75 yards to 125 yards apart, or at a “flyte shoot,”—explained to be
within 400 yards, and here much less. They were rather more than half
round—that is to say, their side walls were a little prolonged or
stilted in plan, and they were 34 feet high, having a cruciform loop in
front, and probably two others laterally. Of these, two at least remain
and are accessible, though their upper half has been removed. The
intervening curtain was 16 feet high on the interior, but it was built
against the old English bank, which thus covered the lower 6 feet of
the interior face, and served as a ramp. Besides the two towers already
mentioned, which stood on the north-west face, the wall may be traced
along the western side from Bishop’s Gate—now “the Commercial Road”—to
the river bank. Where it has been pulled down the step remains, and
the difference between the level within and without is brought to
view. Of this wall the part from the Friar’s Gate to the river is open
to view from the exterior paddock. The ditch has been partly filled
up, but the wall remains about 12 feet high, unaltered, save by the
removal of its upper 4 feet or 6 feet. At regular intervals along it
of about 50 feet are broad pilaster buttresses, of slight projection,
and without sets-off. These die into the wall below its present top.
There do not appear to have been any mural towers on this part of
the wall. Some kind of manufactory conceals the termination of this
wall upon the river, where there was probably a tower; and from this
point to the bridge a line of modern houses effectually conceals any
foundations that may have escaped. The tracing out the town wall, or
what remains of it, though aided by parallel streets, representing the
rampart within and the ditch without, is a delicate operation; for the
lowest houses of the city are here found, and the inhabitants seem to
drive the trade of those who, at Jericho, dwelt in a similar locality.
That part of the wall showing the pilasters is, no doubt, the original
Norman wall. The part beyond, or, at least, the towers upon it, is
probably of the time of Henry III. The wide modern street, called
Commercial Road, which takes the place of the old Bishop’s Gate, has,
of course, caused the removal of all traces of the wall near the site
of the gate; but the line may still be traced round the eastern quarter
of the city as far as the angle of the castle. Here, as before, are two
roads—one inside and one outside the line of the wall—the actual place
of which is shown, sometimes by a few stones built into the walls of
later houses, and sometimes by a dip of nearly 6 feet in level. Beyond
St. Owen’s Gate the actual wall remains for some yards, and may be seen
from the exterior road. It extends to the counterscarp of the castle
ditch, where it ends abruptly, having been in part pulled down.
The city bridge crosses the Wye by six arches, round headed, and
all apparently old. One is stiffened with three plain square ribs,
and another shows traces of a similar addition. The bridge has bold
piers, and advantage has been taken of this to widen it by turning a
subsidiary arch, about 5 feet wide, on each face, so that the old work
is partially concealed. It does not appear where the fortified gateway
was placed; probably upon the last narrow arch on the city side. This
does not, indeed, show any trace of having been perforated for a
drawbridge, and tradition places the gate at the outer end.
Next to and a little below the bridge, near the river bank, and a
little south of the centre of the city, stands the cathedral, and below
and next to it the castle.
Besides the cathedral and its appendage of St. John’s, there stood
within the walls four churches—St. Nicholas’s, All Saints’, St.
Peter’s, and St. Owen’s. There was also St. Martin’s, beyond the
Wye, destroyed during the civil wars. The disposition of the streets
is irregular, and in no way cruciform or indicative of any Roman
arrangement. Thus situated and defended, Hereford was a very strong
place, as it had need to be, for it was exposed to the fierce and
repeated attacks of the Welsh, who especially resented, as was natural,
the conquest of their most fertile provinces by the invaders.
The castle, as has been said, occupied the south-eastern quarter of the
city. It lay in the parish of St. John. Leland describes it as one of
the fairest, largest, and strongest castles in England.
It was composed of two wards placed side by side along the bank of
the Wye, not actually on the stream, which, when the defences were of
earth, might have undermined them; but about 7 yards distant from and
on the edge of a steep sloping bank, about 8 feet above the water.
In general plan the eastern ward was an oblong, the sides being nearly
straight, and the east end narrower than the west. The eastern end runs
at right angles to the river, and measures along the old line of its
wall 100 yards. The south or river front measured 175 yards, as did the
north front. The west front, connecting the two, measured 196 yards.
This inclosure formed the eastern or lower ward, and contained about
26,000 square yards.
