THE CASTLES OF ENGLAND AND WALES AT THE LATTER PART OF
THE TWELFTH CENTURY.
However numerous may have been the castles destroyed under the
Convention of Wallingford, or during the subsequent reign of Henry II.,
they seem to have been almost entirely fortresses of recent date, in
private hands, and of little importance as regarded the general defence
or the orderly administration of the kingdom. Among those that played
at all an important part in the internal wars of the sons or grandsons
of Henry, there are missing but very few known to have been built or
restored by his predecessors or by himself; and the names that occur
in the chronicles of the period, or are entered from time to time in
the records of the realm, show that the country continued to be amply
provided with castles, and that almost all of the first class were
occasionally repaired at the cost of the Crown, and were governed by
castellans holding office during the king’s pleasure, whom moreover
it was the custom frequently to change. It is here proposed, at some
length, to enumerate the fortresses of England and in the Marches of
Wales, as they stood at the close of the reign of Henry II., so far
at least as their names and positions or any account of them can be
recovered.
Taking London as the centre, military and political, of the kingdom,
we have, upon the Thames, the Tower, the first and chief fortress
founded by the Conqueror, and which he considered sufficient to
protect and overawe the city. In the city itself, also upon the banks
of the Thames, near the outlet of the Flete, was Baynard’s Castle,
the stronghold of the Barons Fitz-Walter, standard-bearers to the
City of London, and an important branch of the House of Clare. At
various distances from this centre, according to the disposition of
the ground, were posted within the northern and southern passes of the
chalk ridge, Berkhampstead, an appanage of the earldom of Cornwall, and
Guildford, the early keep of which stands in part upon an artificial
mound. Also, to the immediate south of London, were the episcopal
castle, still inhabited, of Farnham, and Earl Warenne’s castle on
the hill at Reigate, of which some traces remain. Higher up the
Thames were Windsor, Reading, Wallingford, and Oxford, all fortresses
of high antiquity and of the first rank. Between the Thames and the
sea-coast the country was well guarded, and the communications with
Dover, Portsmouth, and Southampton, so important to sovereigns with
possessions on the Continent, rendered secure. Dover, called by William
the Conqueror, according to Matthew Paris, “Clavis et repagulum,”
the key and bolt of the kingdom, was one of its oldest, largest,
and strongest fortresses, and covered a nearly impregnable area of
thirty-five acres. It crowned the crest of a chalk rock which seemed to
rise out of the sea, and steep by nature was rendered still more so by
art, and bore traces of Norman, English, Roman, and probably British
occupation. Its well of water is particularly specified, according to
M. Paris, in Harold’s celebrated covenant with Duke William. Indeed,
there seem to have been two wells in the keep, besides another, no
doubt that of Harold, in the outer ward, probably a Roman work. The
town also was walled. In the rear of Dover lay the city of Canterbury,
mentioned in “Domesday” as fortified. It was strong to the landward,
with a formidable bank and ditch, revetted by a Norman wall, and
towards the water was covered by the marshes of the Stour, at one time
navigable up to the quays of the ancient city. At one angle and just
within the area, was a strong rectangular keep, a Norman addition, and
near it was the Danejohn, a far older moated mound, older even than
the bank and ditch of the city, which were laid out at an angle to
include it. Near to Canterbury was Chilham, a Norman tower of peculiar
form, on the site of a work burned by the Danes in 838-51; and at no
great distance was Saltwood, given to the see of Canterbury in 1036,
and said to owe the formidable banks and ditches which still surround
it to a son of Hengist. West of Dover William d’Abrincis had built the
castle of Folkestone, now, with the cliff it stood upon, swallowed
up by the sea. It was preceded by an earlier work in earth a little
further inland; Sandwich, one of the cinque ports, was also embanked
and walled. Between Dover and London, upon the marshy windings of the
upper Medway, stood the mound of Tonbridge, with its Norman walls and
shell keep, a place of immense strength, and the subject of a long
contest between the archbishops and the earls of the race of De Clare.
