were suffered to fall into decay, some of the offices attached to the
castle and domain were kept up. As late as 1522, Sir H. Wyatt and John
Melton were bailiffs and stewards of “the lordships of Conysborowe,”
keepers of the park, &c., and there were constables and door-wards of
the castle. Finally, James II. granted it to Carey, Earl of Dover,
from whose family it passed to that of its present owner. King, in
his “Munimenta,” has given elaborate plans, and a yet more elaborate
history of this castle, but neither can be depended upon. There is also
an excellent paper upon it in the fifth volume of the _Archæological
Journal_ by Mr. Milward, the plans attached to which seem, however, to
be taken from King.
Conisborough Castle deserves a better fate than has of late years
attended it, or than seems likely to attend it. Its position upon one
of the most celebrated of the Yorkshire streams, its grand natural
mount, and the striking character of the earthworks by which it is
defended, are quite enough to attract public attention; but in addition
it has an undoubted though obscure Saxon history, and from the Norman
Conquest it was for three centuries or more the residence of a very
powerful race of barons, the evidences of whose power and wealth are
preserved in the ruins of their fortress. By whom, or precisely when,
the present works in masonry were executed, is a question not exactly
to be decided. William de Warren, the third and last earl of the old
stock, 1138–1148, was a very likely man to have built in masonry this
his most important northern castle, and it is probable that he built
the _enceinte_ wall of the inner court, and the hall and offices now
destroyed. The keep is certainly later, scarcely much earlier than
1200, and is, therefore, probably the work of Hameline Plantagenet,
who held the earldom and the castle from about 1163 to 1201. The tower
was, no doubt, added for security only, for, though it contains state
apartments and an oratory, these were dark and inconvenient, only fit
to be inhabited during a siege. The hall and ordinary lodgings were, of
course, more spacious and placed in the court, where are still traces
of their foundations.
At a still later period, possibly under Earl John, who held the earldom
from 1240 to 1304, the Norman curtain seems to have been repaired
and strengthened with round bastion turrets, small and solid, along
the southern and western faces of the inner ward. Then also the
arrangements for crossing the ditch, and defending the lower entrance,
were made more elaborate. The work of this period is of inferior
quality, and much of it has fallen down. Since this no additions of any
importance seem to have been executed.
It is probable that, during the civil war and after the death of King
Charles, the curtain wall, domestic buildings, and lower gate-house
were broken down, and the keep gutted and unroofed, but since that
time, now nearly two centuries and a half, the ruins seem to have
been left untouched save by the hand of time. Such is the excellence
of the workmanship of the keep that for very many years the walls
stood unshaken. During the last quarter of a century, however, the
rains of autumn and the frosts of winter have begun to tell upon the
structure, and the top of the tower is in a shaky condition. Still, it
is not so far gone but that a few pounds judiciously laid out upon it
would save it. The upper two or three feet should be removed, stone by
stone, and replaced with water-lime or cement. The cost of this would
be very trifling indeed; but what should also be done, and what would
not by any means involve a very serious expense, is the replacement of
the roof and floors. All Yorkshire, and indeed all the Archæological
Societies in England, from the Society of Antiquaries down to the most
recent local society, must feel an interest in this subject. Probably,
if it were brought before the owner of the castle in a proper manner,
the necessary repairs would be undertaken; if not, surely it would not
be difficult to provide the means by private subscription. In any case
something should be done at once, for the top of the keep is in that
condition that every winter tells severely upon it.
The plans and illustrations appended to this notice of the castle
are from actual survey by Mr. A. S. Ellis, and by him presented to
the Yorkshire Archæological Society, by whose permission they are
here reprinted. They will be found as far superior in accuracy as in
completeness of detail to any plans as yet published, and it may be
said of them, and it is no slight praise, that they are worthy of the
important fortress they are intended to illustrate.
CONWAY CASTLE.
The castle and town of Conway form together the most complete and the
best preserved example of mediæval military architecture in Britain.
The works are all of one date and design, apparently by one engineer,
at the command of a monarch specially skilled in the art of war, and
whose intention here was to command a very formidable pass, and to put
a curb upon the boldest, most persistent, and most dangerous of the
foes who strove to resist the consolidation of his kingdom. At Conway
are displayed all the arts of defence as understood in the thirteenth
century. The position is naturally strong, the walls are of unusual
thickness, each part of the containing curtains is flanked by frequent
towers, and the castle predominates over the whole position, commanding
and protecting the town, and forming a citadel within which, as a last
resource, a secure shelter would be afforded.
Conway, the Aber-Conwy of the Welsh, stands on the left or western bank
of the river whence it derives its name, and which is commemorated by
Drayton and Spenser as rich in “precious orient pearls,” and here is
widening into an estuary. The southern front of the town is further
protected by the marshy bed of the Gyffin, which here joins the Conwy.
Town and castle cover a triangular mass of rock, of which the castle
occupies the apex projecting into the water. The curtain wall which
encircles the town is strengthened by twenty-eight towers, all but two
or three of which are half-cylinders in figure, and open from top to
bottom in the rear. They rise one stage above the curtain, which also
is unusually high. Between two of them there project upon corbels from
the curtain at the battlement level a row of twelve garderobes, showing
that sanitary arrangements were by no means neglected even in the
thirteenth century. There are three gates, each flanked by a pair of
towers, defended by double doors, portcullis, grate, and drawbridge.
One of these, Porth Uchaf, opens landward; a second, Porth-isaf, upon
a quay along the water’s edge; and a third, Porth-y-felin, opens in a
shoulder of the wall upon the river below the castle, and gave a way to
the castle mill. There is, besides, a postern, also below the castle,
and opening upon the sea-shore. Besides these defences a thick spur
wall, defended above by a double battlement, extends from the sea-front
into the sea. Formerly this was carried to low-water mark, and ended in
a small round tower, and thus effectually prevented any attempt to turn
the flank of the defences and attack the town from the sea-front. The
town walls run up to, but their rampart walk does not communicate with,
the castle, which, however, forms a part of the _enceinte_, and has one
front with its main entrance within and towards the town.
It is said that the rock occupied by the castle originally extended
some way eastward into the estuary, and was, therefore, a point of
danger on that side. To remove this, the rock was quarried away and
a passage opened, which is now the main channel of the river, and is
spanned by the road and railway-bridges of Telford and Stephenson.
It will be observed that Conway is not, like Gloucester and Chester,
posted on the English side of the river, as if intended for defence
only; like Chepstow, it is placed beyond the stream, and intended as a
_tête-du-pont_ to cover the passage of troops across the water.
In plan, the castle is somewhat of a parallelogram, 100 yards east
and west, and with a breadth ranging from 35 yards to 40 yards.
The northern front is straight, the southern zigzag, following the
irregularities of the rock. Its general level is several feet above
the nearer parts of the town. There are eight towers, one at each
of the four angles, and two, intermediate, upon each of the long
faces. There is no gatehouse, a very unusual omission in an Edwardian
castle, but one the cause of which is here very obvious. The towers
are cylindrical, about 40 feet in diameter, but somewhat flattened and
irregular on their interior faces, to enable the rampart walk or allure
to be carried on without traversing their interior chambers. To allow
of this, bold corbels, or sometimes a projecting shelf of masonry are
applied to the internal or rearward face of the tower at the proper
level. By this means there is secured an uninterrupted walk all round
the place, communicating with, but not traversing each tower.
The area is divided by a very thick cross curtain into two wards. The
outer or western is 60 yards long, and contains the great hall, the
chapel, the kitchen, and the water-tank; the eastern or inner ward,
40 yards long, contains the smaller hall and the state apartments. At
each end the castle is covered by a small platform, at the level of
the courts within, and supported by retaining walls of considerable
height, crowned by two light parapets, each with three small half-round
bastions flanking the curtains. Each of these platforms protects and
covers an entrance. The main entrance is at the west end and from the
town, and is a very curious piece of engineering skill. A causeway
of masonry, a viaduct, about 14 feet broad and parapeted on each
side, ascended with a very steep slope to a point 13 feet from the
gate of the barbican, where it stopped abruptly, and is still seen
rising out of the ditch, and about 20 feet high. The barbican is a
narrow rectangular space, contained between two walls, ending below
in two small round turrets which flank the outer gate, and above is
another gate opening on the end of the platform under the north-western
main tower. A very ponderous drawbridge, working on trunnions 14
inches in diameter, dropped from the outer gate upon the pier already
mentioned. The pier was 4 feet lower than the cill of the bridge, so
as to preserve the steepness of the approach. The bridge was balanced
by a short and heavy tailpiece or counterpoise which worked in a
quadrant-shaped pit below it. The gateway had a portcullis and doors,
and within it a staircase in the side wall led to the battlements over
the gate. The upper gateway was closed by a stout door only, but was
protected by the adjacent bastion of the platform, which has a loop
towards it. The entrance thus completed was broad enough to admit
two horsemen abreast, and the steepness gave the defenders a great
advantage over the enemy. The barbican of Conway may conveniently be
illustrated by a reference to that of Brampton Brian, which contains
the same arrangements, though on a larger scale. The woodcut shows the
tower flanking the drawbridge, the outer and inner gates, and between
them the mural staircase leading up to the ramparts.
[Illustration]
The platform, to one end of which the barbican gives entrance, is about
35 yards long by 10 yards broad, and looked down upon a formidable
ditch. In its centre, between two of the main towers, was a short lofty
curtain, and in it the main gateway. Above, a row of bold corbels,
projecting above 5 feet, included a line of machicolations, and gave
great breadth to the rampart of the curtain and great vantage to the
defenders. The gateway is acutely pointed, but quite plain, with flat
sides. Within, the portal is vaulted and portcullised, and has a broad
space in front of the grate, possibly for some kind of additional
frame. Above the portal was a portcullis chamber, also in the substance
of the wall, and the place where the grate was suspended is still seen.
This chamber was reached by a steep narrow stair from the rampart of
the curtain,—a very rare arrangement. Entering the gate on the right
is a staircase up to the ramparts, looking like a makeshift, and
possibly not original. Beyond, also on the right, is the great hall.
This, though a spacious, could never have been a handsome chamber, for
it is built on a curve, or rather on an irregular polygon, to suit
the southern curtain which forms one side of it. It is about 105 feet
long by 30 feet broad, and its floor is at the court level. Below was
a cellar of about half the breadth of the hall, the rock here cropping
up and blocking one side. To this the entrance was by a pit or trap, in
which was a doorway opening into a passage by a second doorway in the
cellar. This is lighted by loops in the curtain, and at its east end
is continued, through a partition, below the chapel. The hall is said
originally to have been of smaller size, and to have been enlarged. If
this be so, it must have been at the chapel end.
The hall is lighted by four small square-headed windows towards the
field, and two larger ones towards the court. The latter are pointed
and were of two lights, with quatrefoiled heads, and a quatrefoil in
the head. The door is in the same side near its east end. There are
three fireplaces, all under hoods, with flanking piers and brackets
to receive the thrust of the flat arch. The hall was crossed by seven
large chamfered stone ribs of two members, placed very irregularly. Two
are standing, one having been lately rebuilt; the other is at the upper
end of the hall, and marks its division from the chapel. A plain corbel
below the springing of this rib shows the partition to have been of
timber, no doubt a carved brattice. The roof was open, and there were
timber principals between the stone ribs. It is difficult at first to
believe that this long irregular space, with its three unsymmetrical
fireplaces, could have been all one room, and at first it appears as
though the west end, to the second rib with one of the fireplaces
and three windows, might have been bratticed off as a withdrawing-room;
but it is evident this was not so. Such a room would have no separate
door and no garderobe. The dais of the hall was evidently at the other
end, and the withdrawing-room was the first floor of the dungeon tower,
which stands at the back of the great fireplace, and is entered by a
small door in the jamb of one of the hall windows. This and the floor
above were readily accessible from the dais.
