moulded and portcullised, with a rebate for a door. This leads into
a sort of peristyle, 8 feet deep, vaulted and groined, with ribs
and bosses, and ending in a second and rather lower portal. In this
peristyle are two lateral doorways, of 3 feet broad, opening upon
the scarp of the ditch between it and the curtain wall, just as at
Hawarden, only there they open from a chamber on the counterscarp.
The arch in which the peristyle ends is rebated for a door, but has
no portcullis grooves. The Decorated work here ends, the portal being
seen to mask the original Norman entrance. This is a perfect, plain,
square-jambed Norman entrance archway, placed in the front and centre
of the original gatehouse, which was a plain rectangular tower of 23
feet projection from the curtain, and 28 feet broad. Entering, the way
lies between two lofty walls, 19 feet apart, and which for 22 feet are
those of the old Norman gatehouse, with two lateral loops raking the
curtain. There was a timber floor above this passage. The walls are
then continued 28 feet further, on the left being the rooms attached
to the great hall, on the right those of Tudor date. Thus the entrance
to this ward is about 100 feet long, defended by a drawbridge, a
portcullis, and two sets of gates.
The two gatehouses of the outer ward next require attention. The
water-gate is, in substance, Roman. The gatehouse is 26 feet square,
with walls 6 feet thick, having no projection outside the curtain. All
is perfectly plain, without buttress, chamfered edge, or moulding.
The way lies through two doorways, opposite each other, of 8 feet 6
inches opening. The inner arch is built of white limestone, with a
few blocks of blood-red iron sandstone. The _voussoirs_ are heavy,
and a single ring. The walls generally are of coursed flint rubble,
very open jointed. In the Decorated period a sort of porch, of 20 feet
projection by 12 feet in breadth, was added upon the outer face, in
the centre of which is an outer gateway, portcullised, and flanked by a
pair of buttresses, placed diagonally. Over the gate is a small window,
and in the side walls two loops raking the curtain. The old Roman
doorway in the line of the curtain has also been altered and refaced
in the Decorated period, and a rebate added for a door. The roof was
of timber, and there was an upper floor, no doubt an addition. This
was reached by a well-stair in the south-west angle, rebuilt for the
purpose, and entered by an interior door.
A study of the water-gate will throw much light upon what has been done
at the land-gate, which was evidently built originally upon the same
pattern. Here the Roman work was either pulled down and rebuilt of the
same dimensions, or, which seems more probable, the Roman core has been
preserved, and a Norman facing applied. The inner gate is perfectly
plain, save that the arch springs from a simple Norman _abacus_, which
is continued outside the wall as a string. The outer gateway has not
even the _abacus_; but it is masked outside by a handsome Decorated
portal, with a drop arch and good moulded jambs, and an exterior drip.
There is no portcullis, and no middle gate. The space between the
gates, a square of 14 feet, was vaulted over from four heavy corbels in
the angles, from each of which sprang five ribs, two placed against the
walls. There was a plain but hollow chamfer, and they met in a central
open circle, and four half circles against the four walls, connected by
four ridge-ribs. The whole is of late Decorated or early Perpendicular
character.
Here, also, an upper floor has been added, and remains pretty perfect.
The chamber is barrel-vaulted, the axis being east and west, and
strengthened by seven plain chamfered ribs, of which the springings
remain; but the bodies of the ribs, with the vault, are gone. The
vault seems to have been pointed, and looks Perpendicular. This room
had windows over the gateways. It was reached by a straight staircase,
placed in a projection parallel to the north wall, on the north side,
and vaulted over. The stair-head opened on the left into the upper
chamber, and on the right upon the curtain. There is another door on
the south side of the chamber opening on the opposite curtain. This
gatehouse has a perfect and very handsome parapet, with merlons and
embrasures of equal size, and a bold moulding is carried round each.
A few yards north of this gatehouse a small lancet doorway has been
opened in the Roman curtain, probably as a postern. At present it is a
mere rough hole; but it looks old, and had it been very modern it would
have been lined with brick.