Again, in the rear and upon the same road was the castle of Rochester
sharing its defensive strength with the oldest tower of the contiguous
cathedral and the walled city standing within or on the lines of a
Roman enclosure, and commanding the lowest bridge upon the deep and
rapid Medway. Many of the castles of Kent, especially those in private
hands, were founded in the thirteenth century, or later; but Horton,
Eynsford, and Lullingston, on the Darent, and that of Sheppy, on the
Swale, are far more ancient. Besides these Otford, an archiepiscopal
castle, was the “caput” of an Honour. Cowling is mentioned in Mercian
charters in 808. The manor belonged to Leofwin, brother of Harold, and
was held by Bishop Odo. Allington Castle was demolished by the Danes
and afterwards held by Earl Godwin, and later on by Odo. The Norman
additions were probably the work of Earl Warenne. Near to Maidstone is
Malling, thought to be as early a Norman keep as any in England, and
tolerably perfect though small; Thurnam or Godard’s Castle also has a
square Norman keep and some early earthworks, and near to it were the
very perfect moated mounds of Binbury and Stockbury. Ledes Castle,
still inhabited, has a detached and water-girdled keep and a very
complete barbican. The keep of Sutton, afterwards Sutton-Valence, seems
to be Norman. Tong Castle, in Bapchild manor on the Swale, attributed
to Hengist, was built as a castle by the St. Johns. Bayford Castle
occurs in Sittingbourne; and Queenborough, in Sheppey, though called
from the queen of Edward III., is probably of much older date. At
Alfrington Alfred is said to have had a strong place, called afterwards
Burlow. At Verdley, and Castlefield in Hartfield, are vestiges said to
represent castles.
In Sussex each rape had its castle, founded probably by the Jutish
settlers. Of these under the Norman rule Hastings, almost equal to
Dover in its natural strength, though of smaller size, was the head
of the barony of the earls of Eu. It is first mentioned in the Bayeux
tapestry, where in one of the compartments is written, “Iste [comes
Moretaine] jussit ut foderentur castellum ad Hasteng.” This probably
relates to the double line of ditches by which the castle is cut off
from the body of the hill. The town also was walled. Pevensey, strong
in its Roman wall and added English earthworks, was the castle of De
Aquila, the seat of the Honour called by the English of “The Eagle.”
Here, in 1118, the Custos of Windsor expended £118. 4s. in repairing
the palisades (“palicii”) of the castle. Lewes, with its mounds
crowning each end of an isolated hill, was the favourite strength of
the Warennes, Earls of Surrey. The natural platform, added ditches
and mound, and square keep of Bramber, on the Adur, rendered almost
impregnable this seat of the turbulent and powerful Barons Braose of
Gower, who also owned Knepp Castle, nearer the head of the river,
where a mound and some Norman masonry may still be seen. Knepp was
afterwards held by King John on the attainder of William de Braose, and
in 1216 was ordered to be destroyed. Arundel, the only castle named
in “Domesday” as existing in the reign of the Confessor, and the seat
successively of Earl Roger of Montgomery, of d’Albini, and the race
of Fitz-Alan, still overlooks the dell of the Arun, and wears many of
its older features; and finally Chichester, also a Montgomery castle,
long since destroyed, or reduced to its primal mound, stood within the
fortified area of the Roman Regnum. Besides these there seem to have
been Norman castles at Eastbourne and Firle, all traces of which have,
however, disappeared. Mention is also made of Sedgewick Castle, near
Horsham.
More to the west in Hampshire, upon the Havant water, was Boseham,
a very famous castle long since swept away; and upon the inlet of
Portsmouth, Porchester, a noble combination of Roman and Norman
masonry. Within its area is contained a parish church and churchyard,
and here was the favourite muster-place for troops destined for
Havre. On the opposite side of the Solent, in the centre of the Isle
of Wight, is Carisbroke, celebrated for its keep and mound, and its
wells of unusual depth, and on the opposite mainland, at the marshy
junction of the Stour and the Wiltshire Avon, stands the ancient
keep of Christchurch, placed exceptionally upon the mound of the
earlier Twynham. Here also is preserved the Castle Hall, a late
Norman building, almost a duplicate of a corresponding structure
in Fitzgerald’s castle at Adare, near Limerick. Upon the verge of
Southampton Water, between the Anton and the sea, occupying a strong
peninsula, is the town of that name, still preserving the remains of
its Norman walls, and of the keep of a very formidable castle once
included within its area.
Inland of this line of castles from the sea northwards to the Thames,
the counties of Wilts and Berks showed with Hampshire an abundance of
strong places. There, though actually in Hampshire, was Winchester,
the British Caerwent and the Roman Venta Belgarum, which in its
English days contested with London the supremacy of the South.
Strongly fortified with broad and high earthworks and deep ditches, it
contained, attached to one angle, the royal castle, and within another,
its diagonal, the episcopal keep of Wolvesey, of which the one is now
represented by its noble hall, and the other by its rectangular Norman
keep. The Hall at Winchester, though of very early English date, is
after the Norman type, having three aisles. The castle was the prison
of Archbishop Stigand in 1066. Before its gates, in 1075, Earl Waltheof
was beheaded. Here, in 1102, was tried the memorable dispute for
precedence between York and Canterbury. In 1141 it was defended by the
Empress Maud, and here Henry II. held several Parliaments, and Cœur de
Lion paused when in the adjacent cathedral he was a second time crowned
on his return from captivity in 1189.