[Illustration: CONWAY CASTLE.]
The chapel, bratticed off at the east end of the hall, had also an open
roof, with one stone rib. It has two windows to the south and one to
the field, and at its east end is a larger, three-light window, with
a round head, and a piscina in the south jamb. The tracery is broken
away. The great kitchen has been pulled down. It was built against
the north curtain, opposite to the hall door. There remains of it a
water-trough occupying the seat of a window, and lined with cement.
Near the kitchen was a large tank quarried in the rock, lined and
cemented, for the storage of water; a culvert brought into it water
from the roofs, and leaden pipes have been traced from an exterior
spring at some distance. It has been opened to a considerable depth, 14
feet or 15 feet, but was certainly not a well, though possibly one was
intended.
The cross wall separating the two wards is of the same height and
thickness as the exterior curtains. It is pierced near its centre by
a shoulder-headed doorway, closed with a door only, and opening into
the inner ward. This door is covered by a sort of lodge on its western
face, with a loop towards the main gate.
The inner ward, nearly square in plan, has the state rooms on its south
and east sides. These have basement chambers, well lighted and with
fireplaces on the ground floor, level with the court; and above these,
on the first floor, are the state apartments, with open roofs. First
of these, on the right is the smaller hall, 30 feet by 28 feet. It has
a door at its west or lower end communicating with a sort of lobby,
and so with a main tower, which probably contained the kitchen. At the
other or east end is also a door, opening into the withdrawing-room.
Towards the court is a central fireplace, between two handsome windows.
These were flat-topped, of two lights, and the upper half was filled
with Decorated tracery, now broken away. In the remaining side, towards
the field, is at one end a small window, and at the other a door
opening into a mural chamber, a garderobe. The roof was strengthened by
two stone ribs, of which one is perfect, and is not quite so plain as
those of the great hall. The withdrawing-room has a fireplace on the
north side, and was crossed by two ribs, both broken down. This room
has a mural passage in its south wall communicating with a garderobe
and large vaulted chamber, also in the wall, and so opening into
the ground floor of the south-eastern or king’s tower. Another door
opens into the queen’s chamber. This is a large and handsome room,
also on the first floor, occupying the east side of the court. Its
roof contained two ribs, both removed. At its north end are passages
into garderobes, mural chambers, and an oratory, all contained in the
north-eastern, or queen’s tower. Eleanor, the queen of Edward I., is
said to have made use of this chamber.
From the queen’s chamber, at the same level, a wooden passage, a sort
of balcony, affixed to the north wall of the lesser hall, led to the
kitchen lobby and the kitchen. Lines of corbels, and doors at either
end, show the position and length of this gallery.
Below the queen’s apartment a passage leads to a doorway in the
curtain, which opens upon the east platform, and was the only postern
in the castle. It is shoulder-headed and closed with a door only.
But, as at the main gate, the curtain is furnished with a line of
bold corbels, forming machicolations for the defence of the wall and
gateway. Passages open right and left in the sides of the doorway, and
carry staircases in the wall up to the first floor of the king’s and
queen’s towers.
The platform upon which this postern opens is called the queen’s
bower. It is larger than the western platform. Like it, it has three
half-round turrets and a parapet, and in its north end is a doorway
from which a steep and narrow and parapeted staircase formerly
descended to the water’s edge. This staircase was removed when the
suspension-bridge was built.
The towers now remain to be described. They are all of one type, and
even their details are closely alike. Each has a basement, the floor
of which is considerably above the exterior ground level, though below
that of the court within. These chambers can only have been reached by
ladders from the floors above. They are ventilated by small air-holes
high up, but the probability is that they were put to no regular use,
though they may have served for prisons.
The first floor of each tower is entered from the court, and from that
level a well-staircase ascends to the second or upper floor, and so on
to the roof. Here, in the four western towers, it stops. In the four
eastern towers it is carried on, forming a small round turret, 14 or 15
feet high above the roof. None of these floors are vaulted, all have
fireplaces in the first and second floors, and all open at the second
floor level upon the rampart walk. All also are well provided with
garderobes.
The battlements of the towers remain uninjured. The parapets are about
10 feet high, and divided into twelve merlons and as many flat-sided
plain embrasures. Each merlon is pierced by a loop, and at the base
of each, at the allure level, is a hole ending in a gurgoyle, for the
discharge of the rain water.
Two of the towers are furnished with ovens, built in the old fashion,
with a flue outside and above the oven door. In the queen’s tower the
second floor has an oratory in the east wall. This is a deep and bold
recess, divided into nine bays or compartments, three on each side,
and three forming an apex. In each bay is a sedile, and above, in the
apse, are three lancet windows. The slender shafts between the bays
are vaulting shafts, and expand above in fan tracery of a Decorated
character. On each side of the oratory is a small mural chamber, one
a vestry; the other, it may be, a confessional; both have small loops
into the oratory. Possibly the whole circular chamber was used as a
chapel, to which the oratory was the choir.
[Illustration: _Conway_]
Conway, though as strong, is a far less elegant structure than
Caernarvon. The masonry, though excellent, is rough uncoursed rubble,
and ashlar is very sparingly used. The battlements especially, as
at Harlech and Caerphilly, are very bare. They are ill-coped and
ill-finished, as though they were intended to be concealed behind a
brattice; but, as there are no corbels or places for the struts, this
cannot have been intended.
The putlog holes show that round instead of square poles were used in
the construction; and here, as at Coucy and in parts of Harlech, they
are so placed as to show that the scaffolding was laid as an inclined
plane, instead of horizontally, and with ladders. This is also the case
with the walls and towers of the town.
Conway Castle is retained by the Crown, but has long been let on lease.
Lady Erskine, of Cambo, the last lessee, has lately waived her tenure,
and the ruins are now held by the Corporation, and seem sufficiently
well cared for. Mr. Jones, who has had charge of the place for nearly
half a century, is a very careful and intelligent guardian, and well
acquainted with the details and history of the castle.
Conway was begun in 1285. Soon after its completion, Edward I. and
Queen Eleanor spent a Christmas here in great state, when, no doubt,
the state apartments were occupied. The town was stormed in 1646 by the
Parliamentary general, Mytton, who also secured the castle.
Charles II. granted it to Edward, the first Earl of Conway, to grace
and give some foundation for his title; but the earl, it is said to
annoy the neighbouring gentry, dismantled the castle, and took away the
lead, timber and ironwork, broke down the well-stairs, and in other
ways injured the structure.
The appended bird’s-eye view of the town is taken from the highest
and most western point, just above Porth-Uchaf, and in full view of
Porth-y-felin, below which is the bed of the Gyffin. The position of
the castle, on its rocky promontory, resting upon the sea, is well
shown.
The other view is confined to the castle as seen from the south or the
valley of the Gyffin. The four towers on the right mark the angles of
the inner ward, the two on the extreme right are the king’s tower in
front, and behind it the queen’s tower. The central and front tower is
the dungeon tower, attached to the great hall. On the left are seen the
two lines of the town wall, abutting upon the castle, and between them
the western platform with its bastions, and in the rear the main gate
with the line of machicolations above it. One of the seaward towers
shows how the rampart walk is carried round it upon a corbelled or
bracketed projection.
CORFE CASTLE, DORSET.
Corfe Castle is one of the most noteworthy remains in Britain.
The natural position is very striking, and not less so the manner in
which it has been fortified by art. It is of high antiquity, associated
from the times of the West Saxon princes to those of the Commonwealth
with marked historical events; was the palace and the prison of kings
and great nobles, and has been commanded by a long succession of
powerful Castellans.
The castle crowns an isolated hill, a part of the steep chalk
ridge which, under the general name of the Purbeck Hills, with the
subordinate elevations of Knowl Hill, and Ninebarrow and Ballard Downs,
stretches twelve miles across the peninsula of Purbeck, from Warbarrow
Bay and Flowerbarrow Camp on the west, to the foreland between the bays
of Studland and Swanage on the east.
To the south, or seaward, is the bold coast line marked by the
headlands of Peverel, Durlston, and St. Adhelm’s. Landward, or to the
north, is the depression occupied by Poole Harbour and its tributaries
the Frome and Trent, or Piddle—waters whose fords are commanded by
the grand earthworks at Wareham, which, placed astride upon the ridge
terminating in the junction of the two, form the frontier and key of
Purbeck, as does Corfe, its citadel.
The castle ridge ranges with the Isle of Wight, and with it forms the
southern margin of the well-known chalk basin, of which Dorchester
and Beaminster mark the western limit, and Beer Regis, Salisbury, and
Winchester that on the north.
The chalk at Corfe dips north at about 70°. It is hard, moderately
durable, and thickly charged with flints, which are extensively used in
the interior of the castle walls. Below the chalk, and underlying the
great gateway of the castle, is a narrow belt of the upper greensand,
below which, in succession, are the three Purbeck beds, the Portland
stone, and the Kimmeridge clay. The stone beds, here of a most durable
character, are used for the ashlar and face-work of the castle.
To the north of and above the chalk are narrow and irregular beds of
plastic and London clay, succeeded by a broad expanse of the lower
Bagshot sands and clay, out of which the harbour of Poole has been
eroded, and the latter of which is worked for the purpose of commerce.
A considerable fault runs along the chalk ridge close north of the
castle hill, one of a parallel series traversing that part of the
southern coast.
The physical aspect of Purbeck betrays, to a practised eye, its
geological composition, and the wild rough moor and marshland about the
harbour contrast strongly with the steep but rounded outline and green
surface of the chalk, upon a summit of which stands the old Norman
keep, predominating far and wide over the landscape.
The castle is naturally strong. It occupies the slope and summit of a
hill, the base of which covers about 15 acres, and which is placed in
a gap or cutting in the ridge already described, of which position its
name is said to be descriptive.
South of the ridge, and close behind and covered by the castle, is the
town of Corfe, from which the castle hill rises steeply, to descend
almost vertically upon its east, west, and north sides. The northern,
or highest point, is occupied by the keep and principal buildings of
the castle.
The stream called the Wicken, and its tributary, the Byle brook, each
turning a mill, flow from the south-west and south-east round either
side of the town, and, girdling the base of the castle hill, unite just
below St. Edward’s bridge to form the Corfe river, which flows into
Poole harbour. Between the town and the castle, where the two streams
approach within a furlong of each other, a deep and bold though dry
trench has been cut across the root of the peninsula, and thus forms
the great outer ditch which divides the castle from the town.
The castle, in its present form, may be called concentric, but it has
been constructed, if not designed, at three principal periods, having
been originally a Saxon palace, then a Norman, and afterwards an
Edwardian fortress.
It is composed of a keep standing in an inner ward, of a middle, and of
an outer ward. The survey by Ralph Treswell, in 1586, subdivides the
inner ward into two, and shows a wall across the outer ward, which has
disappeared, and was probably modern.