The upper or western ward was applied to the end of the eastern,
and like it rested on the river. In form it was rounded, or rather
irregularly polygonal, and composed of a large conical mound, wholly
artificial, with a circular circumscribing ditch. Within the ditch it
measured, on the east and south sides, each 100 yards, and, on the
three remaining sides, 60 yards each. It was, therefore, in girth about
380 yards, and in area about 14,000 yards. Thus the area of the whole
castle, ditches included, might be about 8¼ acres. The eastern ward is
stated to have contained about 5½ acres.
The earthworks of the lower ward are tolerably perfect. They are
composed of a steep bank along the north and east sides, from 15 feet
to 30 feet high, the highest and broadest part being at the north-east
angle, where there was probably a tower. This bank has evidently been
thrown up out of a broad and deep ditch, which remains perfect and full
of water, on the north front; but has recently been filled up along the
east as far as the river; nor do there remain any traces of the castle
mill, which stood at its junction with the river. The ground is raised
along the river front about 4 feet, and may have been higher. Along the
west or side towards the upper ward, the bank has been thrown into the
ditch, and there is only a trace of either. Leland says there was “a
great bridge of stone arches, and a drawbridge in the middle of it to
enter into the castle;” but even in Leland’s time this was gone.
The entrance to this ward was evidently at its north-west angle, where
the moat is crossed by a causeway, and the public now enter. There was
a gatehouse in Speed’s time, which he places, probably by an error of
drawing, near the middle of this face. But the bank is there far too
high, and the ditch far too deep and broad, to allow of the entrance
being placed there.
The modern museum, built on the river at the south-west angle of the
ward, or rather between the two wards, and over the line of the ditch,
contains some parts of an older building, and a doorway of the time of
Henry III. or Edward I. This building probably guarded the opening of
the middle ditch into the river, and was also the gatehouse between the
two wards. Speed shows a sort of water-gate here, which is probable
enough. The surface of the lower ward is level. In it stood the chapel
of St. Cuthbert, with a semicircular apse, and in Speed’s time also two
small dwelling-houses. Leland says, “There is a fayre and plentifull
spring of water in the castell, and that, and the piece of the brook
coming out of the ditch, did drive a mill within the castle.” This was
in addition to the mill outside and north of the castle, and probably
was a part of the present museum-house.
The earthworks of the upper ward have unfortunately been destroyed,
the mound and banks thrown into the ditches, and all made level and
much built over. The site of the mound is occupied by an enclosed
three-cornered kitchen garden. The well or spring spoken of as St.
Ethelred’s remains. It opens behind the museum building about 50 feet
from the river, and 6 feet or 8 feet above it. As it is described as
being further north, it is probable that when the ditch was filled up a
pipe was laid to bring the water out at its original level. This ward
contained the mound known as the Castle Hill, and which seems to have
been removed early in the present century. It was girded at the base
by a polygonal curtain wall, outside of which was the ditch. It is
difficult clearly to understand how the mound was occupied. Leland says
“there was one great tower in the inner warde.” Sir Henry Slingsby, in
his diary, in 1645, describes Hereford city as not much unlike York,
“for it hath a round tower mounted upon a hill, like to Clifford’s
Tower, and the mills near it, with some little works about, having the
river Wye running close by; but the walls, though they be high, yet
are not mounted upon a ramp, as York walls are.” This is intelligible
enough, the walls spoken of having been at the base of the hill; but
Leland speaks also of a donjon or keep, of what plan is unknown; but
upon its wall ten half-round towers, and within, what appears to have
been a square tower of considerable height, in the base of which was a
dungeon. We may safely conclude from Sir Henry Slingsby’s very clear
account that the mound carried, like Cardiff and Kilpeck, a shell keep;
but this could scarcely have been furnished with ten half-round towers.
These probably belonged to the _enceinte_ wall below. The keep was
entered, it seems, from the south-east side by a flight of steep steps
up the mound. In the mound was a well, lined with stone, as at York.