The structural history of the castle is tolerably plainly written
upon its walls. Henry I., probably before 1133, seems to have built
the keep, and inclosed the inner ward, repaired the Roman curtain,
rebuilt or restored the gatehouse, and placed a hall and other domestic
buildings along the south side of the inner ward. It may be that Henry
himself raised the keep before the works were completed, or this may
have been done by Henry II., as late as 1160.
In the Winchester volume of the “Journal of the Archæological
Institute” is a paper by Mr. Hartshorne upon Porchester, which gives
some curious particulars as to its government and repairs. From these
it appears that in 1220 the roof of the keep was out of order, as
the constable has four _carratas_ of lead for its covering. This
shows that the roof then upon it was the flat one indicated by the
weather moulding. Henry III., who obtained in his second, third, and
fourteenth years upwards of £10 for tallages from the town or manor
of Porchester, suffered the castle to fall into decay, and the return
of a survey ordered by Edward I. in 1274 states that the buildings
within the castle are old, out of repair, and unfit for habitation. A
second report was made twenty years later, after a visit from Edward in
person, and repairs were at once ordered, which were very extensive,
and were continued through much of the reign of Edward II. Mr.
Hartshorne gives an analysis of an account of the clerk of the works
here in 1321.
After the receipts, which in this year were £55. 0s. 0½d., the
particulars of the expenditure are given in detail. First, the
cost of the materials, then the wages of the people employed, the
foundation-diggers or “fundatores,” the masons or “cementarii,” at
4d. a day; their labourers or “servientes”; the collectors of stones,
“colligentes lapidum,” most of which were picked up on the beach, at
6d. a day; throwers of sand, “jactantes zabulonis,” at 2d.; carpenters,
“carpentarii”; sawyers, “sarratores,” at 4d.; fallers, “prostratores”;
bark peelers or “scapulatores,” at 3½d.; tilers, “latamores”; plumbers,
“plumbatores”; smiths, “fabri”; labourers, “laboratores,” &c. A new
lock and key for the east gate cost 4d. William Giles, the tyler,
had 4d. a day, and Robert, his boy, 3d., while covering the chamber
of Edward II. Two large hawsers, for lifting timber and stone to the
top of the tower, cost 43s. 8d.; thirty-two weldichboarde boards
were purchased at Havante for 4d. each. Thomas le Piper supplied 157
stones at 10s., and their carriage from the Isle of Wight cost 6d.
They were employed for the foundation of the bridge under the castle:
probably that in front of the west gate. Peter de Pulford, as clerk and
overlooker, had 12d. a day. These works would be all in the Decorated
style, varying in detail as the style advanced. The work at the top of
the keep was probably the present parapet.
About 12 Edward III. the repairs were resumed. The Queen’s and
Knighton’s chambers were repaired. A “fausse wall” was ordered to be
built, and a barbican with a _brétasche_ and barriers: works evidently
of timber, and probably in advance of the west gate.
Richard II. resumed the works, and about 1396–7, just as the Decorated
style was passing into the Perpendicular, seems to have pushed them
forward with great activity. Mr. Hartshorne points out that the castle
was supplied with stone from Bonchurch and South-Wick, with freestone
from Bereston for doors, windows, and fireplaces; and with flint-stone
and “rag-platen-stone” from Binnerbeg, also in the island. Besides
these were wainscot boards, Botineholt boards, for doors and windows,
hearth tiles or “hurthtighel,” Flemish tiles from Billingsgate, and
“reretighel” or fire-bricks, for the backs of fireplaces. This accounts
for the early Perpendicular work found all over the castle. Probably
that in the Tudor style was executed in the reign of Elizabeth,
who seems to have given her name to the kitchen tower, probably in
consequence of alterations made in it.
The works in modern brick were executed during the present and past
centuries, when the Crown held the castle on lease, and fitted it up
as a prison; building barracks, now removed, in the great court. As
early as 1761 there were Spanish and French prisoners of war here; in
that year, it is said, 4,000. The Dutch prisoners taken at Camperdown
were stowed here, and many French taken in war. It is said that at
one time as many as 8,000 were lodged here. The castle has long been
the property of the Thistlethwayte family. A couple of hundred pounds
judiciously laid out on the keep would close its breaches, restore the
old doorways and stairs, and replace the floors at their proper level.