In plan it is an irregular triangle, the walls following the crest of
the hill. The great gateway caps the southern or lowest angle; the
Buttavant Tower, the western; and the inner ward forms the obtuse,
highest, or eastern angle. The south-west, the longest front, is
concave. It extends 270 yards from the gatehouse to the Buttavant,
and its lower two-thirds is the part of the _enceinte_ most jealously
defended, and upon the overthrow of which the destroyers have expended
their greatest energies. The north, or upper front, too high for
attack, measures about 200 yards, and the eastern front about the same.
The area within the walls is about 3¼ acres; but, from the excessive
steepness of the ground, much of the outer and part of the middle ward
could never have been turned to account. The lower part of the outer,
the western portion of the middle, and the eastern part of the inner
ward, are the only flat spaces.
The outer, by much the largest ward, is contained within the great
gatehouse, the east curtain strengthened by the Horseshoe and Plukenet
Towers, and the west curtain, upon which are four mural towers. The
steep, upper part of the ward rises to the wall of the inner, and the
wall and gatehouse of the middle ward. It is traversed by a fosse,
attributed to King John, which extends from the Plukenet Tower to the
front of the middle gatehouse, and is thence continued outside the
works down the hill-side.
A permanent stone bridge, about 100 feet long by 20 feet broad, crosses
the moat, and leads up to the great gateway. It is of four arches,
springing from three solid piers, and the roadway, which has now no
parapets, is about 30 feet above the bottom of the moat. The masonry
ceases about 18 feet from the portal, and the interval, now filled
with earth, was probably spanned by a drawbridge. The arches are about
one-third of a circle, and the voussoirs in two rings, without bond, 8
inches thick, and from 1 foot to 3 feet in length. The piers may be of
Perpendicular date, but the arches are probably due to Sir Christopher
Hatton.
The outer gatehouse is composed of two drums, flanking the portal, and
produced rearward into a rectangular building, now partially destroyed.
The drums, about 20 feet diameter, are solid to the base of the upper
story, now removed, but of which the lower ends of the loops remain.
The portal, 13 feet wide, enters a vaulted passage, now 26 feet, and
which may have been 36 feet long. First is the portal, now without
jambs, and beneath a segmental arch, 4 feet 11 inches broad. Then
(as shown in the accompanying section, Fig. I.) a chase, or single
machicolation, 6 inches broad. Then a second arch, 3 feet 9 inches
broad. Then a chase, 5 inches broad, and a circular groove of 9 inches
diameter and 7 inches opening, at which the passage narrows by 20
inches, being an opening of 11 feet 4 inches. Then follows an arch of 1
foot 6 inches breadth, and a chase of 16 inches.
Next comes the gateway proper, the jambs of which, 2 feet 4 inches in
thickness, project inwards with a double chamfer, so as to reduce the
actual entrance to 8 feet.
The door, the space for which shows it to have been of wood, and not
above 4 inches thick, was of two valves, the arch behind being flat
segmental, with a high springing and 4 feet of breadth, to accommodate
them when open. Two stones on each side, which probably carried the
iron loops for the hinges, have been torn out. Between them, a central
hole, 9 inches by 12 inches, carried the wooden bar. Next is an arch,
of which about 5 feet only remain, but which probably completed the
passage to its opening into the ward, and perhaps carried a portcullis
groove.
Half the doorways into the lodges remain. The lodges themselves were
barrel-vaulted, and the vault in the west lodge springs from the
ordinary Norman string, composed of a flat abacus and chamfer, as
though an older gatehouse had been cased. Instances of this string,
indeed, have been pointed out by Mr. Bond in other and certainly later
parts of the castle, and of course a plain string of this character may
be of any age.
The several arches composing the entrance passage show, at their
springings, about a dozen small holes, evidently to carry the centring.
Their small size indicates this to have been of iron. These holes are
usual.
[Illustration: CORFE CASTLE.]
In the door-jambs are cut six mortises, three on a side, the lowest 6
inches from the ground. They are each 8½ inches long, 2 inches broad,
and 3½ inches deep. They must have been intended to hold boards, though
the shallow depth would scarce allow of their insertion. These would,
indeed, have been better suited to keep pigs in than warriors out, and
perhaps were so used in times of peace. They can scarcely be original,
but are probably earlier than the dismantling. The entrance passage
falls gently from the interior, so as to give an advantage to the
defenders in a contest.
It is difficult to understand the defences of this gateway in the
absence of the upper story, from which most of them were worked. There
is at present no trace of the drawbridge in the portal, unless, indeed,
the pivot-holes on which it turned be concealed by the soil. If the
cylindrical pipe, with the opening or slot in its side, contained
a sash-weight, of what was it the counterpoise? Scarcely of the
drawbridge, for which, even if of lead, unless of inconvenient length,
the weight would be too light; and portcullis groove there is none.
The 5-inch chase exactly in front of the pipe may have contained a
portcullis, or a frame; but, if so, the absence of lateral grooves
must have left it very unsteady, except when down upon and fixed in
the cill. No doubt, a portcullis with crooked sides or ears might have
worked in this tube, but that is scarcely probable. The other chases
were, no doubt, intended for the passage of projectiles. They are,
however, mere slits across the vault, unaccompanied by lateral grooves
as when used for a portcullis, and they do not appear to have been
divided by cross _septa_, as in regular machicolations; but this vault
has been riven by an explosion, and restored in part in recent times,
so that it is difficult to pronounce upon its details.
From each side of the gatehouse springs a short curtain. That to the
east, from 10 feet to 12 feet thick, and about 20 feet high, now mostly
destroyed, terminates in the Horseshoe Tower, a mere shell, about 20
feet diameter and 20 feet high, open at the ground floor and across the
gorge, and intended to be floored and bratticed with timber, as is not
infrequent with mural towers, to prevent their being used against the
garrison. It is pierced by three loops on the ground floor. These are
mere vertical slits, 7 feet long and 1½ inch broad, splayed deeply,
and opening from recesses in the wall. The tower caps the south-east
angle of the work, and the loops are directed upon the field, and along
the two curtains. The removal of the talus outside shows this tower
to stand upon a deep and solid foundation. At the junction of the
gatehouse curtain with this tower, the former contains a mural chamber,
6 feet broad, and roofed with five tiers of overhanging slabs.
The east curtain is, for the most part, a mere wall, 8 feet to 10 feet
thick, and 10 feet to 15 feet high, exclusive of battlements, and
more or less ruined. Loops are to be seen on its exterior, directed
downwards so as to rake the scarp. Near the Horseshoe Tower was
formerly another mural chamber, called a stable, but more probably a
garderobe, and beyond this is a large arch, now walled up, which may
have been a postern, and commanded by the Plukenet Tower.
This is a mere half-round mural tower, solid to the rampart height, and
of no projection within.
Above the rampart it is hollowed into a chamber open behind, with three
loops, each 5 feet 6 inches long and 2 inches in the opening. In each
of the recesses, on the right, is a small cupboard for the grease or
tools needed by the archer. The tower and rampart were ascended by a
well-stair on the north or upper side. The arrangements for allowing
the archer to shoot downwards so as to rake the steep scarp are well
seen here. This tower is named from a bold and well-preserved shield
upon its outer face, charged with a bend fusilly, or five fusils
conjoined in bend, and held up by two hands which emerge from holes
in the stone. This is one of the well-known coats attributed to the
Mareschals, Earls of Pembroke; but, as this family was extinct half
a century before the date of this tower, and does not appear ever to
have been connected with the castle, Mr. Bond has shown it to be more
probable that the shield is intended to commemorate Alan Plukenet,
constable of the castle in the 54th of Henry III., and a baron in the
reign of Edward, his son, and whose arms were either a bend engrailed,
or fusilly, represented anciently much in the same way, upon a field
ermine, which fur (as Mr. Bond suggests) may have been regarded as a
tincture, the lines for expressing which were not then employed, and
the spots omitted by the carver.
The curtain from this tower to the Gloriette angle of the inner ward
is constructed of much larger stones than those employed lower down.
They are as large as many of those in the Norman ashlar, but of ruder
workmanship.
Returning to the gatehouse and following the west front, this commences
with a short curtain, still standing, and connected with the first
mural tower, a drum of rather above half-round projection, capping an
angle. It is solid to the rampart level, and above this open at the
gorge. Its single chamber has three loops, cruciform, and shorter,
wider, and of coarser construction than those of the Horseshoe
Tower, though still of excellent ashlar. This tower having been
riven by powder is seen to be 10 yards in solid thickness. Its base
is perforated by a rude rectangular drain, 18 inches by 12 inches,
joined by other drains of 9 inches by 9 inches, all in the solid, and
evidently descending from garderobes, one of which seems to have been
placed in the curtain close north of this tower.
Next above this is the second or Well Tower, so called from a small
depression behind it, said to indicate a well. This tower resembles
the last, was, like it, solid in the base, and had one chamber on the
rampart, open at the gorge and pierced by three loops.
Close south of it was a small doorway, leading either to a garderobe or
a rampart stair. Of this, one jamb is alone seen.
Above the Well Tower is the third, and above the third, and also
connected with it by a short curtain, is the fourth of these mural
towers. This, however, though a tower, is of the nature of an
épaulement, or redan, and caps a projection or shoulder of the curtain.
It has but two loops, longitudinal only, one towards the field and one
raking the south wall. The former is divided into a short upper and
long lower part by a narrow plate of stone, which projects inwards like
a shelf.
The curtain from this Redan Tower to the gateway of the middle ward
is probably earlier than either, and is very lofty. It traverses King
John’s fosse. It is constructed of large stones, and resembles, in some
respects, the curtain above the Plukenet Tower, at the other end of the
same fosse. Below it is solid, above it is pierced by four rude loops,
boldly splayed within, and which must have opened from a chamber,
of which the curtain was the outer wall, or possibly from a wooden
platform.
The fosse, attributed to King John, which traverses the outer ward, is
about 20 feet deep, with a vertical counterscarp cut in the chalk rock.
The Plukenet Tower and adjacent curtain cross its east end, but these
stand upon a ridge of solid rock, showing that the ditch has never been
continued into the front in this direction. At its west end the case is
different. There it has been cut right into and down the slope, and the
curtain crossing and stopping it is built actually in the ditch.
No doubt the present dressing of the counterscarp is due to whoever
placed artillery upon its crest. Outside it, by way of glacis, is
a level platform, 30 feet broad, known to have been defended by
artillery, and in front of which are three steps or benches. The whole
work forms a _fausse braie_ at the foot of the glacis of the keep, and
a strong defence in front of the gatehouse of the middle ward. A bridge
of two arches, of the same age and fashion with that already described,
traverses this fosse, here 50 feet broad, and leads up to the middle
gateway. A profile cut in one of the gate towers shows where the
parapet abutted, which, however, was clearly not original. As in the
lower bridge, a space of about 18 feet next the portal, now filled with
earth, was evidently intended to be spanned by the drawbridge.
The middle ward is also triangular. Its longer and about equal north
and south sides are capped at the acute western angle by the Buttavant
Tower, and the base is formed by the middle gatehouse and curtain, and
by the revetment wall and gate (now destroyed) of the inner ward.
The gatehouse of the middle ward is a very fine structure. Like the
lower gatehouse, which it resembles in general arrangements, it is
composed of two drums flanking the entrance passage, and terminating
square in the rear.
