodes of tyranny and oppression. However, for the protection of his kingdom, he raised other strongholds, in the south the grand fortress of Dover, which still guards the straits; in the west, Berkeley Castle, for his friend Robert FitzHarding, ancestor of Lord Berkeley, which has remained in the same family until the present day; in the north, Richmond, Scarborough, and Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and in the east, Orford Keep. The same stern Norman keep remains, but you can see some changes in the architecture. The projection of the buttresses is increased, and there is some attempt at ornamentation. Orford Castle, which some guide-books and directories will insist on confusing with Oxford Castle and stating that it was built by Robert D'Oiley in 1072, was erected by Henry II to defend the country against the incursions of the Flemings and to safeguard Orford Haven. Caen stone was brought for the stone dressings to windows and doors, parapets and groins, but masses of septaria found on the shore and in the neighbouring marshes were utilized with such good effect that the walls have stood the attacks of besiegers and weathered the storms of the east coast for more than seven centuries. It was built in a new fashion that was made in France, and to which our English eyes were unaccustomed, and is somewhat similar in plan to Conisborough Castle, in the valley of the Don. The plan is circular with three projecting towers, and the keep was protected by two circular ditches, one fifteen feet and the other thirty feet distant from its walls. Between the two ditches was a circular wall with parapet and battlements. The interior of the castle was divided into three floors; the towers, exclusive of the turrets, had five, two of which were entresols, and were ninety-six feet high, the central keep being seventy feet.[19] The oven was at the top of the keep. The chapel is one of the most interesting chambers, with its original altar still in position, though much damaged, and also piscina, aumbrey, and ciborium. This castle nearly vanished with other features of vanishing England in the middle of the eighteenth century, Lord Hereford proposing to pull it down for the sake of the material; but "it being a necessary sea-mark, especially for ships coming from Holland, who by steering so as to make the castle cover or hide the church thereby avoid a dangerous sandbank called the Whiting, Government interfered and prevented the destruction of the building."[20]
In these keeps the thickness of the walls enabled them to contain chambers, stairs, and passages. At Guildford there is an oratory with rude carvings of sacred subjects, including a crucifixion. The first and second floors were usually vaulted, and the upper ones were of timber. Fireplaces were built in most of the rooms, and some sort of domestic comfort was not altogether forgotten. In the earlier fortresses the walls of the keep enclosed an inner court, which had rooms built up to the great stone walls, the court afterwards being vaulted and floors erected. In order to protect the entrance there were heavy doors with a portcullis, and by degrees the outward defences were strengthened. There was an outer bailey or court surrounded by a strong wall, with a barbican guarding the entrance, consisting of a strong gate protected by two towers. In this lower or outer court are the stables, and the mound where the lord of the castle dispenses justice, and where criminals and traitors are executed. Another strong gateway flanked by towers protects the inner bailey, on the edge of which stands the keep, which frowns down upon us as we enter. An immense household was supported in these castles. Not only were there men-at-arms, but also cooks, bakers, brewers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, masons, and all kinds of craftsmen; and all this crowd of workers had to be provided with accommodation by the lord of the castle. Hence a building in the form of a large hall was erected, sometimes of stone, usually of wood, in the lower or upper bailey, for these soldiers and artisans, where they slept and had their meals.