Some such moderate outlay would also do much to improve the inner ward.
The history of Porchester is but scanty. Until comparatively modern
times it was always in the hands of the Crown, and commanded by
constables, whose names occur from time to time in the public records.
King John, the most restless of monarchs, was here eighteen times
between 1200 and 1214, in all for fifty-two days. Much mention is made
of wine stored here; at one time there were thirty tuns. In 1205 the
king sent an engineer and sixteen miners to stay here for twenty days,
and the constable was to find twenty picked men to aid them. Also
Stephen English, an artificer, was sent. This might be to dig the well
in the inner ward; the keep well must have been dug when or before the
keep was founded. Sheep are sent for the garrison, sixty at a time,
and petraria and mangonels, and other military stores. The tenants who
held by castle guard were warned. To the castle was attached a large
demesne, and a forest, under the charge of the constable, the income
from which was considerable.
Edward I. seems to have been here two or three times, and Edward II.
more frequently, staying here for several days in 1324–5–6. Edward III.
mustered his army here before his French wars, and kept up a strong
garrison and good supplies of wheat and barley, and wine.
RICHARD’S CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
The site of Richard’s Castle, a well-known and very ancient fortress
in the county of Hereford, but near to Ludlow and the borders of
Shropshire, is distinguished by one of those remarkable works in earth
which have hitherto, in topographical books, passed undescribed, or
described only in such general terms as afford no aid to any sound
inference as to the people or the period by whom or at which they
were thrown up. And yet, if there were correct plans and precise
descriptions of the earthworks of this country, it is probable that
some sound general conclusions as to their origin would be arrived at.
Many, probably most, are no doubt pre-historic, but still something
of their history may, it is probable, be established by a careful
consideration of the evidence which they themselves afford.
Richard’s Castle is one of a series of works common on the Welsh border
and the Middle Marshes. Such were Hereford and Worcester, in modern
times despoiled of their mounds: Shrewsbury, still towering above the
deep and rapid Severn: Tre-Faldwin or Montgomery, a single instance
of a town and county bearing the name of the invader: Kilpeck and
Ewias-Harold, already described: Builth, the extreme limit westward
held for any time by the English: Cardiff, Caerleon, Wigmore, and
Richard’s Castle.
Richard’s Castle, fortress and parish, takes name from a certain
Richard Fitz-Scrob, one of the Normans attached to the court of the
Confessor, and who was quartered by that prince upon probably the most
exposed district upon the Welsh frontier; a position commanding some of
the richest and most regretted of the lands conquered by the English,
and sure to be assailed frequently and in force.
What invader originally threw up the magnificent earthwork which must
have guided Fitz-Scrob in his choice of a residence, is not known, but
from its summit is comprehended one of the noblest and most extensive
prospects to be found even in a quarter of England very rich in
pleasing combinations of wood and water, lofty hills and broad and
fertile dales. As the new settler traversed the meads of the Severn,
and left behind him the grassy meadows of the Team and the Lugg, and
rode up the rising ground to the point where his own or his son’s
devotion afterwards established a church, he must have blessed the fate
that placed him amidst a country so rich, and in the possession of
which the vast earthwork immediately before him would be an assurance
of more than ordinary security.
The advent of Fitz-Scrob must have been viewed with profound dislike
from opposite quarters. In those days, on the very eve of the coming
in of William, Gruffydd, the Welsh Prince, well knew how formidable a
neighbour was a Norman knight; and the English, who were aware what
engines of local tyranny were the Norman castles, could not but have
regarded with dismay the lofty walls and towers, which made impregnable
a place already strong, and converted a well-known burh into a castle
such as they had heard of with dread but had not before seen.
What were the precise works constructed by Richard it is difficult to
say. That he converted the mound into his keep, and girt the annexed
ward with a wall is possible, though the masonry, of which vast
fragments still remain, is apparently of rather a later date. There
is no reason to suppose that he built a rectangular keep. There was
already a mound. His keep would be on its summit, and, if masonry were
employed in its construction, it must have been a shell or low tower at
most of 30 feet or 35 feet diameter, such as is seen on the mound of
Cardiff.
