north-east angle of the ward, and thence turns south, till it abuts
upon the keep. This wall, though probably Norman, is not so old as the
keep or main curtain, so that in the original castle the inner and
middle ward seem to have been one. There is a round-headed door in the
curtain near its north-east angle, which opens between the inner and
middle ward.
The _Middle Ward_ is the most important division of the castle. In it
are the domestic and state buildings, the chapel, the kitchen, and the
great gatehouse. The principal buildings occupy its north side, resting
upon and partly forming the exterior curtain wall. Near the centre is
the hall. This was a noble apartment, 60 feet long by 30 feet broad,
and 35 feet high to the springing corbels of its open timber roof.
The recesses for the hammerbeams remain, and the corbels on which the
principals rested. Owing to the low springing of the main timbers,
the roof had from within the appearance of a very high pitch, which
the water table shows not really to have been the case. The hall is
on the first floor, and approached from the court by a broad exterior
staircase, opening in the south wall near its west or lower end. In the
north wall are three long narrow windows of one light each, trefoiled,
and crossed by a heavy transom, and in the east end of this side a
small door leads, probably, into a garderobe. The view from these
windows is up the Teme and Corvedale. In the south wall are three large
windows looking upon the court; they are of two lights, trefoiled, and
crossed by a transom. Their recesses have equilaterally arched heads,
and the angles are replaced by filleted beads. One window only has a
stone seat. The great door, towards the west end of this side, matches
with the window recesses, though a little lower. In the west end are
two buttery doors of unequal size, and at the north-west corner a door
opens, as at Pembroke, into a well-stair to the roof. In the east end
of the hall, near the north-east corner, and high up, is a combined
door and window—a sort of hatch, by means of which those in the upper
state room could either look into the hall or step down into the
gallery that ran across above the dais. The central south window has
been blocked up, and converted into a late Tudor fireplace. No doubt
the original grate, as at Penshurst, stood in the middle of the hall.
West of the hall is the buttery tower, a very fine group, which
occupied the north-west angle of the ward. Part of it projects boldly,
and caps the north-western angle of the curtain. The part within the
ward is also rectangular. The part connected with the curtain is
Norman, and was a large rectangular tower with an open gorge. In its
base are two round-headed doorways, now nearly buried, whence mural
passages led to garderobes in the curtain. The older part has been
raised, and a pointed arch turned, and upon it a wall built, closing
the gorge at the second floor. This tower has had large additions on
its inner face, and is now a part only of the building, of which the
basement seems to have been a store, and the first floor, 33 feet by 27
feet, a serving-room and buttery attached to the hall. This room was
entered by a side-door on the great hall staircase, so that the dishes
were brought from the kitchen up the great stair, but not through the
great door of the hall. In the buttery is a large fireplace.
At the other or east end of the hall are the state rooms, contained
within a grand and lofty structure, rectangular in plan, and projecting
beyond the hall. Whether the foundations are Norman, or whether, like
the superstructure, the whole is of Decorated date, is doubtful. The
material is excellent ashlar. There are a basement and two upper
floors. In the first is a grand fireplace; but the principal apartments
were on the second floor. The door and window openings are numerous and
varied. Some are excellent Decorated, with lancet and segmental arches;
others are insertions in florid Perpendicular; and others, in wretched
taste and of base materials and workmanship, are of Tudor date. The
upper room has also a large fireplace, and the abutments of the hood
are two carved heads. The north window is of one light, and of great
length, divided by transoms. The south window is of similar character,
but has two lights. This upper room had an open roof of low pitch,
supported by three pairs of principals.
Next to these rooms, on the east side, is a smaller pile of buildings,
also rectangular, which fills up the space between the state rooms and
the north-eastern tower. This, probably, was appropriated below to
servants’ apartments, and above to the principal bedrooms. There are,
in the basement, three fine early Perpendicular windows of two lights,
trefoiled, and with the centre mullion carried through the head.