Scarcely second to Winchester in strength, and its equal in undefined
antiquity, is Old Sarum, a hold of mixed but uncertain origin, where
the concentric lines of masonry, girdling and crowning the central
mound, included the cathedral of the diocese, and to which, according
to the historians of Wiltshire, King Alfred caused an exterior bank
and palisade to be added. In Wilts was also the Devizes, reputed the
finest castle on this side the Alps. “Divisæ quod erat Salesberiensis
Episcopi castellum, mirando artificio, sed et munimine inexpugnabili
firmatum,” but of which there now remains little besides the gigantic
mound and profound ditches. Of Marlborough the burh alone remains,
while of Malmesbury, an encroachment of the secular upon the lands
of the regular clergy, all traces are removed. Over the Hampshire
border is Old Basing, where the Saxons were worsted by the Danes in
a pitched battle in 871, which became the “caput” of the fifty-five
lordships held by Hugh de Port in “Domesday,” and afterwards of the
St. John’s oldest barony. Even in the time of Henry II. it was called
the old castle, and in a rather later reign Robert, Lord St. John,
had a licence to fix a pale along the base of his mote at Basing, and
to maintain it so fortified during the king’s pleasure. The original
circle of earthwork is nearly all that now remains. At no great
distance is Odiham, once a possession of the see of Winchester, where
is an early tower, stripped of its ashlar, and surrounded by marshy
ground once famous for its forest sport. Castle Coombe was a famous
and very early Wiltshire castle, now reduced nearly to an earthwork,
and Warblington, a stronghold of the Montacutes, and the castle of
Cirencester are both gone, the latter destroyed by Henry III.
Still further to the west are the castles of Dorset and Somerset,
Devon and Cornwall. Wareham, the ancient Frome-mouth, placed between
the Frome and the Piddle, once marked the limits of Poole harbour, and
was a place of great strength and fame. As early as 876 its west side,
the root of the twixt-waters peninsula, was criticised as weak. In one
corner of its rectangular and pseudo-Roman area, a moated mound has
been thrown up, as at Tamworth, by the river-side, and its earthworks
and position justify its reputation as the key of Purbeck, of which
Corfe was the citadel. Corfe, perched upon the summit and slope of a
chalk hill between two clefts whence it derives its name, is now a
magnificent ruin. Half its noble rectangular keep still stands, and
incorporated into the wall of its middle ward is a fragment of the
palace of the old West Saxon kings, probably the only material evidence
extant that they ever employed masonry in their military works. Of
Sherborne, an ancient episcopal seat, the spacious earthwork still
contains much of a late Norman keep, and is still entered through a
Norman gatehouse. Ilchester and Shaftesbury Castles are gone, and only
a part of the earthworks of that of Dorchester remain. West of Purbeck,
in Portland, is Bow-and-Arrow Castle, upon the sea-cliff, a curious and
somewhat peculiar structure of early date, built or occupied by the De
Clares. From Portland to the mouth of the Exe there do not appear to
have been any strong places of importance.
Just within the mouth of the Exe is Powderham, the work of an Earl of
Eu and of De Redvers, and their Courtenay successors, and higher up
and opposite, Rougemont, the citadel of Exeter, which still exhibits
the high banks, deep ditches, and ancient gatehouse, fragments of the
defences behind which the citizens braved the fury of the Conqueror.
Inland from the Exe is Okehampton, the earliest of the English
possessions of the great family of Courtenay, and the work of Baldwin
of Exeter, of the lineage but not bearing the name of De Clare. He was
the builder also of Tiverton Castle which is now destroyed, as also is
Bridgewater. Among the early castles of the district was Stoke Courcy,
now a ruin; Stowey, “pulchrum et inexpugnabile in pelagi littore
locatum”; and Dunster, the strongest place in the west, the “Domesday”
castle of the Mohuns, and after them, as now, of the Luttrells. In the
west of Devon there remains the mound of Plympton, a Redvers castle,
and the shell keep of Totnes, the work of Joel of that place, and
afterwards inherited by the Barons Braose. Barnstaple town was probably
walled, and certainly had four gates. At Taunton a Norman keep and part
of a Norman hall still stand on the banks of the Tone, and rise out of
earthworks attributed to King Ine. At Montacute, the high ground marked
by an immense Romano-British camp, ends in the sharp-pointed hill
which William Earl of Moretaine selected for his castle, of which the
name, appropriately transported from his Norman castle, alone remains,
and but little more of Castle-Carey, the Lovell seat, besieged and
taken by Stephen, or of the Norman keep of Harptree, in a pass in the
Mendip range.