One, the north tower, rises direct from the fosse, without basement
or set-off, and is connected with a short but very thick and lofty
curtain, which ascends the steep ground to abut upon the keep. The
tower is of bold projection, but flat towards the curtain. Within is
a lodge with one cruciform loop to the front, and in rear traces of a
stair which led to the curtain, and thus by continued steps along its
ramparts to the keep.
The other tower rises from the crest of the outer slope, where it
appears as a mural defence, upon the west front. Within is a small
lodge with three loops, one to the front, one on the flank towards the
field, and one, now closed up, to the rear, into the middle ward.
The portal has no jambs, but is entered under a segmental arch, double
chamfered, springing direct from the flanking towers. This recedes 4
feet 1 inch, and is succeeded by a rounded portcullis groove, 9 inches
broad by 6 inches deep, but having, while within the arch, a flat
margin of 3 inches on either side. These margins cease above the arch,
and the chase is of the breadth of the groove only.
Behind the portcullis is a second arch, 2 feet 9 inches broad,
succeeded by a machicolation, 14 inches broad, and divided by four
_septa_ into five square holes. These are placed immediately before the
jambs of the gate proper, where the passage is reduced by about 1 foot
8 inches.
Behind the jambs an arch of high spring and flat segmental curve
accommodated the folding-doors, when open. These were of wood, and
the bar-hole behind them is about 11 inches square. The hinges
are gone. Behind this last arch the passage was roofed with wood,
and is now open. In the rear are parts of the groove of a second
portcullis—“altera securitas”—so that there was probably a stone face
to the back front of the gatehouse, all now destroyed. The arrangements
of this gateway as far back as the lodge are shown in the accompanying
section. See woodcut, Fig. II.
In the wooden roofed space are the doors of the two lodges. The south
is square-headed, with shoulders. The north, of the same shape, is
protected by a semicircular relieving arch in the wall above. This
arch, in design and material, has a very Norman aspect, and may have
been preserved from an older work. There are no remains of battlements
on this gateway, but on its front are stone corbels, probably intended
to carry the hoarding, a feature of military architecture so well
described by M. Viollet-le-Duc.[4]
In the exterior portal, near the floor, and a few inches in front of
the portcullis groove, is a round hole, 5 inches across and 3 inches
deep, which seems to have carried the iron axle of the drawbridge.
Above it is another similar hole, no doubt connected with the working
of the same defence.
Entering the gateway the road rises rapidly. On the right is the
exceedingly steep scarp, at the top of which is the bastion of the
keep. On the left is the curtain of the west front. Higher up the way
turns to the right, to reach the inner ward, and skirts on the left
what seems to have been a formal garden, indicated by a level plot,
some foundations of walls, and two alcoves, attributed to Sir John
I’Anson, a rector of Corfe towards the end of the last century.
Westward of this the ward seems to have been used for offices, and in
part covered over. In the north curtain is a half-round mural tower
with four loops, and of one story, open at the gorge. The water-table
of a double-gable roof is seen within, and the central gutter projects
as a spout outside. Further on is a blocked-up arch, probably an early
postern, and, still further, the seat and drain of a large garderobe,
beneath an arch in the wall, 8 feet broad. Above is a plain corbel,
hollowed to receive the wall-plate of a roof, and no doubt one of a
series. The country people call it the gallows. A part of the south
curtain of this ward is the most interesting feature of the whole
structure.
First, ascending from the gate, upon the left, is the curtain. Then,
upon it, a half-round mural tower with three loops, but closed, since
its construction, at the gorge by a wall, in which is a small door,
which led into a contiguous building. From this tower, westward, the
curtain is constructed of flat stones laid in a rude but distinctly
herring-bone fashion. In it are three windows and the place of a
fourth. These are round-headed, 2 feet 4 inches diameter, and 3 feet
6 inches deep, splayed to 12 inches, when they terminate in a stone
plate, out of which is cut a loop of 6 inches opening, and a rebate for
a shutter. At present they are 3 feet 6 inches to the springing, but a
part may be buried. These apertures are closed by the exterior casing
of the wall. This wall at its west end seems to have been returned
inwards. Both this wall and these windows have been regarded as part of
the old Saxon palace, and this may well be so. They certainly appear
older than the Norman work of the keep.
Westward of this old part is a walled-up doorway, with a pointed arch
springing from the usual Norman flat chamfered abacus. This looks like
transition Norman work. Outside it is masked by the facing. This door,
the base of which is buried, seems to have been a postern, although, it
must be confessed, in a most inconvenient position for such a means of
egress.
The Buttavant Tower, which caps the western angle of the ward, and
is a marked object in the outline of the castle, seems to have been
an octagon of 7 feet in the side, internal measurement, and of
considerable thickness. The casing of the lower part is gone. It had
a sub-basement story, and two above this, all floored with wood. A
well-stair near the gorge leads to the summit. The curtain from hence
to the garderobe is destroyed.
The inner ward occupies the summit of the hill. It also is rudely
triangular, the great bastion forming the apex to the west, the
Gloriette bastion capping the angle to the south-east, and the obtuse
angle to the north-east being formed by the curtain alone. Towards
the outer and middle wards the wall is a strong revetment of masonry,
crested by the curtain. Elsewhere the earth is only somewhat higher
within than without the curtain.
This ward contained two gateways, the keep, the Queen’s tower and
offices, and a well.
The gateway from the middle ward abutted on the northern curtain. It
was probably a mere aperture in a wall, without a regular gatehouse,
else it could scarcely have disappeared so completely, even under the
crushing weight of the fragments of the keep.
This gate opened into a small court, on the east side of which rose the
keep. A second and higher gate seems to have led into the actual ward,
and to have been placed close to the foot of the exterior staircase of
the keep. This gate is also completely gone. The survey by Treswell in
1586 shows where it stood.
The keep is a quadrangular tower, 60 feet square and 80 feet high, of
pure Norman work. The east and west faces were strengthened with five
flat pilaster strips, 5 feet 4 inches broad, 18 inches projection, and
8 feet 4 inches apart. On the north and south faces were four similar
strips, placed at wider intervals. All rose from a common plinth, and
died into the wall a short distance below the battlement, a small
portion of which is still visible, not passing into it as at Chepstow
and elsewhere, so as to panel the face.
The door of the ground floor, apparently 4 feet wide, and with very
late dressings, is at present in the west wall, here 9 feet thick,
and may possibly have been always there, although certainly not in
its present form. It was covered by the exterior stair. It is placed
nearest to the south end, between the second and third pilasters.
The stair, 9 feet broad, is built against the west face of the keep,
without bond, and perhaps a later addition. Beneath it is a large
open arch, round-headed, springing from flat pilaster jambs, which,
continued above the string or cap, panel the soffit of the vault. This
arch serves as a porch to the door of the basement of the keep.
The stair terminates in the staircase tower, a rectangular lean-to,
or fore-building appended to the keep, forming a vestibule to the
main entrance, and said to have carried the stairs leading to the
upper floor. It is about 19 feet by 16 feet within, and has a stone
bench against its north wall. The door from the exterior stair in
the north wall is round-headed, 6 feet 6 inches wide, opening in a
wall 6 feet thick, the other two walls being 4 feet. The keep door,
between the first and second pilasters, and therefore near the angle
of the keep, has been 6 feet broad, now enlarged to 9 feet. It has a
flat top, with a semicircular arch of relief in the wall above, not
intended to be seen. There was probably a door in the south wall of the
vestibule opening upon the great bastion, and there are traces of a
covered passage from it into the garderobe tower. This vestibule seems
certainly to be of the age of the keep, and to have been occupied by a
staircase to the principal floor.
The keep was divided into two great chambers by a wall 6 feet thick.
The basement was covered, and the first story floored by ten large
whole-timber joists, the cavities for which remain in the south wall.
The first floor probably contained a chamber, 42 feet long by 28 feet
broad, and 24 feet high, which, however, must have been very dark,
since the north wall was interior, and the south without windows. Two
small doors, probably of rather later construction, open through the
south wall into the exterior gallery.
Above this room, forming the third story, was another, apparently of
the same size and much more cheerful, and which may have been the
hall. A well-stair led from this upwards, in the east wall, near its
south end. The water-tables within show a ridge and valley roof, as at
Porchester, and probably there was originally nothing above this floor.
The battlements, with a slight exception, are gone, but in the east and
west wall, just below the battlement line, are coupled Norman windows,
of about 3 feet opening, a pair between each pair of pilasters, thus
forming a sort of arcade, not unlike the far later ones at Swansea and
Llanphey, but much of which seems always to have been closed. It is
remarkable that a building so massive, and the walls of which are so
thick, should have been without the usual galleries and mural chambers
found in Norman keeps.
Mr. Bond, who is intimately acquainted with this castle, and has
brought much critical knowledge to bear upon its details, is of opinion
that the upper part of the wall of the keep shows evidence of having
been an addition to the original structure, though at no very long
interval of time.
Built against the exterior of the keep, on the south side, and
projecting into the outer ward, is another lean-to, or appended tower,
of about 30 feet in breadth and 20 feet projection. Outside it has
three pilaster strips and one on each flank, rising from a common
base. At present it reaches only to the floor of the second story of
the keep, but it seems to have been higher, and is said to have been
lowered by Sir C. Hatton. It is a garderobe tower, and contains on
each of its two floors two chambers of about 7 feet by 9 feet. The
upper are not accessible; but it is clear that a portion of the eastern
lower chambers was bratticed off, to carry the refuse from the upper.
In the western chamber is a stone arch, which may be taken to indicate
the place of this brattice. The eastern is open on one side, and was
evidently closed by a timber partition. These chambers terminate below
in two square openings, on the face of the tower, and this supports the
notion that the western as well as the eastern chamber was intended for
a garderobe.
Between these chambers and the keep wall runs a vaulted gallery, into
which they open, and from which two small doors, already mentioned,
enter the first floor of the keep. Although the garderobe tower covers
only half the face of the keep, this gallery is prolonged over the
whole, being protected by a wall, looped. A door at its lower or east
end led towards the kitchen, and one at the upper end opened on the
great bastion, with access on the right to the vestibule, and on the
left to the curtain leading from the keep to the middle gatehouse. Two
water-drains from the keep cross the gallery and discharge into the
garderobes.
This tower, being built against and not bonded into the keep, is
evidently later, but resembles it in general style, and must have been
added within a very few years. The explosion which shattered the keep
has made evident the complete want of bond between the two buildings.
East of the keep the ward is occupied by the remains of various
offices, and by the ruins of the Queen’s Hall or Tower. This, with
its contiguous buildings, was constructed upon crypts, some of which
remain. One is round-headed, with a pointed doorway; another, which
supported the Queen’s Hall, seems to have had a very slightly pointed
barrel-vault, divided by lateral narrower, but equally high, and
therefore pointed, arches, into four bays, two of which contain lancet
windows.
Some of the hall windows remain. They are pointed, with drop arch
recesses, and stone side seats. The tracery is gone, but the exterior
labels remain, terminating in knobs of foliage, and the arris or angle
of each recess is occupied by a scroll-bead moulding.
North of this hall and placed across it, east and west, are the remains
of what is regarded, with great probability, as the chapel. The west
door and that of the hall are placed side by side, in a vestibule or
porch, entered on the west side by a staircase.