Windows of this size, so low down in an outer wall, are rare, and what
is also curious, they open from two rooms by no means remarkable for
size or ornamentation. This part of the suite, originally Decorated, on
perhaps a Norman foundation, seems to have been remodelled or rebuilt
in the Perpendicular period. Connected with these buildings and with
the state apartments, and abutting upon both, is the garderobe tower—a
grand rectangular structure projecting from the curtain, and wholly
of ashlar, and of Decorated date. It is composed of a basement and
four upper floors. The basement is occupied by several garderobes, the
spacious outlets of which have already been described. The upper floors
seem to be connected with the state rooms, and in the walls are many
small chambers not accessible. The windows are of one light, trefoiled,
usually with a transom. Between this building and the hall, projecting
outside the curtain, is a multiangular turret containing a staircase.
The north-eastern tower caps the angle of the ward. It is rectangular
in plan and of Norman date. It forms a part of the two curtains of the
middle and outer ward, standing upon each. In its base a door leads
into a mural passage in the east curtain, now blocked up with rubbish,
and in its first floor is a garderobe in the north wall.
The kitchen, wholly of Decorated date, is a large rectangular building,
placed against the wall of the inner ward, but free on the other three
sides. It has two large windows to the east, and an excellent door in
the north wall opposite to the hall staircase. The flagging of the
floor remains, and parts of the large fireplace on the west side,
with a couple of small side ovens. It has had divers Perpendicular
additions. The back kitchen was to the west, and it is probable that
a breach in the adjacent wall of the inner ward represents a late
doorway, communicating with the well and the great oven.
The _Gatehouse_ is approached from the middle ward by a bridge over the
ditch, of which the inner end was broken by a drawbridge, flanked by
walls with loops. The gateway has a low-pointed arch, on a tablet above
which are the arms of Elizabeth and those of Sir Henry Sydney, with the
date 1581. As the curtain is 7 feet thick, and bonded into the keep, it
is evidently original, and the door fittings are an insertion. There
is no portcullis. The entrance door opened into a passage, having the
porter’s prison and the entrance to the keep on the left, and on the
right the gatehouse chambers. The building is of the age of Elizabeth,
and very inferior to the older work. Probably the original entrance was
by a mere archway in the curtain, as at Kenilworth and Bridgenorth.
The _Chapel_, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, is the most remarkable
part of the castle. It stands out in the centre of the middle ward,
between the gatehouse and the hall. All of it that remains is the
circular nave. This is 28 feet in interior diameter, with walls 4 feet
thick. It has an entrance door to the west, and a large chancel arch
to the east. The rest of the interior is occupied by a mural arcade
of fourteen arches, seven on a side, resting on a low stone bench.
The arches are alternately chevron moulded and beaded, the capitals
cushion-shaped and roughly ornamented. Above the arcade was a timber
gallery resting upon twelve corbels, of which one is decided Norman
and one early English. Light was admitted by three windows, to the
west, north, and south. That over the door was round-headed, with plain
flanking detached shafts, and round the head a chevron and double
billet moulding. Outside, these windows rest upon a billeted string,
the flanking shafts are engaged, with small plain caps and bases, and
the ring-stones, of considerable breadth, rest upon an abacus, and are
worked in chevron and billet mouldings. The north and south windows are
quite plain.
The west door is a fine example of enriched late Norman work. Outside,
it stands in a double recess, having detached nooked flanking shafts,
two on each side, with fluted capitals, and the semi-circular spaces
above the flutes are covered with a small indented pattern, a sort
of hollow nail-head. Of the four, all the caps and one shaft remain.
The actual doorway has plain, square jambs. Above, a bold, simple
abacus, the under chamfer of which is hollow, has the face carved with
the rudimentary dog-tooth ornament. Over the door is a deep chevron
moulding. The next ring, over the inner shafts, has a bold beading,
and the outer, and much the broadest ring, has a chevron moulding
reduplicated, and above it a double billeted drip.
The chancel arch is large, round-headed, and of three ribs, beneath a
double billet moulding. The style of ornamentation resembles generally
that of the west door. On the west face are two nook shafts on each
side, and in addition two half shafts are placed as pilasters in the
actual archway supporting the middle rib. This arch and that of the
door have become slightly flattened by settlement, as is shown by the
gaping of the soffit joints near the crown. The east face of this arch
is quite plain, save that the abacus is returned. The original chancel,
42 feet long, had a high-pitched roof, and there is a mark of a second
and later one less steep. The side walls are gone. The curtain formed
the east wall, and has no window. Outside, the nave is divided into two
stages by a billeted string, on which the windows rest, and which is
considerably above the top of the door. Above is a plain battlement of
no projection, with embrasures one-half the breadth of the merlons.