Of importance beyond all these more or less local castles was that of
Bristol, founded by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, but found too valuable
to be intrusted to his successors in the earldom. Its square Norman
keep stood between the Frome and the Avon, and was strong both in works
and in position. After centuries of contest for its possession between
the earls of Gloucester and the Crown, it ceased to be of military
value and was taken down. Upon and beyond the Tamar, as at Montacute,
Wallingford, and Berkhampstead, may be traced the footsteps of the
powerful noble who held the great earldom of Cornwall. Their principal
Cornish castles,—Trematon, Launceston, where the town also was walled,
and Restormel,—were the work originally of Robert, half-brother of
the Conqueror. Their remains are considerable, and their strength and
position were such as to give them immense influence in that wild and
almost impenetrable district. St. Michael’s Mount remains strongly
fortified; Carnbrea, the work of Ralph de Pomeroy, still marks the
rocky ridge whence it derives its name, and there are traces of
Boscastle, the hold of the Barons Botreaux, and of the Arthurian castle
of Tintagel. There are besides in Cornwall a few fortified houses, and
a multitude of strong places,—camps rather than castles, very peculiar
in character, and probably the work of the native Cornish before the
arrival of the stranger.
It appears, then, that south of and upon the Thames and Bristol Avon
there stood, at the close of the twelfth century, at least eighty-nine
more or less considerable castles, a very large number of which
were kept in repair by the sheriffs of the counties and governed by
castellans appointed by the king and holding office during pleasure. Of
these, at least thirty contained shell keeps placed on moated mounds,
and were in some form or other far older than the Conquest; and about
seventeen were characterised by rectangular keeps, of which two only,
Guildford and Christchurch, were associated with mounds, and of these
very few indeed were of pure Norman foundation. Of the remaining
forty-two the particulars are doubtful, so they cannot be counted
with one class or the other, but most of them are also older than the
Conquest.
Passing into the middle belt of country extending from the Thames
and Avon to the Tees and the Lune, and from the German Ocean to the
Severn, the provision for defence is found to be fully equal to that
in the South. In the East Anglian province, in the counties of Essex,
Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, the chief strongholds were Colchester,
Hedingham, Bungay, Framlingham, Castle Acre, Castle Rising, Norwich,
and Cambridge. Colchester, the work of Hubert de Rye or his son, acting
in some measure for the Crown, is built of Roman, or quasi-Roman,
material upon a Roman site and within the area of a town mentioned in
“Domesday” as fortified. It commanded the inlet of Harwich and the
Blackwater, and in its rear, higher up the Coln, was the De Vere keep
of Hedingham, still a very perfect structure, and unusually though
severely ornate. This keep stands upon a natural mound, protected by
a formidable ditch, and appended to it is an outer enclosure, older
evidently than the keep. In the same county is Rayleigh, celebrated
for the extent of its earthworks, and, with Clavering, attributed to
Swegen or Suenus, sheriff of Essex under the Confessor, and ancestor of
Henry de Essex, Henry I.’s disgraced standard-bearer. The earthworks of
both places are, however, probably much earlier than the masonry. There
also is Plessy, a Mandeville restoration in masonry, with the parish
church within its enclosure; Ongar, for the time the castle of Richard
de Lucy; and Stansted Montfichet, the remaining earthworks of which
indicate its site. Bishops Stortford, or Weytemore, was an early manor
of the Bishop of London, who there had a castle. These four last-named
castles all had moated mounds. At Bures also was a moated mound eighty
feet high, hence its name of Mount Bures; also at Birch Castle, near
Colchester, and at Benyngton were castles. Canewdon was either a castle
or a very old fortified house, dating from the time of Henry de Essex,
and at Canfield, called from its castle, “Canefield ad Castrum,” the De
Veres had a fortress of which the mound is still seen.
Framlingham is the chief castle of Suffolk. It is attributed originally
to Redwald, king of East Anglia, at the close of the sixth century.
Here there is at present no keep, but the Norman walls, of unusual
height, forty to fifty feet, and eight feet thick, still enclose the
court, and are protected by enormous earthworks, deep and high and of
great extent. This was the chief of the Bigot castles, said to have
been built by Hugh Bigot in 1176, and to the same powerful family
belonged Bungay, “hard by the river Waveney,” with grand earthworks,
a mound, and the remains of a square keep. Walton, another Bigot
castle, was destroyed by Henry II. Clare, the manor whence the earls of
Gloucester and Hertford derived their family name, retains its mound
with part of a polygonal keep, and outworks in earth and masonry on a
scale commensurate with the power of their lords. The area is occupied
in part by a railway station. Eye, the mound of which remains, was a
castle at Domesday, the seat of Robert Malet, and afterwards was given
by Henry II. to Ranulph, Earl of Chester. Dunwich, though not a walled
town, was protected by a deep ditch and high bank, upon which as late
as the reign of Henry III. was a palisade.