The castle ditches were wide, deep, and filled with water, not from
the river, or but partially so, but from a brook, which seems to have
fed the city ditch on this side, and on reaching the castle at the
north-east angle to have divided, a part running direct along the east
front of the lower ward, to the river, and the other part supplying the
north ditch, and the ditch which divided the upper from the lower ward,
and the ditch which passed round the east side of the ward, and divided
it from the cathedral precinct. This latter ditch also received some
little contribution from St. Ethelred’s Well, a spring on the north
side of the upper ward, already mentioned. The castle mill stood at the
junction of the eastern ditch with the Wye. The water in the castle
ditches was, of course, penned back for the use of the mill, and to
strengthen the defences, and it seems to have flowed back upon the city
ditch as far as St. Owen’s Gate, thus strengthening and connecting the
city and the castle.
We have, then, to recapitulate, as the constituent parts of Hereford
Castle, an oblong space, with the river on one side, and high banks
and ditches on the other three. One end was cut off from the rest, and
had its proper ditch, more or less circular, and within it a conical
mound, with a table summit, and upon it a shell keep, with some kind of
central tower, probably an addition. At the base of the mound, within
its ditch, was a second wall, many sided in plan.
The lower ward, no doubt, had its walls along the summit of the
earthworks, and these probably were low, by reason of the height of
the bank and the depth of the ditch beyond. There was a gatehouse at
the land entrance at the north-west angle, and a water-gate at the
south-western, where also was the passage between the two wards. Very
likely there was a postern at the south-eastern angle, where is now a
footway.
There is a general resemblance, as regards the mound and bank, between
these arrangements and those at Wallingford, Wareham, and Tamworth, and
with what is related of the castle of Worcester.
HERTFORD CASTLE.
The Castle of Hertford not only is of high antiquity, but the date
of its foundation is on record. The Saxon Chronicle relates that in
the year 913, Edward the Elder, son of Alfred, threw up two Burhs
at Hertford, one at Martinmas, on the north bank of the river, and,
later on, one on the south bank, between three of the rivers which
here unite. The former of these works has long been laid low, and
no trace of it is visible, but the latter has been preserved by its
incorporation into the later castle. The mound, standing on the edge
of the river Lea, is indeed shorn of its original dimensions, but it
remains, and attached to it is the base court with its exterior ditch,
once of great breadth and depth, the invariable accompaniment of the
mound, and with it constituting the Burh.
[Illustration: Hertford]
Edward’s Burhs may have been preceded by an earlier earthwork, for
Hertford is reputed to stand on the site of a chief town of the
Trinobantes, the British occupants of the district north of this
part of the Thames. The Britons, however, if they here established a
stronghold, are more likely to have placed it upon one of the adjacent
heights, where are several excellent positions for an entrenchment.
Probably the existence of a British settlement in a neighbourhood so
well protected by its watercourses attracted the invading settlers, for
here the East Saxon kings are said to have had a residence, and to this
place Archbishop Theodore, consecrated in 668, convened a synod of the
national Church in 673.
The Danes overran this part of England more than once, and the camp at
Danesbury was probably their work. Also, they are thought to have had
a camp upon Port Hill, of which, however, it is said that no traces
are now to be seen. It was upon the river Lea, between Hertford and
Waltham, that Alfred rendered the Danish fleet useless by blocking up
the river, and so preventing their return. It is on record that this
was effected, not by actually throwing a dam across the stream, but by
the far more scientific process of cutting a number of channels for its
waters, each too shallow to allow the vessels to float down. By this
means the retreat of the Danes to the Thames was cut off, and they were
fain to march inland to the Severn at Bridgenorth.
In 913 the protection afforded by the Hertford Burhs seems to have
attracted inhabitants, who occupied both banks of the river Lea, and
the town thus situate was raised by Edward into a royal Burgh, held of
the Crown by burgage tenure. Hertford was so held of the Confessor, and
so accepted by the Conqueror, and entered in Domesday, which, however,
as was not uncommon, makes no mention of the castle, nor, indeed, of
the churches. William is said to have strengthened the castle, and he
gave it in charge to Peter de Valoignes, one of his followers, who
transmitted it to his son Roger, and he to his two sons in succession,
Peter and Robert. The male line closed with Robert, whose daughter
and heiress, Gunnora de Valoignes, married Robert Fitz-Walter. The
charge of the castle does not seem to have descended, but to have been
resumed, possibly as a male fief, by the Crown.