The first danger to the new lord came from Earl Godwin and his sons,
who represented the English, and therefore the anti-Norman feeling.
One of the avowed grievances for the redress of which they met in arms
at Beverston, in 1052, was the presence of Richard Fitz-Scrob upon
English soil. That they failed, and that their failure led to the
temporary exile of Earl Godwin is a matter of history. Richard remained
unmolested, and, doubtless, employed himself in adding to his castle
that strength which it could scarcely have in excess. It is not stated
that he shared in the campaign and ignominious defeat of Earl Ralf the
Timid against Prince Gruffydd, but probably he did so.
In 1056, Harold, then Earl of the West Saxons, entered the Marches
against the Welsh, and advanced into Archerfield, where his probable
godson, Harold, the son of Ralph, held the Castle of Ewias-Harold, the
earthworks of which were constructed on the type of those of Richard’s
Castle, and which, a few years later, was to receive additions in
masonry after the same pattern. Whether Richard was in alliance with
Earl Harold or Harold of Ewias is not known, but the position of his
castle would scarcely allow him to be neuter.
In 1062, Gruffydd was again over the Herefordshire border, and Harold,
then holding the Earldom of Hereford, was again at his post, and the
Lord of Ewias joined him. This was followed by the larger expedition,
in which Harold invaded Wales by sea from Bristol, conjointly with his
brother Tostig from Northumberland. They met at Rhuddlan, and soon
after the Welsh Prince was massacred by his own people. During these
turbulent years the whole border must have been in constant turmoil,
and we may fairly suppose that Richard, to whom both parties were in
substance opposed, must have fortified his castle by every means then
in use.
The arrival of the Conqueror relieved Richard from his most formidable
foe, the English people directed by an English leader. He and his
son Osbert shared in the ascendancy of their race, and received from
William large grants in Herefordshire and elsewhere which are duly
recorded in Domesday.
[Illustration: RICHARD’S CASTLE.
Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.]
The castle of Richard’s Castle occupies a position equally remarkable
for beauty and for strength. It stands upon the eastern slope of the
Vinnall Hill, an elevated ridge which extends hither from Ludlow, and a
little to the west of the castle is cleft by two deep parallel gorges,
beyond which the high ground reappears in two diverging ridges, of
which one extends westward in the direction of Wigmore and the other
more southerly to the river Lugg, at Mortimer’s Cross, having on its
ridge the ancient British earthwork of Croft Ambrey, and below it the
fortress of Croft Castle, reported to occupy an early English site.
By this means, Richard’s Castle is protected from the Welsh side by
a double defence of hill and valley, besides its more immediate and
special works.
The castle, though far below the summit of the Vinnall, stands upon
very high ground, sloping rapidly towards the east. An exceedingly deep
and wide gorge descending from the west bounds the position on the
south, while a smaller and tributary valley, descending from the north,
falls into the greater valley below the castle, and thus completes its
strength upon the north, west, and south points. The defence towards
the east is wholly artificial.
Upon the point of the high land, above the meeting of the two valleys,
a large and lofty mound has been piled up, the base of which is about
300 feet above the valley, and the summit 60 feet higher, that being
its proper height. It is about 30 feet in diameter at the top, and the
sides are very steep. It seems wholly artificial, and stands in its own
very deep ditch, beyond which is a high bank. On the west side, this
ditch is succeeded by the steep natural slope descending to the river,
but towards the east the ditch seems to have been reinforced by a
second, which encloses a larger area, more or less semilunar in shape,
and which has a bank within and upon the scarp of the outer ditch,
which is here artificial, and cuts off the fortress from the adjacent
high ground now occupied as the churchyard.