The chief castle of Norfolk was Norwich, a place of immense strength
and high antiquity. Its rectangular keep of great size and more ornate
than usual, though much injured by injudicious repairs, and closed
against the antiquary by its conversion to the base uses of a prison,
still predominates grandly over the fine old city, of which it was long
the glory and the dread. Its deep, single ditch, far older than its
works in masonry, is now for the most part filled up and built over.
The city also was strongly walled. Haganet, a Norfolk castle taken by
the Earl of Leicester and his invading Flemings, is utterly destroyed.
Mileham, of which the moated mound, though low, and a fragment of a
square keep remain, was the work of Alan, son of Flaald, who held the
manor from the Conqueror. To him also is attributed the adjacent castle
of Burghwood, of which large earthworks remain. Orford, an almost
solitary example of a Norman polygonal keep, is tolerably perfect.
The keep of Castle Rising, though smaller in dimensions than Norwich,
resembles it in type. It is the most highly-ornamented keep in England,
and, though a ruin, is well preserved and cared for. Here also is
that great rarity, a tolerably perfect and unaltered fore-building
and entrance. This keep stands within a lofty bank, beyond which,
on one side, is a spacious outwork, also heavily embanked. Castle
Acre, best known for its Norman priory, contains also the mound and
other earthworks and part of the shell keep of a large castle, and
near to these is the town of Lynn, once strongly fortified, and still
possessing an early gatehouse. At Thetford, girt by a double ditch, is
the great mound thrown up by the Danes in 865-6 to command the then
adjacent city, but this post, so important before the Conquest, does
not seem to have been occupied afterwards. Other Norfolk castles were
Buckenham and Tateshall, of which the date is doubtful, and Marnham, of
which it was reported in the reign of Edward I.—“Quod erectio castri de
Marnham est in præjudicium domini Regis.” Wirmegay, a Warenne castle,
strong in its marshy approaches, was certainly earlier. At Weting, near
the church, was a castle with a mound, on which a few years ago was a
fragment of the keep. It was the seat of De Plaiz, who represented Mont
Fitchet, and whose heiress married the ancestor of the house of Howard.
There was also a castle at Kenningdale, near Diss.
Cambridgeshire contained but a few castles, the fens presenting little
to attract the spoiler, and being in themselves a secure defence. At
Cambridge, upon the banks of the sluggish and winding Cam, a prison
has taken the place of the castle ordered by the Conqueror; but a part
of the mound and a fragment of its subsidiary banks remain, and are
not to be confounded with the still earlier Roman enclosure. At Ely a
large mound with appended earth banks is thought to have been the site
of the ancient castle of the bishop of that see. All traces of masonry
are gone, as at Wisbeach. The camp at Castle Camps, the seat of the
Saxon Wolfwin, once held a Norman castle, the work of the De Veres. Of
Chevely, an episcopal castle, a fragment remains. Burwell, the masonry
of which belonged to one of Stephen’s improvised castles, is remembered
as that before which Geoffrey de Mandeville received his fatal wound. A
fragment of its wall and the mound remain. Swavesey and Bassingbourne
were early castles.
Hertford, Bedford, and Buckingham, the inland positions of which
were insufficient to secure them from invasions from a foe beyond
the sea, were not unprovided with castles. Hertford, visited by the
Danes in 894, was fortified by Edward the Elder in 914, who there
threw up a burh between the rivers Lea, Mineran, and Bean, and in
the year following a second burh on the opposite bank of the Lea.
Hertford, says Smith in 1588, has two castles, one on each bank of the
Lea. These corresponded to the two banks already mentioned. Upon the
still existing mound Peter de Valoines placed the keep ordered by the
Conqueror. The Magnavilles next held it, and Henry of Huntingdon calls
it, “castrum non immensum sed pulcherrimum.” Berkhampstead, as old, and
a far more considerable fortress, and the head of a great Honour, has
been mentioned as one of the northern defences of the metropolis. Its
mound, wholly artificial, still supports the foundations of a Norman
shell keep, and appended to it is a large oval platform, the walls and
entrances to which remain. The whole is partially encircled by several
concentric lines of bank and ditch, the character of which shows that
they were protected by stockades instead of walls of masonry. Here the
Black Prince spent his latter days, and here he died.
The chief castle of Bedfordshire, the head of the Beauchamp barony,
was at Bedford, where the Ouse, menaced by the Danish galleys, was
protected early in the tenth century by a mound upon each bank, one
of which is now removed and the other was crowned by the keep of the
Norman castle. Bedford Castle is famous for two memorable sieges in
the reigns of Stephen and Henry III. Of its works, once extensive, the
masonry has been removed, the fosse has also been filled up, and the
mound somewhat reduced in size. Risinghoe, The Giants hill, on the
Ouse below Bedford, seems to have had a shell keep, and at Tempsford
is to be seen a curious but small earthwork thrown up by the Danes in
921, and taken by Edward the Elder late in the year. Whether this was
the site of the subsequent Norman castle is very doubtful. There was
also a castle at Odell or Wahull, the seat of the barons of that name.