Two arches of the nave arcade have been pierced for Tudor windows, and
a third, to the north, has been converted into a doorway. The north
window has also been made a doorway, and it is evident that a light
gallery of two stages was laid from the domestic apartments to the
chapel, the upper one opening on the circular gallery. The original
way to this circular gallery must have been by a wooden stair within
the building. The chancel was standing in the reign of Charles II.,
and had two Tudor windows in its north wall and windows in the roof,
also the nave had a saddleback roof, of which the gables were east and
west. The material of the chapel is coursed rubble. South-west of the
chapel was, in Elizabeth’s time, a fountain. This chapel is, with great
probability, attributed to Jocelyn de Dinan in the reign of Henry I.
(1100–1135), the Temple Church, which it resembles, dating from 1127.
The _Outer Ward_.—The gatehouse has been much altered and mutilated.
In front it presents the appearance of a gateway, with a low-pointed
arch, in a curtain about 6 feet thick and 35 feet high, of which the
merlons are pierced by plain loops. On each side the gate is a flanking
wall, 3 feet thick, and projecting 8 feet, which, no doubt, covered
the drawbridge. The arch looks Decorated, as is probably the curtain,
though the battlements are probably modern. The ditch has been filled
up, and large trees grow along its course. The only buildings in this
ward are placed against the curtain, and have already been noticed.
There is no evidence, material or by record, of any castle here before
the Norman Conquest. The “low” or mound known to have been removed from
the churchyard, and the memory of which is preserved in the name of
the town, is the only ancient earthwork connected with the place, and
was, no doubt, sepulchral. The original Norman castle seems to have
stood on the present lines. It was composed of a keep, placed close
to the entrance, and forming a part of the _enceinte_. Westward, the
keep was connected by a short curtain with the south-west or bakehouse
tower, rectangular, of moderate size, and having its inner face or
gorge open. From thence the curtain passed at right angles northwards
along the edge of the rock to a second tower, also rectangular, and
containing a postern. From thence, still along the edge of the rock,
the curtain, probably 25 feet high, reached the north-west angle, where
it was capped by a tower nearly rectangular, but placed diagonally, so
as to cap the angle, and which was open in the rear. Thence the curtain
passed eastwards, along the north front, to the north-east angle,
where was a tower, square, or nearly so. No doubt the Norman domestic
buildings were placed upon this curtain, and probably there was a
central tower on the wall near the present garderobe tower. From the
north-east tower to the keep was the curved curtain, probably then, as
now, free from buildings, and outside of this a ditch, still remaining,
and extending from cliff to cliff. Of this original castle there at
present remain the keep, the bakehouse and postern towers, the base of
the buttery, and much of the north-eastern tower, and more or less of
the curtain.
Later in the Norman period certain changes were made. The keep was
raised and enlarged, the curtain forming the inner ward was built,
and probably the well was sunk, and in the middle ward the chapel was
built. The outer ward may have been part of the original design, or it
may have been a late Norman addition; that it was not of later date
than this is shown by the square mural tower. All the rest, curtain,
gatehouse, and Mortimer Tower are later.
The next changes were in the Decorated period, when very important
alterations were made in the older parts, amounting almost to a
reconstruction of the fortress. Very early in the period, perhaps
before it, the north door and window of the basement of the keep were
inserted, the vault turned, and probably the gateway remodelled. At a
later date, but still early in the Decorated period, the hall, buttery,
and domestic apartments were built along the north front and the
kitchen.
The works in the Perpendicular style are few, and are confined to
alterations in the domestic apartments, and in the entrance passage to
the keep and the kitchen.