King John, that most erratic of monarchs, held the castle, and visited
it in 1212, 1213, and 1216. In this latter year, however, it was
attacked by Lewis of France, who laid siege to it from St. Martin’s
(November 11) to St. Nicholas’s Day (December 6), and finally took
it. Robert Fitz-Walter, an adherent of Lewis, took the opportunity to
revive his wife’s claim, but without success. It was finally recovered
by John, and transmitted to his son Henry III., who placed Richard de
Argentin in charge of it, and expended £20, and probably other sums,
in its repairs. In 1226 it was held by Hubert de Burgh, on whose fall
Henry granted it to be held _in capite_ by William de Valence, after
whom it was held by his son, Aymer, Earl of Pembroke.
Edward III. resumed possession in 1327, and granted the castle to
John of Gaunt, his son, from whom it finally passed into the Duchy
of Lancaster, to which it is nominally attached. Henry IV. kept
his Easter here in 1429, and Henry VII. continued to appoint a
constable and a porter. It is described as “castrum non immensum sed
pulcherrimum.” Hertford fared better than most royal castles, possibly
from its convenient position as regarded London, for in the reign of
Henry VIII. it contained lodgings suitable for the king, and Edward
VI. and the Princess Elizabeth were both here. By the latter, when
queen, it was alienated to Sir William Harrington, who built a large
brick house on the site of the inner gatehouse, which still remains.
In the time of James I. the castle is described as covering 7¾ acres.
The ditch then extended to the roads or streets now known as the Mill
Bridge, the Wash, and Castle Street. The mill was upon the Lea just
below the castle mounds. The Church of St. Andrew stands about 150
yards from the remaining mound, beyond the river. There was a second
mill, probably that on the river above the castle. The castle was
finally leased to Mr. Secretary Cecil, in whose descendant, the Marquis
of Salisbury, it remains. It is remarkable that Hertford Castle at no
time belonged to the earls who bore the title of Hertford. They were,
of course, earls of the county, though this is not specified in the
peerages. Their principal eastern seat was at Clare in Suffolk, round
which they possessed considerable property.
The strength of Hertford as a military position was very great, and
depended upon the low marshy ground by which it was almost surrounded,
and which was liable to be flooded by the waters of three, or rather
four, considerable streams, “flumina non profunda sed clarissima.” Of
these, the Lea, flowing from the west, received, a few yards above
the castle, the Mimram from the north-west, while a little below the
castle the combined stream is swollen by the waters of the Beane from
the north, and the Rib from the north-east, the combined volume flowing
forward under the name of the Lea. Below, or south-west of the castle,
along the course of the Lea, is a wide breadth of lowland, which even
now is occasionally flooded, and which in former days must have been an
impracticable morass. In the other direction the ground, though built
upon and forming a part of the town, is for some distance around but
little higher than the meadow, though here and there, elevated 4 feet
or 5 feet, appear small deposits of gravel. The castle stands upon the
right bank, south-east of the river, and its extreme limit, within
the counterscarp or outer edge of its main ditch, included a space
something in the figure of an ear, the river forming the shorter side
or concavity. In length, north-east and south-west, this space measures
234 yards; its breadth varies from 100 yards to 200 yards, with a mean
of 140 yards. The ditch, now almost filled up and in part built over,
was about 30 yards broad, and no doubt filled from the river with which
it communicated at each end. Within the ditch, taking the line of the
old bank, or of the present wall, the area is about three and a half or
four acres. The mound is placed on the edge of the river, at the north
angle of the enclosure. The bank does not include it, but points to its
centre, so that the mound, as was not unusual, formed a part of the
enclosing defence. The proper ditch of the mound has been filled up.
Of the mediæval castle there remains only a considerable part of the
wall of the _enceinte_, and, it may be, some ancient masonry built up
into Sir William Harrington’s house, which is still inhabited. This is
said to have been the gatehouse; if so, it was that of the northern
ward, and was upon the line of the wall dividing the one ward from the
other. The curtain wall is about 7 feet thick, and 25 feet to 30 feet
high, and composed of flint rubble. The battlement is gone or nearly
so, and there remains but a part of one mural tower, circular in plan,
which capped the south-east angle of the wall of the northern ward. The
wall covers the northern and most of the eastern sides of the area.
There is no trace of it along the western or river side. No doubt it
was less substantial on that side, upon which the natural defence was
strong. The south or smaller ward does not appear to have been walled
in. It was covered on the three sides by the river and the marsh, and
may have been palisaded only. The wall evidently crossed the ditch of
the mound, and abutted upon it, or possibly upon the shell keep, all
vestiges of which are gone.