It is uncertain when was founded Bletsoe, a castle and the head of a
Beauchamp barony. Below Bedford, on the Ouse, are the earthworks of
Eaton-Socon, also a Beauchamp castle, but dismantled at an early period.
The remains of the castle of Huntingdon, though reduced to banks,
ditches, and a mound, nevertheless show how spacious and how strong
must have been this chief seat of the broad earldom of Countess Judith
and her descendants the kings of Scotland, earls also of Huntingdon.
The Danes were encamped here in 921, and the burh which had been ruined
was restored by Eadward in the same year. The ditches were fed from the
Ouse, which expanded before the castle as a broad marsh, now a fertile
meadow. Of the early military history of the castles of Connington,
Kimbolton, and Bruck, but little is recorded.
The castle of the Giffards, earls of Buckingham, included one of the
two burhs which were thrown up on opposite sides of the Ouse, in 915,
to command the river and protect the town. The castle was probably
destroyed in the reign of Stephen, and the further mound levelled. The
Paganels had a castle at Newport; the Hanslapes at Castlethorpe; the
Barons Bolbec at Bolbec, now Bullbanks, in Medmenham; and there seem to
have been castles at Winslow, Lavendon, and Whitchurch.
West of this district came Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire.
Windsor, Wallingford and Reading have been mentioned. The keep of
Windsor has a late Norman base, and the foundation of a gateway is of
that date, as is the entrance to a very curious gallery in the chalk,
which ran from the interior of the place beneath the buildings and
the wall and opened as a postern upon the scarp of the main ditch.
The mound upon which the round tower is placed is artificial and was
surrounded by banks and ditches much on the plan of Arundel. Reading
was an early castle and strongly posted between the Thames and the
Kennet, upon an earthwork long before contested between the Danes
and the Saxons. The castle is supposed to have been demolished by
Henry III., in pursuance of the treaty of Wallingford: no trace of it
remains. Wallingford has had better fortune: its mound and enclosure,
the seat of the English Wigod, occupy one corner of the rectangular
earthworks of the town, and rest upon the river. It was attached to the
earldom of Cornwall, and was a place of great strength and splendour.
A few fragments of masonry still remain, and some traces of Stephen’s
camp on the opposite bank at Crowmarsh. There were also castles,
though of small consequence and doubtful age, at Newbury, Brightwell,
Farringdon, and Aldworth, the latter the seat of the Barons de la Beche.
Oxford Castle was a place of great antiquity and very strong, and
formed a part of the defences of the city. The mound remains and a
crypt within it, but the keep is gone. There is seen, however, above
the river bank a rude and early square tower of Norman work, now a
prison. At Banbury, Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, built a castle in
1125, which was held by the Crown under Edward II. At Middleton was a
strong castle, held by Richard de Camville in the reign of John, and
there were others, smaller buildings, at Bampton, Bedington, Dedington,
and Watlington, possibly demolished by Henry II. Broughton, the castle
of the Lords Say, is in this county. Woodstock, though a royal manor,
does not seem to have been fortified. The castles at Ardley and
Chipping-Norton were destroyed by Stephen. The latter had a moated
mound.
In Gloucestershire, besides Bristol, which was more connected with
Somerset, is Berkeley Castle, mentioned in the survey, but in its
present form built for its lord by Henry II. in acknowledgment of
services rendered to the Duke of Anjou, which remains marvellously
little altered to the present day. Gloucester, a royal castle, stood
on the Severn bank at one angle of the Roman city. It had a mound and
a shell keep, now utterly levelled, and the site partially built over.
It was the muster-place and starting-point for expeditions against
South Wales, and the not infrequent residence of the Norman sovereigns.
Sudeley and Winchcombe were early castles; the latter stood near St.
Peter’s Church, and was the seat of Kenulph, a Mercian king. There were
also castles at Dursley and at Brimpsfield, built by Osbert Giffard.
The only Gloucestershire castle of any consequence beyond the Severn
was St. Briavels, built by Milo, Earl of Hereford, probably about 1130,
upon or near the site of an earlier work, represented by an artificial
mound. In the reign of Henry I. it was in the hands of the Crown. It is
the special head of Dene Forest, of which the constable of the castle
was warden. Here were held the miners’ courts, the usages of which
were very peculiar. St. Briavels formed the connecting link between
Gloucester and such of the Monmouthshire castles as were in the hands
of the Crown. Of smaller castles in this district may be mentioned one
at Aylesmore near Dymock, one near Huntley, and others at Ruardean and
Penyard.