Then came the Tudor period, in which the castle had to be converted
into a palace for the Presidents of the Marches. The base of the keep
became a prison, the well-stair was probably inserted, the rooms fitted
with Tudor windows and fireplaces, and the gatehouse was built. Much
was done in fitting up the hall and domestic apartments, though in a
slight and flimsy manner, so that most of this work has disappeared,
and stables were built in the outer ward. The extinction of the
Council of Wales, and the civil wars, put a stop to any outlay upon
the place, and for some time it seems to have been freely pillaged,
until it became a complete ruin, without floors, or roofs, or any kind
of fittings in lead, iron, or timber. Of late years it has been so far
cared for as to be protected against all injuries save those of time
and weather, while at the same time it is freely open to all visitors.
What is wanted for antiquarian purposes is that the mural passages
should be cleared out, and a plan made of each floor.
HISTORY.
Ludlow is apparently a purely Norman fortress. Its earthworks, such
as they are, or were, have nothing in common, either in position or
character, with the hill forts of British origin, so common in that
district; neither do they at all resemble the later and English works
attributed to Æthelflæd and her countrymen in the ninth or tenth
centuries, and of which Wigmore, Richard’s castle, and Shrewsbury are
adjacent types. In plan, indeed, Ludlow is not unlike those works
by which headlands and promontories on the seashore were frequently
defended, it is supposed, by the Scandinavian sea kings, and of which
the entrenchment at Flamborough Head is the finest example on record;
but these are seldom, if ever, found far inland, nor is there anything
in the two concentric segments of ditches which constitute, or did
formerly constitute, the earthworks of Ludlow, inconsistent with the
notion that they are Norman works.
There is no mention of Ludlow in Domesday; but that record gives
three places in the district bearing the name of Lude, of which one,
belonging then to Osberne Fitz Richard, is demonstrated by Mr. Eyton
to be the later Ludlow. The termination necessary for its distinction
was derived from a large “low” or tumulus, probably sepulchral, and
which stood until 1190 on what afterwards became the burial-ground of
the parish church. “Lude” or “lud” is thought by the same author to
mean a ford, as, by a common pleonasm, in the adjacent “Ludford.” The
two other Ludes were distinguished by the names of their lords, and
known as Lude-Muchgros and Lude-Sancy.
Mr. Eyton has further shown, almost to demonstration, that Fitz
Richard’s tenant in Lude was the much more considerable Roger de
Lacy, and that when he decided here to build a castle, he obtained
the lordship from Fitz Richard, and founded the castle within ten
years after the survey, or about 1086–1096. Roger was a good type of
a Marcher lord. In 1088 he was in rebellion against William Rufus,
on behalf of Courthose, and again in 1095, when he took part in the
Mowbray rising, was exiled, and so died.
Rufus allowed his estates to pass to his next brother, Hugh, who,
however, died childless between 1108–1121, when the estates fell to the
Crown by escheat. Henry I. granted Ludlow to Pagan Fitz John, who also
held Ewias Lacy, and who was slain by the Welsh in 1136, leaving no
male issue. Stephen seems to have seized his lands, and to have placed
as castellan in Ludlow a certain Sir Joyce or Gotso de Dinan, evidently
a Breton knight. Shortly afterwards, Joyce was in rebellion, for in
April 1139, Stephen, accompanied by Prince Henry of Scotland, laid
siege to the castle, and constructed against it two “counter-forts.” It
was at this siege that Stephen rescued Prince Henry, by his personal
strength, from the grasp of a grappling-iron, thrown over him as they
walked rather too near to the walls. It would seem that the castle was
not taken.
Joyce’s most dangerous foe was his neighbour, Hugh de Mortimer of
Wigmore, of whom he obtained possession by means of an ambush, and
detained him prisoner in the castle; a tower of which has been supposed
by its name to commemorate this event. Joyce died, also without male
issue, about 1166, after which event Henry II. gave or restored Ludlow
to Hugh de Lacy, a descendant, though not in the male line, from the
former family; Emma, the sister of Roger and Hugh de Lacy, having been
the mother of a certain Gilbert, who took his mother’s name, and died
1135, leaving Hugh de Lacy, the new grantee of Ludlow. This Hugh, who
was a very powerful lord in Ireland, held both Ludlow and Ewias, and
was custos of Dublin. Henry II. feared his power, and in 1181 seized
upon Ludlow. Hugh was assassinated in Ireland in 1185, and left Walter,
his son and heir, to whom Henry, in 1189, restored his father’s lands;
but seems to have retained the castle and tower of Ludlow, which thence
came to King John, to whom, in 1206, Walter de Lacy paid 400 marks, to
be reinstated at Ludlow.