These were the defences of the original fortress, and, as was almost
invariably the case when the Normans converted such an earthwork into
a castle, a round tower or shell was constructed upon the summit of
the mound, constituting the keep. From this, on the north-east and
south-west sides, a strong and lofty curtain wall descended the slope,
and on reaching the edge of the ditch was bent eastward, and curved
round so as to include the whole intrenched area south-east of the
mound, and half the mound itself, of which the other or western half,
strong in its great natural strength, augmented by its ditch, was left
without any exterior or second line of defence in masonry. The domestic
buildings stood in this base court or lower ward, the keep only being
occupied during a siege, or under exceptional circumstances. The
entrance was by an arch in the curtain on the south side. Thus, as at
Shrewsbury, Berkhampstead, and Tamworth, and indeed very generally,
the mound and keep stood on the general _enceinte_ of the fortress,
forming a part of its outer defence. The lower ward was accessible to
wheeled carriages, but the keep could only be ascended by steps. At
this time the summit of the mound is covered with _débris_ and rubbish,
upon which young timber trees and underwood have made vigorous growth,
and the enclosure, naturally inaccessible, is strictly preserved. The
curtain descending the slope on the north-east is tolerably perfect,
as is the adjacent part along the north-west front of the lower ward.
Farther on, the wall seems to have been lifted with gunpowder, and a
vast fragment lies in the ditch. Beyond this the foundations here and
there appear; the wall itself remains skirting the scarp of the ditch
along the east and south fronts, and towards the latter side is the
place where the arch of entrance pierced the wall, as shown by the gap
in the masonry and the passage through the bank. Just beyond this the
curtain ascends the mound and abutted on the keep tower, completing the
circle of the defences in masonry.
From the density and offensive character of the vegetation it is
difficult to get a good general view of the place or to follow its
details, but the fragments of masonry lie about generally, and, if
cleared of nettles and the thin upper soil removed, no doubt a correct
plan of this most interesting place could be obtained, and the date
of the masonry ascertained with some degree of certainty. The masonry
above ground is probably Norman, but all the ashlar has disappeared.
The great interest of the place is due to its very remarkable
earthworks, and to the fact that it was occupied and fortified by a
Norman master before the Conquest.
The adjacent church is a large and rather fine building in the
Decorated style. It stands but a very few yards outside the castle
ditch, up to which its burial-ground extends. It is remarkable in
having a large square belfry tower, detached, and placed a few yards
south-east of the chancel.
ROCHESTER CASTLE.
Rochester—Fortress, Cathedral, and City—is a very remarkable place—in
some respects the most remarkable place in the South of England.
In each of its triple capacities it claims a high antiquity. Its
ecclesiastical history commences with Augustin and Æthelbyrht, the
founders of its see, over which Justus, the friend of Augustin, was the
first to preside, and to the endowments of which a long succession of
Kentish and Mercian princes contributed. Its secular history, though
often obscure, ascends to a yet more remote period, and its material
evidences are still to be read in the form of works either in earth or
masonry, showing Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Norman occupations.
Rochester is built upon a low cape or promontory formed by a grand bend
of the Medway, the central part of which is occupied by the city, and
the most prominent and northern point by the castle. The great Roman
way from Canterbury to London traversed the length of the cape, and
crossed the river near its apex, in the line of the ancient and nearly
of the present bridge.
The position of the fortress is very noble. Rising from a base of hard
ground high above the stream, it forms a grand feature upon the shore
of the Medway, here 1,000 feet in breadth, and which almost vies with
the Thames in the volume of its waters. From the turrets of the keep is
seen outspread a view of great extent and exceeding variety, including
the steep and verdant slopes of the chalk, and the broad and fertile
meads across which the great river flows in graceful folds, concealed
and betrayed by the inequalities of the hills and the scattered masses
of forest trees. The cathedral, indeed, is scarcely worthy of these
advantages. Far from asserting, as at Durham, Canterbury, or York,
its equality with, or even superiority over, its temporal neighbour,
the cathedral of Rochester, venerable as it is, and honoured as are
the ashes that lie within its precincts, is of small dimensions, and
in position low. The castle, on the other hand, is a masterpiece of
Norman skill, and the first and last object that strikes the eye of the
visitor.
The castle of Rochester occupies the northern termination of a chalk
ridge which forms the right bank of the Medway for many miles above
the city, and intervenes between the river and the cathedral, upon the
margin of the one and but a short distance from the other. It thus
covers about half of the western front of the city, and extends into
what was the south-western angle of its walled enclosure.