The doors are pointed, with half-round bead labels, and a scroll-bead
moulding running round the jambs and arch. Inside, the chapel door is
richer, and has in the arch a double scroll-bead, divided by a hollow,
and for the jambs the hollow has been occupied by a detached column of
Purbeck marble, which material, though much decayed, is still seen to
have formed the base and bell capital. The design, though not highly
ornate, is excellent, as is the execution. The whole of this group
appears to be early English, of the latter part of the reign of Henry
III.
Close to the east of the hall, between it and the curtain, is a
depression, said to mark the well. This must have been of great
depth—probably to the level of the brook.
The tower spoken of as “La Gloriette” is probably gone, but near it
is what may be called the Gloriette bastion, and what seems to be the
angular base of a tower capping the south-east angle of the ward, and
intended to cover the junction of the wall with the curtain which comes
up from the Plukenet Tower. Near to it, westward, is a mural chamber
in the curtain, which Treswell’s plan shows as a garderobe, and beyond
this an angular bastion, supposed to have been added by Lady Bankes,
who seems to have placed a gun there.
The great bastion is a very peculiar work. It is of rounded outline,
formed by a very thick and high wall of revetment, which caps the
west end of the southern curtain, and projects into the middle ward.
At the siege it carried five guns, and was called the New Bulwark.
But, although it may then have been widened to carry a battery, it
was probably only an addition to the older Norman revetment wall
supporting the staircase tower. The exterior, and therefore perhaps
later, revetment has been injured at the base, and the heart of the
work is exposed. It shows very rough filling up.
The south curtain of this ward is about 12 feet thick, but the north
and east, being less exposed and having no buildings to support, are
much lighter, and present nothing of the strength considered necessary
in the lower and more exposed portions of the fortress.
The present condition of the building is completely to be accounted for
by the fact that Corfe Castle was “slighted” under a vote of the House
of Commons, dated 4th of March, 1645, a period at which the orders of
the Commons were not obeyed negligently.
In the outer gateway the drums are blown forwards, the vault split, and
the rear of the lodges destroyed. All the upper story is removed.
Eastward the curtain is broken down, but the Horseshoe Tower is not
materially injured. The rest of the curtain to the Plukenet Tower is
broken down in parts only. That tower and the curtain up to the keep
have not been dismantled, and but partially pulled down.
In this outer ward the main force of the destroyers has been spent upon
the lower half of the west front, of which the curtains are lifted
forwards, and the mural towers rent and shaken, vast fragments of both
encumbering the slope. The Redan Tower has escaped, as has the curtain
which traverses King John’s fosse.
The gateway of the middle ward presents a singular appearance. A mine
has been excavated beneath the outer tower, which has sunk about 10
feet, and moved a little forward, splitting the entrance vault. This
can hardly be the effect of powder, but is more probably due to a mine
of the old sort, in which the earth was removed, and wooden props
introduced, which were afterwards pulled away or burnt.
Of the Buttavant Tower about two-thirds are gone, with part of the
north curtain. The great curtain between the middle gatehouse and the
keep is unshaken, only its steps and battlements are gone. It is one of
the finest curtain walls in Britain, and almost equal to Cardiff.
In the inner ward the devastation has been severe. Of the keep, all the
north and two-thirds of the adjacent west wall lie in enormous masses
on the sward, and in their fall have utterly crushed the gateways of
the ward and their adjacent curtain. The east wall is destroyed at
its two ends, but a strip of the central part remains unhurt to its
summit, a marvel of Norman masonry, and is completely shrouded in
ivy. The south wall and garderobe tower are but little injured. The
staircase tower is destroyed, all but a part of the north wall. The
broken-down walls of the keep are a sight to see, so vast is the mass
of the fragments and so firm the cohesion of the material. They lie in
the wildest confusion, and some considerable lumps have rolled down
the slope, and, bounding across road and brook, rest half buried in the
turf beyond.
The Queen’s Tower and offices are destroyed, but, offering less
resistance, have been broken up more in detail, and have no doubt been
spoiled subsequently for the sake of the ashlar.
The destruction probably exceeds anything known elsewhere in England.
The charges of powder, though skilfully disposed, seem to have been
larger than was actually necessary; and, certainly, the place might
have been rendered untenable with far less destruction of masonry. Even
with such mortars as were used in the days of the Commonwealth, the
castle could have been commanded from the loftier Challow Hill, close
to the east of it.
A few remarks naturally arise out of the above description.
The Saxon residence, of the existence of which there appears to be
evidence in the latter part of the tenth century, was no doubt also a
place of strength. It is certain that it must have occupied the highest
part of the hill, now the inner ward, and the wall remaining in the
middle ward will probably be accepted as evidence that it extended over
the area of this ward also.
The Normans probably made a clear sweep of any existing buildings in
the inner ward, when they commenced the keep and its accessories, and,
a little later, the garderobe tower. These are all built of large
squared stones, with moderately open joints; thoroughly substantial,
sound work, and all the more workmanlike and effective for a certain
roughness and boldness in the finish. The ashlar, usually an indication
of late work, was here close at hand in the Purbeck quarries, and the
general absence of ornament in a royal residence, of vaulting, of
triforial galleries or mural chambers, and, with one partial exception,
of mural staircases, seem to indicate the work, if not of the
Conqueror, of his more immediate successors. The garderobe tower, not
particularly late Norman, but certainly subsequent to the keep, seems
to strengthen this conclusion.
As the Norman buildings required to be included within an _enceinte_
wall, which would naturally take the crest of this part of the hill,
this would necessarily include or supersede the Saxon wall, which,
for the same reason, would have followed the same limited outline.
Probably, therefore, the curtains of the upper and middle ward contain
traces of Saxon and a great deal of Norman masonry, and this applies
also to the cross revetment wall between the inner and middle wards,
which follows a natural division in the ground. The same natural cause
would decide the position of the gates, where we now see them.
The original Norman castle has generally been supposed to have been
restricted to the two upper wards, to which, according to Mr. Bond, the
great authority for all matters connected with Corfe, King John added
the defence of a deep fosse. It is singular, however, that this fosse,
while cut right through to the western slope, should stop a little
short of the eastern face. The narrow ridge thus left could scarcely
have been intended for a passage, for the gateway of the upper ward
must necessarily, from the disposition of the ground, always have
been at the western or lower end of the fosse, and, had a ridge been
left as an approach, it would certainly not have been one of almost
inaccessible steepness, much exposed to view and to attack, and not
defensible by any special work.
The wall, from the Gloriette angle along the ridge, nearly to the
Plukenet Tower, has been observed to be of regular Norman work, and,
according to Mr. Bond, to show evidence of having been returned
inwards, as though it extended along the line of the later ditch. Thus
it may be, that before King John’s time the fortress occupied the
present upper and middle wards, and a strip of the lower ward along the
foot of the glacis of the keep. This is, no doubt, more probable than
that it occupied the whole of the lower ward, covering the same area
with the present works.
Mr. Bond has been able, by documentary evidence, to fix the date of the
great curtain, which connects the later middle gate with the earlier
keep tower, at 1236; as with such a curtain there must have been a
tolerably strong gate, and, as the present gate is some years later,
this was no doubt Norman, though probably very late—say of the age of
the curtain traversing King John’s fosse at the lower end. Perhaps
the pointed arch with Norman springing-course, in the wall next the
Buttavant Tower, may be of the same period—say the reign of Henry II.,
though the wall itself may be shown, by the evidence of records, to be
later.
The lower ward, in its present state, was certainly enclosed towards
the end of the reign of Henry III., and in that of Edward I. To this
age may be attributed the outer and middle gatehouse, and the four
mural towers of the outer ward, as well as the work of the Queen’s
Tower, with its hall and chapel. The Plukenet Tower may be assigned to
the constableship of that baron, 54 Hen. III., or a little later.
To this period also is to be assigned the facing of the south wall
of the middle ward. The ashlar of this age, though it has not the
grand, effective boldness of the Norman work, cannot be surpassed
for closeness of jointing and general excellence of workmanship. The
stones, from 1 foot to 2 feet long, and 8 inches wide, are coursed and
well bonded, and their angles are as fresh as when newly cut.
The excessive solidity of the mural towers upon the west front is very
remarkable. Possibly this unusual strength was intended to counteract
the danger of being mined, for which the soft chalk offered great
facilities.
THE CASTLE OF COUCY, NEAR LAON.
Coucy-le-Château, town and castle, are built upon and completely occupy
the somewhat irregularly-shaped but level summit of a promontory of
chalk, the eastern part or root of which is connected with the high
land of the upper forest of Coucy, while towards the north and west
the termination of the platform stands out boldly and abruptly, from
150 feet to 200 feet above the fertile valleys on either hand, whence
spring the tributary waters of the Lette, a stream which flows down
from the ancient city of Laon to reach the Oise at Manicamp.
The valleys immediately below and commanded by the castle bear marks
of high and early cultivation, and no doubt contributed largely to its
support. More distant, chiefly on the eastern and northern sides, are
the immense woodland tracts of the high and low forests of Coucy, St.
Gobain, and Monceau, while to the south are those of Pinon and Mostier.
Occupying fertile spots amidst these forests were the abbeys of Nogent,
St. Nicholas, Barizy, and Prémontre, where was the burial-place of the
De Coucys, and the remains of which religious houses are interspersed
with those of the castles of St. Gobain, Folembray, Anizy, La Fère,
Pinon, and many others, showing the value attached to this tract of
country by the jealousy displayed in its defence.
The etymology of Coucy has not been explained. The district in which
it stands was known as Le Mege in the sixth century, and Coucy was
probably included in that part of it granted by Clovis to St. Remi for
the archiepiscopal see of Reims, A.D. 500. In 909 it was in the hands
of Archbishop Hervé, who, moved by the rising power of the Norman, here
first built the castle known henceforward as Coucy.
Whatever may have been the particulars of this fortress, its area
must have been identical with that of the latter work, governed by
the configuration of the ground; and, whatever may have been its
construction, its position could not but endow it with strength and
importance. It became at once a place of note. Here, Hervé, Count of
Vermandois, imprisoned Charles the Simple, whom he sold to his rival
king for the county of Laon. Nevertheless, in 930, Hervé was forced to
give up Coucy to Boson, brother to Raoul, king of France. Boson was
slain before St. Quentin in 931, and, after a century of vicissitudes,
the domain, held by a mere quit-rent of the Church, was in 1037 the
signory of Alberic, the founder of the baronial name of Coucy. It is
uncertain whether Alberic was of the family of Eudo de Chartres or
that of the Counts of Vermandois. By marriage he added Amiens and its
adjacent castle of Bôves to Coucy, and is thought to have founded the
abbey of Nogent-sous-Coucy.
Alberic was succeeded by his son Enguerrand, Sieur de Coucy, Count of
Amiens, and Lord of Bôves. He married Ada, heiress of Letard de Roucy,
Lord of Marle, second son of Gilbert, Count of Reims, with whom he
acquired Marle and La Fère. He—or more probably his son—first assumed
the well-known armorial bearings, “Barry of 6, vaire and gules.” He
died 1116, leaving Thomas.
Thomas de Marle, de Coucy, his son and successor, long in rebellion
against his father, bore a bad name for violence. He lost Amiens; but,
again by marriage, acquired Crécy-sur-Serre and Nogent. He died 1130.
Enguerrand II., known as Le Sire de Coucy—this title, it is said,
denoting the lord of an allodial fief—held also Marle, Crécy, Vervins,
Pinon, and La Fère, in which latter castle he defended himself with
success against Louis le Gros and Raoul, Count of Vermandois, in 1132.