North of Gloucestershire came the castles of the more purely midland
shires of Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, Northampton, Leicester, and
towards the eastern seaboard, Lincoln. The castle of Worcester stood
on the bank of the Severn, hard by the cathedral. The mound, now
removed, was occupied with masonry by Urso d’Abitot, who, however,
did not always get the best of it in his conflicts with the bishop.
Also on the Severn was Hanley, long since destroyed, and Emly, also a
Beauchamp seat. Hartlebury, the episcopal castle, is further inland, as
is Dudley, the seat of the Barons Somery, a place of high antiquity and
great natural strength.
Warwick was one of the greatest, and by far the most famous of the
midland castles, famous not merely for its early strength and later
magnificence but for the long line of powerful earls, culminating in
the king-maker, who possessed it and bore its name. It was founded as a
burh early in the tenth century, and the keep, said to have resembled
Clifford’s Tower at York, stood upon the mound: both are now removed.
The castle as usual formed a part of the _enceinte_ of the town, and
the wall from the west gate to the castle stood upon an early earth
bank. Near to Warwick is Kenilworth, the chief fortress of the midland,
including a large area, and strongly though artificially fortified.
Of the English Kenelm nothing is recorded, but the founder of its
Norman work was the first of the house of Clinton, one of Henry I.’s
new earls, probably the only extant family descended in a direct male
line from the builder of a Norman keep of the first class. The square
keep and much of the existing wall are original, but the broad lake,
which added so much to its strength and is now drained and converted
into meadow, was probably a rather later addition, of the age of the
gatehouse on the dam, and of the curious earthwork covering its head.
The central earthworks are probably very early. Of Maxtoke, also a
Clinton castle, there are remains. Of the castle at Fillongley, the
chief seat of the Lords Hastings till they married the heiress of
Cantelupe, and removed to Abergavenny, only a few fragments remain.
Ralph Gernon had a castle at Coventry. Brownsover, Sekington, and
Fullbrook castles were probably adulterine, and are known only by vague
tradition, and it is doubtful whether the castle of the De Castellos
included the burh at Castle Bromwich or was on the site of the later
manor house. The burh at Sekington is very perfect. The Limesis had
a castle at Solihull, of which the moat long remained, as had the
Coleshills at that place. The Birminghams had a castle in the manor of
that name, near the church; there were early castles at Erdington, at
Studley on the Arrow, and at Oversley, long the seat of the Butlers,
whose ancestor was “Pincerna” to the Earls of Leicester. Beldesert,
built by Thurstan de Montfort soon after the Conquest, received a
market from the Empress Maud, and Dugdale mentions Simili Castle,
probably the seat of a family of that name. Ragley was a later castle.
Coventry was strongly walled.
The line of the Trent on its passage through Staffordshire was amply
fortified. Stafford, otherwise Chebsey castle, constructed by the
Conqueror, probably upon the burh thrown up by Eathelflaeda in 913, was
destroyed before the date of the Survey, and was, therefore, probably
not a work in masonry. The town was fortified. The castle of the
Barons Stafford was near the town, but outside it. Its foundations are
original. Of the Ferrers castles Chartley is only indicated by a mound.
Beaudesert and Burton are destroyed. Tamworth, their chief seat, as
that of the Marmions before them, still retains its shell keep and part
of the curtain wall, remarkable for its herringbone masonry. It was a
royal Saxon residence in the eighth century, and the mound on which
stands the keep was thrown up in 931. As at Wareham and Wallingford, it
is placed near the river in one corner of a rectangular earthwork open
on that side. Tutbury, also a Ferrers castle, occupied a natural knoll
above the Trent, raised on one side by an artificial burh, and covered
on the other by extensive works in earth of early date, probably
original. The present masonry is chiefly the work of John of Gaunt, but
the fine old Priory church, founded by the early lords, still stands
just outside the ditch. Lichfield is reputed to have had a castle
at the south end of the town. At the north end is the cathedral,
“Lichfield’s moated pile,” defended by a broad and deep ditch, and on
one side by a lake or pool. It is not improbable that these works,
which are rectangular in plan, were executed by the Romanised Britons,
and that their existence caused the selection of this spot as the seat
of the bishopric. The Bishop’s castle of Eccleshall has lately been
alienated. There was a castle at Heley, and at Alton, now Alton Towers,
and at Stourton. Of the castle of Newcastle-under-Lyne, held by the
Earl of Chester for John, all trace is lost.