The present entrance to the castle is at the eastern angle of the
ditch, which is traversed by a road leading to a small and apparently
modern doorway in the wall. There is no trace of a main entrance in
this direction, but it must be confessed that if the main entrance lay
to the south of the gatehouse, it must have been difficult to approach,
save by water.
HOPTON CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE.
About five miles south-east of Clun, upon a tributary of the Teme, is
placed the parish and castle of Hopton, the Opetune of Domesday, when
it was, like Clun, held by Picot as the successor of Edric. It was a
fief of Clun. In 1165 it was held by Walter de Opton as two knights’
fees under Geoffrey de Vere, one of the three husbands of Isabel de
Say; and Peter de Opton held it in 1201. William de Hopton may have
followed, but Mr. Eyton is not clear whether he may not have been of
Monk-Hopton in the same county.
However this may be, Walter de Hopton held the fief in 1223, as did
another Walter, 1255–72, and was bound to provide for the defence of
Clun Castle one soldier all the year round, and a second for forty
days in time of war. In 1304–5, upon the death of Walter de Hopton, he
was seized of the Vill of Hopton with its hamlets, and a considerable
property about it, chiefly held under Clun, as continued to be the
original two fees, by Sir John de Hopton, in the 21 Richard II. The
family seems to have remained at Hopton till the reign of Elizabeth,
but the castle was still standing and of sufficient strength to be
held for King Charles in the seventeenth century. It was taken after a
gallant resistance, and dismantled.
[Illustration: HOPTON CASTLE.—_Ground Plan._]
Hopton Castle or Tower stands about half a mile south of the parish
church. It occupies a knoll or patch of gravel, which rises out of
a marshy bottom, caused by the waters of the brooks which here fall
into the main stream. There is a central mound, low but well defined,
which is surrounded by a circular ditch, and beyond this ditch are the
traces of two or three platforms, but slightly elevated, and which
have been fortified by ditches fed with water by a streamlet from the
west. No doubt the place was occupied by some tenant of Edric, for its
earthworks are certainly pre-Norman, and perhaps of the tenth century.
It is probable that its Norman tenant and his descendants, who derive
their names from the place, were for some centuries content with such
defences as they found ready to their hands, for there is no trace of
masonry, either of the eleventh or twelfth centuries.
The castle consists of a single tower, quadrangular, 48 feet by 50
feet, with walls 10 feet thick. It stands upon the mound, which is
not above 6 feet high, and through which the foundations are no doubt
carried. It has a basement at the ground level, a first or main floor,
and an attic in the roof. The exterior is plain, having a double-scroll
stringcourse from 4 feet to 6 feet from the ground. Each angle is
capped by a pair of broad pilasters of slight projection, which ascend
to the summit, and probably carried four square turrets. The doorway
is on the north side, not far from its west end, and nearly at the
ground-floor level, ascended from the exterior by three or four steps.
The south front has a square projection at its west end, in which is a
garderobe. The doorway, the only entrance, is 6 feet wide, and has an
equilateral arched head. Its mouldings are two convex quarter circles
divided by a step. Their character is plain but excellent Decorated.
Over the doorway was a triangular hood, now broken away. There is no
portcullis, only a strong door.
Entering, a vaulted passage leading to the basement has a small door on
the right, which leads into a well-stair, 6 feet in diameter, occupying
the north-west angle of the building, and ascending to the roof. At
the first floor is a lobby, with a small window above the outer door.
This is the only staircase. The basement chamber is 29 feet by 21
feet. In the north wall is a deep recess, 7 feet wide, containing a
small square-headed loop. Opposite, in the south wall, is a similar
recess and window, but in the jambs are two doors, which by short
passages lead into two chambers in the two southern angles. That in the
south-east angle is 7 feet by 6 feet, with two loops. The other is a
garderobe, with one loop. Both are covered in with overhanging slabs.
In the west side is another window, in a recess, similar to those above
described, and a fireplace with a vertical tunnel. In the east wall are
two recesses, one blank and one pierced with a loop. From the jamb of
this latter a door opens into a small chamber in the north-east angle.
The first floor is lofty. The joists and boards are gone, and the walls
and window recesses are so thick with brambles and so inaccessible
that the details are not to be seen. This floor seems to resemble the
basement, save that it is higher, and the windows are larger.