His reign was one of peace and justice.
This Enguerrand is said to have slain in personal combat a ferocious
beast called a lion that infested the neighbourhood; and this tale is
no doubt the origin of the lions which were used by the family as crest
and supporters. Such tales were common in the twelfth century, only the
scene of the exploit was usually more safely laid in Palestine. This
combat was commemorated in a bas-relief over the door of the keep at
Coucy, and was probably the foundation of a singular ceremony which
only ceased at the Revolution. Thrice annually, at Easter, Pentecost,
and Christmas, the Abbot of Nogent, or his attorney, entered Coucy
by the lower gate, a whip in his hand and mounted upon a crop-eared
and docktailed bay. On his poitrel was suspended a seed-bag of white
linen filled with wheat, and in a basket certain crescent-shaped cakes
stuffed with minced veal, cooked in oil, and called rissoles, probably
the earliest mention of a dish which has descended to our own times.
Behind the abbot came a red dog, also with cropped ears and tail, and
having a rissole suspended from his neck. This singular procession then
entered the castle, and at the base of the keep the abbot made the
circuit of a central and three lesser couchant lions there carved in
stone, and afterwards embraced the larger beast. This done, he offered
the cakes in homage to the lord, who distributed them to the people,
and then witnessed the record of the homage by affixing to it a special
seal, representing a mitred and crosiered abbot, having for feet the
hoofs of a buck. A representation of this ceremony in tapestry long
adorned the walls of the castle, and is thought to have been taken into
Lorraine after the marriage of a later Coucy with a daughter of that
house.
Enguerrand II. died while on a crusade in Palestine about 1148; but his
body was laid in his abbey of Prémontre, near the castle, where his
effigy remained in 1682.
Raoul de Coucy, son and successor, was under age at his father’s death.
He married, about 1169, Agnes of Hainault; and secondly, Alix, niece
of Louis-le-Jeune, and sister of Robert de Dreux. By this match he
connected himself with the blood royal. He accompanied Philip Augustus
to Palestine in 1188, and fell before the walls of Acre in 1191. He was
buried at Foigny, and his son by Alix was his successor.
Enguerrand III., called the Great, Lord of Montmirail, Oisy, Crèvecour,
la Ferté-Ancoul, la Ferté-Gaucher, Vicomte de Meaux, and Châtelan of
Cambrai. He was the founder of the present castle, and at the same time
walled in the considerable town that had risen under the protection
of his ancestors. As he was a child at his accession, his mother
administered the signory, and conceded a charter of liberties to the
town in 1197, which he confirmed when of age. In 1200, _more majorum_,
he attacked the property of the Church of Reims. In 1210, he joined the
Count of Vermandois in the first crusade against the Albigenses, and
again in 1219 and 1226; then assisting at the siege of Toulouse and
the taking of Avignon. He distinguished himself also at the battle of
Bovines.
Enguerrand, though not wanting in territorial power, exercised an
influence far beyond that due to wealth or breadth of possessions, and
which was in great measure personal. He appears to have submitted with
an ill grace to the government of Queen Blanche during the minority of
St. Louis, and is said to have even contemplated regal power. However
this may be, the consciousness of his influence, no doubt, led him to
erect the Castle of Coucy, it is thought, between 1225–1230; and it
maybe that in so doing he proposed to himself to cast into the shade
the grand tower of the Louvre, the work, a few years before, of Philip
Augustus. He is also said to have rebuilt his other castles of St.
Gobain, Assis, Marle, Folembrai, and St. Aubyn, and the Hôtel Coucy at
Paris.
In 1244, he was in the confidence of St. Louis, and attended a
conference of nobles at Chinon, where he supported the plan of a
descent upon England; but while assembling his vassals for this purpose
he was flung from his horse and killed by his own sword. Of his
children by Marie de Montmirail, Raoul II., who fell in the crusade of
1250, and Enguerrand IV., became successively Sieurs de Coucy; but both
died childless, and with the last closed the male line of these great
barons. Alix, half-sister to the last lords, married Arnoul, Count de
Guines. Enguerrand the Great had also a daughter, Mary, who in 1239
became the second wife of Alexander II. of Scotland, and the mother of
Alexander III. Mary was a very remarkable person, and exercised the
duties of guardian to her son in difficult times in a very efficient
manner, devising and executing a vigorous policy of her own.
Arnold Comte de Guines sold Guines to Philip le Hardi in 1282. Alix de
Coucy, his wife, was daughter of Enguerrand III. by Marie Dame d’Oisy,
his third wife. They had Enguerrand V. de Guines, Sire de Coucy,
&c., who lived at the court of his cousin-german, Alexander III., in
Scotland, where he married, before 1285, Christine de Baliol. He died
1321.
William, his son and heir, married Isabel, daughter of Guy de
Chatillon, Comte de St. Pol. He died 1335, and was succeeded by
Enguerrand VI., who married Catherine, daughter of Leopold, Duke of
Austria. This baron took part in the defence of his province against
Edward III., and fell at the battle of Crécy, in 1346, leaving his son
an infant.
Enguerrand VII., better known in England as Ingelram de Coucy, was one
of the greatest and most powerful barons of his race and age, and, in a
warlike age, celebrated as a military leader. He commenced his public
life by a war of extermination against the insurgent Jacquerie. He was
then one of the hostages in England for King John, and there married
Isabel, daughter of Edward III., became a Knight of the Garter (39th on
the list), and in 1366 was created Earl of Bedford. The effect, perhaps
the price, of these honours was his neutrality in the war between
France and England. He claimed the duchy of Austria, and raised 60,000
condottieri to support his rights, but in this he was unsuccessful.
After the death of Edward III. he returned the insignia of the Garter
to his successor, and took part with France. Upon Du Guesclin’s death,
he was offered, and declined, the sword of Constable of France, but
became governor of Picardy. His advice to the king was to anticipate
the English attacks.
His second wife was a daughter of the Duke of Lorraine. In 1382, he
composed, by fair words, the insurrection of the Maillotins, at Paris.
In Picardy he was scarcely less lenient. Doutard, one of their leaders,
he sentenced to death, but at the gallow’s foot he was pardoned, by
the custom of Picardy, because a woman from the crowd consented to
marry him,—a singular legal juxtaposition of hanging and matrimony.
Enguerrand took part in the campaign of Charles VI. against Ghent,
in which Van Artevelde was killed; and in the following year, after
putting down an insurrection at Paris, he joined the war in Flanders,
where he won the high approbation of Froissart.
He then went to Italy, and fought at the battle of Arezzo, for which he
received the charge of Grand Butler of France. Shortly afterwards, he
was prominent in the military and naval preparations for a descent upon
England, and seems to have commanded a division of the fleet, and to
have been driven upon the coast of Scotland.
In 1390 he took part in the African expedition, landing at Carthage.
The closing act of his life was the unsuccessful crusade against Sultan
Bajazet, upon his invasion of Hungary, and the battle of Nicopolis in
1396, when Enguerrand was defeated and made prisoner, and so died in
1397, aged 57, the last male of the second line of the Sires of Coucy.
Upon his death, Louis Duke of Orleans obtained possession of the Coucy
estates, under cover of a purchase from the heir female. Upon the death
of Louis, in 1465, Duke Charles succeeded, and upon his accession
to the throne of France as Louis XII., in 1498, Coucy became Crown
property, and ceased to retain any individuality, or to be the seat of
an independent family. As an appanage of the Crown it was granted to
the successive families of Orleans, and was thus held by Égalité at
the Revolution. It is at present a part of the State domains, and in
consequence received a share of the consideration with which the late
Emperor regarded all public monuments, and has been most judiciously
preserved from further decay by M. Viollet-le-Duc, from whose survey
the annexed plan has been made.
The castle occupies the north-western extremity of the platform, of
which the remainder is occupied by the town. Upon three sides the
natural defence is the steep hill-side, the upper 30 feet or 40 feet of
which are rendered vertical by art, and faced with masonry. The (wholly
artificial) defences of the town on the south front are a deep ditch,
extending from cliff to cliff, and dividing the town from the castle,
within which is a curtain wall, flanked at its ends by two round towers
containing vaulted chambers, and with a central gatehouse, also so
flanked.
The castle is composed of a keep, an inner, and an outer ward. The
outer, about thrice the area of the inner ward, intervenes between the
inner ward and the town. Its narrow south front has been described.
Towards the north-east the hill is very steep, and the revetment wall
on this face is not reinforced by buttresses or flanking towers. On the
opposite face the ground is far less steep, and the platform projects
in a bold salient towards the south-west, the revetment of which is
strengthened by eight mural towers or bastions, some half-round and the
others rectangular. The south wall is lofty, the others were probably
mere parapets. The great gatehouse, or “Porte de Maître Odon,” is now
much broken down. The portal arch was pointed, as are two lateral
arches for the guard. The square groove of one portcullis remains. The
gatehouse seems to have been of the usual rectangular plan, having a
central portal arch and passage, and two exterior half-round flanking
towers. In this outward ward are to be traced very considerable
foundations, and here are found fragments of piers and arch stones,
and carved blocks, showing that the buildings erected as stables and
barracks for the castellan, and probably, in times of peace, for the
lord, were very considerable, and of a handsome character. Here also
are the foundations of a church, recently cleared out. They show a
single nave, with a semicircular apse, and a transept, the two arms
of which have, on their eastern sides, two smaller apses, the three
ranging nearly in a line. The building is about 100 feet long by 30
feet broad; has a double west door, and five windows of a side, besides
three in the apse and three in each limb of the transept. From its plan
and proportions this church has been regarded as part of the original
castle, and the only part now remaining. Its actual date is, however,
probably of the eleventh century.
The inner or north end of this ward abuts upon the inner ward. This
front is occupied by a broad and deep dry ditch, concave towards the
outer ward, having a walled scarp and counterscarp, and crossed at each
end by the exterior _enceinte_ wall of the place.
The inner ward, or castle proper, is four-sided. The east face, of
130 yards, and north face, of 60 yards, are both straight, and set at
right angles. The east front, of 70 yards, is set at an obtuse angle
to the north, but is also straight. Thus breadth is given to the south
front, which is 130 yards. This front is also straight, but about
five-sevenths of its central part is occupied by the convexity of the
great tower and its chemise, which are placed upon the line of the
curtain.
[Illustration: COUCY CASTLE, FRANCE.—_Plan._]
The east, west, and north fronts are towards the field, and are formed
by facing the scarped rock with masonry, so that they stand 30 feet
to 40 feet high to the level of the terre-plein, above which rises
the curtain-wall. The south front is covered by the ditch already
described, which is segmental in plan, with vertical sides. Near
its east end this ditch is expanded from 60 feet to 90 feet, and
was there traversed by a long drawbridge, which rested upon three
detached rectangular piers, of which the inner one was the largest, and
contained two lateral places of arms, and no doubt carried a tower.
This bridge led up to the main gate. It is now replaced by a causeway.
At the four angles of the ward are four equal drum towers, 60 feet in
diameter, and 105 feet high from the exterior base. They are remarkable
for their size and boldness, being engaged only by one-fifth of their
circumference. These towers rise from the rock, and contain two domed
stages below the terre-plein level. These are entered by a circular
hole or eye in the centre of each vault. The terre-plein level of each
is a hexagonal chamber, vaulted, having five recesses, of which four
are pierced as loops. The entrance is in the gorge, with two lateral
passages, one leading to a garderobe and one to a well-stair, ascending
to the summit.