The Northamptonshire castles stood mostly upon the lines of the Nene
and the Welland. Northampton, built by Simon de St. Liz, certainly
upon an earlier site, was a strongly walled and celebrated place,
the scene of important events in English history. Its castle has
long been reduced to a few earthworks and a fragment of masonry, and
very recently these also have been destroyed. Of Fotheringay, a very
ancient fortress, the scene of a siege by Henry III., there remains
little in masonry, although the bank and mound are perfect. It was
dismantled by James as the scene of his mother’s execution. Barnwell
Castle is probably late, as is the fine fortified gatehouse of the
Sapcote family, at Elton. At Castle Ashby, all trace of the castle is
lost in the grand old house which has succeeded to it. Of Lilbourne, a
moderate mound and a rectangular earthwork are the sole remains of the
castle. Near Towcester at Moor End in Potterspury, and at Alderton,
were castles, probably built and destroyed in the reigns of Stephen
and Henry II. Towcester itself does not appear to have been fortified
by the Normans, nor the curious burh at Earls Barton, the moot hill
for the earldom of Countess Judith. But of all the Northamptonshire
castles the most interesting, both from its history and its remains,
is undoubtedly Rockingham, founded by the Conqueror upon an old site,
standing in its old shire and forest, and which has been always
inhabited and cared for. Near to Rockingham, but in Rutland, is Oakham,
built by Walkelin de Ferrars in 1180, where the keep is gone, but the
original late Norman hall is quite perfect and still in use. Of the
defences of this remarkable fortress there remain ditches and banks,
with a part of the curtain wall and a large outwork of earth. Belvoir,
well deserving of the name, the only other Rutland castle, was the seat
of the Todenis, ancestors of the D’Albini and Ros families, and of its
present lords. Like Windsor, its circular keep, rebuilt nearly from its
foundations, crowns a detached hill, and from its terrace is one of the
richest views in England.
In Leicestershire, Leicester Castle, the seat of its powerful and
turbulent Norman earls, stood, and in part still stands, between the
Soar and the Roman Ratæ, the walls of which are said to have been
destroyed in 1173. Of Hinckley, the seat of the Grantmaisnils, and
the “caput” of their Honour, the mound alone remains by the side
of the Roman way. The castle was probably dismantled by Henry II.
Groby, a Ferrers castle, has long been reduced to a small mound, and
Mount Sorrel, once so strong, is utterly destroyed. By a convention
at Mount Sorrel in the reign of Stephen, between Robert, Earl of
Leicester, and Ralph, Earl of Chester, already cited, it was agreed
that Ralph Gernon’s castle of Raunston should be destroyed and Whitwick
strengthened, but that no new castle should be built between Hinckley,
Donnington, Leicester, Belvoir, Okeham, and Rockingham. Should any be
so built, the two earls agreed to demolish the works. Sauvey Castle was
an early work. Of Castle Donnington, the house of the Zouches of Ashby,
the early history is obscure.
The main castles of Lincolnshire were Lincoln and Axholme. Axholme,
built in the fens of that name, was a place of immense strength, and
the head of a barony of the Mowbrays, a race always on the side of
disorder. The castle has long been destroyed, and the fen, to which it
owed much of its strength, is drained. Lincoln Castle has been more
fortunate. The hill of Lincoln has been thought to retain traces of
British occupation, and its Roman buildings and English earthworks are
very remarkable. Soon after the Conquest 166 houses were destroyed to
make room for the castle itself, and 74 more to give space around it.
Its enormous banks occupy an angle of the Roman station, and contain
parts of the ruined wall and gate, both Roman. The great mound, the
larger of two, is occupied by the original shell keep, which, placed at
the foot of the cathedral, towers high above the city, and overlooks
the broad plain beyond. Often visited by the Norman kings, Lincoln
Castle is specially famous for the great battle fought beneath its
walls in 1141, in which Stephen was taken prisoner by Robert, Earl of
Gloucester, and his men from Glamorgan.
There was a Mowbray Castle at Epworth, now destroyed, and one at
Kenefar, laid level by Henry, Bishop of Lincoln, in the reign of Henry
II. Bourne or Brun was in 870 the seat of a Saxon Thane, whose mound,
after the Conquest, was occupied by the Lords Wake. It was at one
time an important place, and the remaining earthworks show its area
to have been considerable. Bolingbroke Castle, once the “caput” of an
Honour, is now destroyed. Stamford-on-the-Welland was guarded by two
mounds, thrown up in 922, of which one has disappeared, but the other,
as at Bedford and Buckingham, was saved by its incorporation into a
Norman castle, to be seen no longer. Sleaford, an episcopal castle,
occasionally mentioned in the twelfth century, is now gone, as is
the castle of Horncastle, restored to Adelais de Condie in 1151, but
at the same time ordered to be demolished, and which probably stood
within the walls of the Roman station, of which large fragments remain.
Bitham also is gone, taken by siege and levelled by Henry III. in 1218.
Folkingham, the “Mansio capitalis” of Ulf the constable, was held by
Gilbert de Garod, and long afterwards fell to the Lords Beaumont.
Boothby was a fortified house of the Paynells or Paganels, and is of
late Norman date. Topclyve Castle was built by Geoffrey, bishop-elect
of Lincoln, in 1174.