John, however, again seized the castle in 1207, and gave it in charge
to William de Braose, and for a time to Philip de Albini, and then
to Thomas de Erdington. Nor did the king restore it till 1214, when
Ingelram de Cygoigne was directed to render it up, which he did,
though unwillingly. Walter, like his father, was chiefly occupied in
Ireland. In 1224 he gave up Ludlow to William de Gammages; no doubt to
hold as a pledge for his own good conduct. He died in 1241, leaving
Walter, his grandson, as his heir, who died under age. Walter left two
sisters, of whom Matilda married, first, Peter de Geneva, one of the
Provençal favourites of Henry III., and who had the custody of Ludlow.
Peter died childless, but in 1234 he made over to William de Lacy the
constableship of the castle in fee. Lacy was to keep it in repair,
and to maintain there a chaplain, porter, and two sentinels, and the
expenses were to be allowed. In time of war, the lord was to garrison
the place, and live in the inner, the tenant living in the outer,
ward. Peter de Geneva died in 1249. His widow then married Geoffrey de
Genville, a Poitevin, who was living in 1283, and who held the castle
and half the manor, the other half belonging to Margery de Lacy, sister
and co-heiress with Matilda, and who had married John de Verdon. During
that period, and immediately after the battle of Lewes, when Simon de
Montfort visited Wales in 1264, he took Ludlow Castle, which, however,
he could have held but for a short time.
Although Peter de Genville, son of Geoffrey and Matilda, died before
both his father and mother, yet he had the castle at his death in
1292. His daughter and heiress, Johanna de Genville, married Roger de
Mortimer, Earl of March, who, in 1316, was joint lord of Ludlow with
Theobald de Verdon, grandson of John de Verdon and Margaret de Lacy.
The Mortimers held what they probably made the lion’s share of Ludlow
for five generations, through some of the most turbulent times in
English history; but under their rule Ludlow gave place to Wigmore,
their chief seat, and the centre of their oldest estates and main
power. Roger, the paramour of the she-wolf of France, received the
young Edward III. at Ludlow soon after his father’s death with great
magnificence, and not long before his own fall, attainder, and
execution. Edmund, his son, recovered this and his other castles in
1354, six years before his death. His grandson Roger, the fourth Earl
of March, obtained the long separated moiety of the Lacy property
by exchange with William de Ferrars, who had inherited it from the
Verdons, and thus transmitted the whole of Ludlow to his son Edmund,
the fifth earl, in whose time Sir Thomas Beaufort, afterwards Duke of
Exeter, held the castle against the insurgent Welsh. The fifth earl
died childless in 1424, when Ludlow Castle and the earldom of March
descended to his nephew, Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, who held
it through the wars of the Roses, and transmitted it to his son, King
Edward IV. The borough of Ludlow profited by the assumption of the
castle by the Crown. The townsfolk were steady Yorkists, and if they
occasionally suffered, and that severely, from the fortunes of war, on
the whole they were gainers. Their ancient franchises, dating at the
least from the commencement of the thirteenth century, were confirmed
in the reign of Henry VI. by Richard, Duke of York, and in 1461 and
1478 Edward IV. gave them an extended charter, under which they were
removed from dependence upon the castle. In 1472 the king sent his two
sons to remain in the castle, where the Council of Wales established
by him, sat in the name of the elder, the Prince of Wales, then but
an infant in arms. They remained at Ludlow until 1483, when they were
removed to a prison and a grave in the Tower. Henry VII. also sent
Prince Arthur, his infant son, born in 1486, to Ludlow, and was himself
a frequent visitor here till the prince’s untimely death in 1502. After
that event the Council of Wales was established on a more regular
footing, and placed under a lord president, who at first was a bishop.
Money was granted for the repairs and maintenance of the castle, which,
it appears from Bishop Lee’s report, in 1535 was in a ruinous state.