The chamber above is similar, but the loops are placed between instead
of over those below; and thus the towers have been preserved from those
vertical fissures so common when a series of loops or windows occur, as
they usually do, in one vertical line. By this arrangement, also, the
scope of the archers defending the tower is much increased, every point
within arrow range being exposed to fire. There are three floors above
the ground-level, or five in all. All are vaulted. A line of corbels
at the present summit shows that they were originally defended by a
bretasche.
Nearly in the centre of the east face was a small half-round bastion
with flat sides, 30 feet in diameter and about 20 feet projection.
Standing in the court, no part of the curtain is visible. Along the
central 180 feet of the east front is a range of buildings, called
offices, about 30 feet deep, and having three well-staircases, serving
the first and second floor, now destroyed. At the south end the space
between the curtain and the tower chemise, about 60 feet by 80 feet, is
occupied by three aisles of vaulting, each of three bays. The centre
of these is the main entrance, or continued portal arch. The lateral
bays are for warders and soldiery in charge of the gate. There were two
stories above this, now destroyed.
Along the north front was originally a vaulted arcade, 45 feet broad,
composed of four bays. To this has been added, in front, an arcade
of three arches, open towards the court, and upon the platform thus
gained have been constructed a terrace and a range of state rooms,
of which the principal is the ladies’ hall, or _Salle des Preuses_,
so named from the medallions of nine celebrated women which adorned
the great chimney piece. In the exterior was a sort of oriel boudoir,
and large windows towards the field. Above this was another story,
to construct which the curtain was raised. These buildings were the
addition of the Duke of Orleans. A large well-stair, also an addition,
led from the court to these apartments.
The west side also has a high curtain, against which is constructed a
magnificent chamber, 45 feet broad by 470 feet long, down the centre
of which stands a line of ten columns, dividing the space into eleven
vaulted and groined bays, of which the northern pair are cut off as a
private cellar. On the east side of this chamber are four doors, two
near the centre opening into the crypt of the chapel, one south of
this, probably the main entrance, and one near the south end, opening
into what appear to have been the kitchens, and which lie between this
splendid range of magazines and the great tower. Connected with the
kitchens are three courts, and a staircase descending to the cellars.
Below the chamber is another of equal size excavated in the chalk, as a
cellar, probably about the finest and most spacious ever constructed.
Above, on the first floor, or third stage, was the great hall of the
castle, called, from its nine effigies of heroes, _La Salle des Preux_.
It had a wooden roof, two large fireplaces, and a large window at the
south end, below which a small door opened upon a light wooden bridge,
which dropped upon the curtain of the outer ward, just above the
postern.
The chapel was a rectangular building, 60 feet east and west, by 36
feet north and south. It projected from the hall into the court. It
was composed of two parallel aisles, vaulted, each in four bays. Its
south-east angle was engaged with the chemise of the great tower. Its
south-west angle was free, and had two buttresses set on at right
angles. This chapel is now destroyed to its foundations. It opened from
the great hall.
The keep, or great tower, is the boast of Coucy, and deservedly so,
being one of the finest towers in the world, and no doubt the largest
and most complete single military building.
It is a plain tower, perfectly cylindrical, of excellent ashlar
workmanship, 100 feet diameter at base and summit, and 200 feet high.
It rises out of a paved moat, the base being about 12 feet below the
level of the terre-plein, and is entered by a drawbridge from the
level, all below being solid.
Including the basement, the tower contains three stories. The ground
floor, on the level of the terre-plein, is entered by a drawbridge laid
across the ditch, and which, when raised, covered a small square-headed
portal, under a pointed arch, the entrance to a passage directly
piercing the wall. The passage has an interior machicolation and a
portcullis, both worked from a small chamber in the wall above, which
also received the chains of the bridge. Within the portcullis was a
stout door barred within, and, on the left and right, passages, one
to a mural garderobe with an exterior loop, the other leading to a
well-stair, which served the upper rooms and led to the ramparts.
The entrance passage leads direct into a duodecagonal chamber of
about 60 feet diameter, having a recess in each floor for stores, one
occupied by the entrance, one by a large well, now about 90 feet deep
and formerly 200 feet, and one by a chimney.
Each pier is faced by a column, from which springs a rib, the twelve
meeting in the centre at an eye, and supporting the vault. Each
vaulting cell has a pointed gable, of which two are pierced for light.
The first floor is of the same figure and diameter, and vaulted in a
similar manner. One of its recesses is closed by a fireplace with an
oven behind it; one gives passage to a very narrow postern, the plank
bridge from which drops upon the rampart of the chemise wall, and three
are pierced by small windows. One of these window recesses is entered
laterally by a small passage from the adjacent recess. This is of
fifteenth-century work, made when the recess was walled up to serve as
a separate chamber. Another recess has also a lateral passage, entering
a small mural garderobe, looped from the outside. In one recess are two
windows, one above the other.
The second floor, resembling the other in plan and diameter at its
floor level, has a different arrangement at a height of 12 feet. Here
the piers cease, and behind, between them and the outer shell of wall,
is a gallery, entered by the regular well-stair, but each of the eleven
other compartments of which forms a box like that of a theatre, looking
down upon the central pit or floor. Two of these boxes are occupied by
the detached flues of the two chimneys from below, and two are lighted
by windows, which, with the central eye, form the whole and very
insufficient light. In this chamber, the next below the battlements,
the commander could collect and address a very numerous garrison.
The third floor, that of the ramparts, and open above, is contained
within a thick and lofty parapet wall about 10 feet high, and pierced
by twenty-four lancet arches and as many intermediate loops. Above
these the wall is surmounted by a grand coping, which overhangs both
ways about thrice the thickness of the wall, and then slopes upwards
into a ridge. It was upon this ridge that were laid the roofing rafters
of the bretasche gallery, which enclosed the wall inside and outside.
The former was merely as a counterpoise. The latter was of two stories,
and rested its main struts upon a line of forty-eight grand corbels,
which remain on the exterior face of the wall at the rampart level. The
flues appeared above the roof, and three large and highly-crocketed
pinnacles were placed astride on the crest of the wall. The stone vault
of the upper chamber was covered with lead, with occasional gutter
openings outwards.
Nothing can be grander than the conception of this tower, nothing
more complete than the execution of its details. All is gigantesque,
as though for a race above the ordinary stature of man, and the walls
within were overlaid with a fine cement, and painted with care. The
design of the sculpture is bold and masculine, as becomes a military
building; but all is in excellent taste, and admirably executed.
The walls of the keep are tied with chain-courses of timber, laid in
mortar, in the centre of the work, as was the custom in France in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The timber is exposed below some of
the loops. In the upper floors were embedded radiating ties, also of
wood.
Two lines of square putlog-holes are seen on the exterior of the
keep. They ascend in a spiral, or a right-handed screw, and indicate
the manner in which the building was constructed. Horizontal beams,
projecting from the upper row, carried the inclined plane or roadway up
which the materials were dragged, and these were supported by struts,
the feet of which rested in the lower row.
There remains to be described only the chemise, or work designed to
cover the base of the keep from the operations of the miner. It has
been seen that the base of the keep was solid, and that it stood in a
paved fosse, about 20 feet broad, with vertical sides. The exterior
side, or counterscarp, of this fosse was a wall, about 8 feet thick,
which divided it from the main exterior ditch of the ward, and rose to
the level of the first floor of the keep, say 30 feet. The ordinary
ascent to its rampart walk was by a stair within the wall, commencing
on the right near the keep entrance. It was also reached from the
first floor of the keep by a slight bridge, such as was employed at
Rochester, and probably in one or two places in the Tower of London.
There was also an access from the other end of the wall, from the rooms
over the great gateway.
Outside of and at the base of the salient half of this wall was built
against it, at the level of the bottom of the exterior ditch, a
covered way or gallery, intended to act as a countermine, and still
more completely to frustrate attempts against the keep. The gallery is
entered from either end, and in its centre rises a sort of buttress
against the wall, in which was contained a wooden stair, by which the
people on the rampart could communicate with those in the gallery. In
the gallery also was a well, for the use of the kitchens, and in the
substance of the wall a garderobe.
From the bottom of the keep ditch issued a postern, defended by gate,
portcullis, and machicolation, the two latter connected with a small
chamber in the wall; from this a wooden bridge led, in the ditch, to a
postern in the west and outer wall of the outer ward.
The castle and town, being of one date and from one design, may
be regarded as representing a thirteenth-century fortress of the
first class, and of the strongest character, in which the internal
arrangements, though palatial, were made completely subordinate to the
military character and security of the place. The great feature of the
castle is the keep, which commands the whole, in every part, and from
its size and strength could be held with confidence after all the other
defences had been taken.
The additions of the fifteenth century, consisting of state-rooms, a
hall, and various upper stories, intended for the state and attendants
of a court, though not extending to the keep, in some degree injure the
military character of the place, and take off from the predominating
grandeur of that great central feature. These, however, have for the
most part fallen away, and what remains is chiefly original work, so
that the appearance of the keep and inner ward is in many respects as
they were designed by the great baron, who contemned any title less
than king, and was content with the severe simplicity of that of “Sire
de Coucy.”
The castle in 1652 fell into the hands of Mazarin, who employed
Metezeau, son of him who threw up the famous dyke at Rochelle, to
render it indefensible. The engineer blew the chemise wall outwards
into the ditch, and exploded a heavy charge of powder in each of the
towers. The effect of this upon the keep was to clear out the vaulted
stages, and to leave the cylinder like the tube of a vast cannon. Thus,
with one or two vertical fissures, it stood till our day; but now these
have been closed with great care and judgment, and the cylinder has
been hooped with iron, in a manner that is scarcely to be observed, and
will preserve it indefinitely.
Those who wish to understand the details of this most curious place,
and to acquire a complete and comprehensive view of it as a military
work, would do well to read the masterly exposition of M. Le Duc, sold
upon the spot, and given also in his “Dictionnaire,” under the articles
of “Château” and “Donjon.”
The town is also worth a visit. It contains a good church, and its
southern gatehouse is a very massive structure. The portal is very
narrow, about 9 feet, acutely pointed, and it opens between two drum
towers of one-third projection, and of about 100 feet diameter and
60 feet high. The short curtain between them, occupied below by the
gateway, above is convex in plan, and supports two bold brackets, upon
which lies a stout beam, a part of the original bretasche, and a rare,
if not a solitary, instance of a part of such a structure remaining in
place.
The drawbridge is replaced by a causeway, but at the base of the
gateway are two large square holes, nearly where the axle of the bridge
would rest, but closely resembling drains, which they can scarcely be.
There are no marks of external defences, save the bretasche. Probably
the bridge, when up, acted as a gate. Within the passage, on each
side, is a large lateral loop, then two portcullises, and between them
a large machicolation. Within the second grate is a gate, and within
this the passage is vaulted for about 16 feet. Then follows an open
space, of which the roof was of timber, and then a vault. The inner end
of the passage is injured, and repaired. Above, over the portal, is a
fireplace of enormous size.
This gatehouse is placed in the middle of the curtain which covers
the very narrow south-east front of the town. On each side of the
gate-towers is a curtain of about 100 feet long, and beyond this a pair
of drum mural towers, of half projection. The loops of these towers,
like every detail in Coucy, are on a grand scale. Though mere slots,
they are 10 feet high, and in three tiers. In front of the wall is a
fosse of unusual breadth, wholly artificial, and which, like that of
the castle, is dug across the peninsula, from one lateral valley to the
other.
COYTY CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
The lordship of Coyty is regarded by the Welsh as an Honour of high
antiquity, the estate and seat of a royal lineage, and the inheritance
of one of the sons of Jestyn, the last native lord of Morganwg. It
is divided into the lesser lordships of Coyty Anglia and Wallia, and
it formed one of the “members” of the county under the Norman lords.
Being a member, and not in the body of the shire, it is not included
in the thirty-six and three-fifths knights’ fees which paid military
service to Cardiff Castle; but it was, nevertheless, held under the
lord of Glamorgan, and the castle, manor, and members of Coyty appear
accordingly in inquisitions of the Earls of Gloucester and their
successors in the reigns of Edward I., II., and III. In the 24th Henry
VI., for some probably temporary reason, only the castle and a fourth
part of the manor are returned in the chief lord’s schedule.
Coyty was granted by Fitzhamon to Sir Pagan, or Payne de Turberville, a
knight, who probably held Bere-Turberville and other lands in Dorset,
and the manor and castle of Crickhowel in Monmouthshire. Unlike most of
the sites of the Norman castles in Glamorgan, Coyty was evidently an
earlier place of strength, and its circular and raised area, and its
circumscribing moat, much resemble the earthworks so common in England
and upon the Welsh marches, and usually attributed to the English of
the eighth and ninth centuries. Of this position Sir Pagan judiciously
availed himself when he received from Fitzhamon Coyty as his share of
the spoil. Probably he found some sort of strong house existing, which
he and his immediate successors found it convenient to occupy; for,
though the extant masonry cannot be attributed to his age, it is of
a date too near to it to have allowed of the decay of a substantial
Norman structure. Sir Pagan is reputed to have married Sybil, heiress
of the old Welsh lords of Coyty, and thus to have added a title
respected by the natives to that acquired by his sword. Certain it is
that the Turbervilles much inclined to the Welsh side in the frequent
disputes between them and the over-lords.
Sir Pagan died, and was followed by his son, Sir Simon, who died
childless; and he by his brother, Sir Gilbert, who was father of a
second Sir Pagan, who was father of a second Sir Gilbert, who married
Maud, daughter of Morgan Gam, lord of Avan, a descendant, and probably
the representative, of Jestyn. Gilbert, who was in possession in 1207,
may well have been the real constructor of the castle. This view is
supported by the evidence of the actual building, the oldest parts of
which may be early English, but certainly are not Norman.
The castle is composed of a circular enclosure or inner ward, about 48
yards in diameter; to the north-western side of which is appended a
rectangular court, 68 yards long by 43 yards broad, forming the outer
ward, and probably an addition. The whole castle is surrounded by a
ditch, which varies in breadth from 90 to 100 feet, and in depth from
20 feet to 60 feet. It is far deeper and broader where it protects the
circular than where it is continued round the outer ward. It shallows
towards the north-west, and at that end is scarcely perceptible. It is
probable that the original circular castle was surrounded completely by
the ditch, and that this was in part filled up when the outer ward was
added. This could be ascertained by probing the ground.
The circular or inner ward is much higher, either naturally or
artificially, than the exterior ground. It is enclosed within a strong
and lofty curtain-wall, 8 feet thick, upon which are two gatehouses
and a drum-tower, and against it the hall, chapel, and other domestic
buildings. The interior is an open, irregular, but on the whole
four-sided court, about 60 yards in the side.
The _principal gatehouse_ is to the east, and opens upon the
churchyard, which forms the counterscarp of the ditch. It is
quadrangular, 20 feet broad by 24 feet deep, of which 16 feet project
beyond the curtain. A passage cut through a low bank of earth thrown
up outside the ditch led from the churchyard towards the portal. A
causeway now occupies the place of the drawbridge, the chains for
lifting which passed through two holes seen in the spandrels of the
gateway. The entrance is 6 feet broad, beneath a pointed arch set in
a square-headed recess, intended to house the bridge when lifted. The
first defence was a portcullis, the groove of which is large, and
intended for a wooden grate, and behind it was a door. The passage was
covered in by a plain vault. On the right is a well-stair ascending to
the roof; on the left, a sort of lodge, the two windows of which look
into the court. The inner archway has fallen, as has the vault.
The gatehouse had two upper floors, each 20 feet by 10 feet. The first,
the portcullis chamber, has a window at each end, and two in each side.
In the south wall is a fireplace. From this chamber a mural stair leads
to the rampart of the south curtain. That of the north curtain is
reached from the well-staircase. The second floor of the gatehouse
has a window in each face. The floor of this room and the roof were of
timber, and are gone. The gatehouse is probably of the reign of Richard
II. The windows are Tudor insertions.
[Illustration: COYTY CASTLE.—GROUND PLAN.
Wyman & Sons. Gᵗ Queen Sᵗ London.]
The _northern gatehouse_, that between the outer and inner wards,
is destroyed; but the foundations show a passage 9 feet broad by 33
feet deep, which seems to have traversed a mass of buildings 84 feet
broad by 30 feet to 40 feet deep. Of this, the part to the west of the
portal, was a nearly rectangular building, 30 feet by 22 feet, having
an entrance from the passage, and in its south wall a mural staircase.
East of the portal is a much larger building still in part standing,
and which seems to have been the keep.
The _keep_ is nearly rectangular, 37 feet by 40 feet, having at its
eastern end a projection into the ditch, 18 feet by 24 feet. This
projection contained in its basement a plain vault, 15 feet by 9 feet,
with two loops; and a culvert, probably a garderobe, has its vent
below a recess in the north wall. This recess was probably a prison.
The basement of the keep is occupied by a chamber, 28 feet by 22 feet,
at the ground level, and vaulted in eight cells, the ribs forming
which spring to and from a central eight-sided pier. The arches are
pointed. There are two loops in this chamber, and three doors,—one from
the court, set in a square-headed recess; a second into the vaulted
accessory chamber; and a third to a postern opening into the ditch, and
by a mural stair to the chamber above.
The first floor also is composed of two chambers, both vaulted, and the
ribs of the large chamber spring from an octagonal pier resting upon
that below. There was a second, and a third story roofed with timber.
The fireplaces were in the north wall, and the windows in the north and
east walls, and of moderate size and Tudor pattern. This tower seems of
early Decorated date. A part of it has recently fallen.
The _round tower_ is altogether a very curious and a very unusual
structure. It is placed on the south-west front of the inner ward.
It is 18 feet diameter, but projects into the ditch 22 feet, being
connected with the curtain by a neck of wall 14 feet broad. It is
lofty, having a basement and three upper floors. The basement is a huge
vaulted receptacle for sewage, with an outlet to the south. The two
upper floors are alike in dimensions and use, being 9 feet by 7 feet,
and lighted by narrow loops, three on each floor. They are vaulted, and
contain garderobes, with shafts into the vault below. The third story
had a flat wooden roof, now gone. A well-stair led to the battlements.
Laterally, the upper part of this tower is widened by a pair of cheeks
resting on a row of corbels, so as to give greater space within. On the
east side of this tower, at its base and junction with the curtain, is
a postern of 3 feet opening, from which a vaulted staircase ascended
to the domestic buildings. This door is protected by a mass of masonry
filling up the hollow angles above it, and machicolated at its summit.
This part of the castle seems of the age of Henry III.
The whole southern side of the court, from gatehouse to gatehouse, is
occupied by the remains of the domestic buildings. The hall seems to
have had a vaulted basement, 26 feet by 19 feet in plan, with plain
ribs springing from two piers, and to have been on the first floor,
with windows in the curtain. A long chamber east of the hall, with a
long east window, seems to represent the chapel, also on the first
floor. In this quarter some excavations made by the late Lord Dunraven
have shown the stairs leading to the postern, and some vaulted cellars,
and probably the kitchen. All these buildings are of an early Decorated
character, and have been much altered in the Tudor period.
The curtain-wall, from the keep to the great gatehouse, is about 20
feet high, and is of the age of the gatehouse, and later than the wall
elsewhere. Near the gatehouse it is 20 feet thick. Part of its parapet,
6 feet, and rear wall, 5 feet high, remain. The former is bracketed out
on corbels, most of which are removed newels from an older well-stair.
This part of the curtain is reached from the gatehouse, and has no
communication with the keep. Of the same date with this curtain is
the wall on the other side of the gatehouse, southwards for about 16
yards, when there is a junction with the older wall. This part of the
curtain is polygonal outside, and curved within, and externally about
40 feet high. Beyond, or northward of the round tower, the height of
the curtain is 60 feet, and it is pierced with windows belonging to
the hall and other apartments. There remains also, on the wall, a
lofty chimney. Towards the junction of this curtain with the wall of
the outer ward it is connected with a sort of gallery, looped towards
the field, and intended for the defence of the hollow angle where the
three walls meet. The dividing wall between the inner and outer ward is
nearly destroyed, and does not seem to have been strong.
The well is in the open court, 4 feet diameter, circular, and rudely
walled.
The outer ward does not present any very noteworthy features. Its
south wall is low, and pierced with windows, as of lodgings. The north
wall is strongly buttressed outside. There was an outer gateway in the
western wall, now broken down. It seems to have been a mere opening in
the wall, without a gatehouse, but flanked by a pair of buttresses. The
walls of this ward are about 20 feet high. The northern front of the
outer ward, being naturally weak, has been protected by a double ditch,
the contents of which are thrown outwards, and form banks. The ditches
are dry. In a field to the north-east are some banks and ditches which
may have been thrown up when the castle was attacked.
The castle has little to boast of either in material or workmanship. It
is mainly built of lias rubble, but the round tower is of sandstone.
The mortar generally is of inferior quality, and there is but
little ashlar. The roofs were covered with slabs of fissile sand or
tile-stone. The southern curtain is probably the oldest part of the
castle. It is composed of large boulder or popple-stones, necessarily
with very open joints. In it are two small trefoil-headed windows of
early English or early Decorated date, which appear to be original.
They open from the vaulted chamber beneath the hall. The angles of the
curtain are quoined with Sutton stone. The castle, built probably in
the early English and Decorated periods, seems to have been thoroughly
restored and repaired late in the Perpendicular period. It is fast
going to decay, and large portions of it have fallen since 1832. It
is the property of the Earl of Dunraven; but the ditch belongs to Mr.
Nicholl, of Merthyr Mawr, and was planted by his grandfather, the
eminent judge.
END OF VOL. I.
WYMAN AND SONS, PRINTERS, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “By writ of May 30, 1225, the king orders Godescall de Maghelines
to enjoin all persons who have fortalices (_motas_) in the valley of
Montgomery, to strengthen the same with wooden turrets (_bretaschiis_)
for their own security and the defence of these parts.”—_Eyton’s
Antiquities of Shropshire_, xi., p. 134.
[2] Dr. Simpson, whose opinion on such a subject carries great weight,
attributes this keep to the reign of Stephen, the end of the Norman
period.
[3] The tower at Warwick is 105 feet high and 38 feet diameter; a
polygon of twelve sides, with five vaulted stories.
[4] “Dictionnaire de l’Architecture,” tom. vi. “Hourd.”
Transcriber’s Notes:
- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Text enclosed by equals is in bold (=bold=).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- Redundant title and printer information pages have been removed.
- Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.