finding a scarcity of deer, begs the usual warrants may be restrained.
In 1661, at the coronation, Edward Lord Rockingham, as tenant _in
capite_ of Little Weldon, claimed to be keeper of the king’s dogs.
This was referred to the king. The manor was held by the service of
keeping twenty-four buckhounds and six harriers. With the Civil War the
value of the castle as a place of strength ceased, and it became the
residence of the Watson family, as it has since remained.
Some years ago the late Mr. Hartshorne drew up an account of the
castle, which, with copious notices of its descent, and of its
connexion with the forest, was printed in the first volume of the
“Transactions” of the Institute. Since then, the Rev. H. J. Bigge,
for many years rector of Rockingham, has paid much attention to the
subject, and has made collections concerning it, for the use of which
the present writer is much indebted.
OLD SARUM, WILTSHIRE.
The Wiltshire Avon, which shares that well-known name with her
Somersetshire sister, and rises in part from the same ground,—that
“Eastern Avon,” which
————vaunts, and doth upon her take
To be the only child of shadeful Savernake,—
is one of the coldest and clearest streams in the south. Whether its
source be taken from the high land of the Devizes, or from the skirts
of Savernake, it runs about fifty miles to the sea at Christchurch,
and, in that distance, itself, or by its immediate tributaries,
traverses a tract very rich in sylvan beauty, and crowded with material
traces of the old inhabitants of the land, and of their severe struggle
in the sixth century with the fiery deluge by which they were at last
swept away, but which brought with it those seeds of civilisation which
have nowhere grown more abundant fruit than along the banks of this
celebrated stream.
Much of the upper course of the Avon lies across Salisbury Plain, where
it cleaves that table-land of the chalk by a valley full of sudden but
not ungraceful bends and secluded nooks, each bright and rich with
vegetation, and in almost every bend a village and its church, there
being twenty of the latter in the same number of miles between the
entrance of the Avon into the chalk at Beaching-Stoke and the expansion
of its ravine at Salisbury. The lower valley is broad and flat, and the
waters flow freely in many inosculating channels. The lowlands are laid
out as rich water meadows, the uplands studded with masses of oak, elm,
and beech, the skirts of the adjacent New Forest. Nothing can be more
wild, more natural, nor yet more indebted to the labour and taste of
man.
For antiquities, every part of the broad plain of the chalk is
dotted over with marks of human habitation, warfare, or sepulture.
Almost every headland is crowned by a camp recognised as British by
its outline following the irregularities of the ground. Upon its
northern frontier may be seen Easton and Pewsey, Lidbury, Sidbury,
Chisenbury, Casterley, Broadbury, and Bratton; and, on the southern,
Durrington, Amesbury, Quarley, Ogbury, Winterbourne, Grovely, Belbury,
and Old Sarum, a few only, though the most considerable, of the
defensive earthworks. Lower down the valley and nearer to the sea, the
ground is rather less strong, and the earthworks of the British age
perhaps less numerous, but there are not wanting examples of large
area and great strength, such as Clearbury, Whichbury, Chiselbury,
Tisbury, Winkelbury, and, still further south, Dudsbury, Badbury, and
Spettisbury, which remain but little altered. Stonehenge, the grandest
of British antiquities, and probably the only one in this immediate
district neither military nor sepulchral, stands on the right bank of
the Avon, scarce a mile from its waters, and only six from the fortress
of Old Sarum.
The Roman remains of the district are considerable, and characteristic
of the people. They consist almost wholly of roads. Old Sarum,
though certainly of British origin, is the centre of several great
roads, which radiated from it towards the Roman settlements at Bath,
Marlborough, Winchester, Silchester, Ilchester, and Dorchester, and
upon these and between them are various works of the same people,
though their camps, being rarely defended by formidable works in earth,
and being usually on low and accessible ground, have very frequently
disappeared before the ploughshare.
The English, the scourge of the later Britons, and their successors
by the right of many a hard-won contest in the Wiltshire territory,
notwithstanding their pagan ferocity, have left traces which speak but
of law and order. Their dragon’s teeth have grown up, not, as might
have been expected, in armed men, but in waving cornfields, enclosed
pastures, parochial boundaries, and those various subdivisions of the
land the very existence of which implies peace and private property.
To these later invaders may be attributed such earthworks as Downton,
the Devizes, and Ludgershal, and such ecclesiastical foundations as
Wimborne and Christchurch. The Norman remains in and about the valley
of the Avon differ in no material respect from those in other parts
of England, being grafted, where circumstances admitted of it, upon
the existing works. Thus the grand earthworks at the Devizes, at
Marlborough, at Ludgershal, at Twynham, all probably of English origin,
were crowned with keeps of masonry, as was the central mound at Old
Sarum, and on the borders of the district the very curious work at
Wareham, and the natural, but early occupied hill, at Corfe.
Old Sarum is a very noteworthy place; in some respects the most
noteworthy in Britain. Selected at some remote period and fortified
with appliances of a simple character, it is the principal stronghold
of a district very rich in military earthworks, and which at one time
was the resort of inhabitants whose huts and wigwams, and the monuments
of their superstition, covered the adjacent downs, and whose sepulchral
monuments, ascending to the stone age, point, by their contents, to
an early, and, by their number, to a long-continued population. The
earlier and later Britons, Celtic or Belgic tribes, the Romans, and the
English, have each here left traces of their rule; the Celt, partly in
the fragments of an ancient nomenclature, but chiefly in mere material
works, curious, indeed, and grand, but which are in no way connected
with the later inhabitants of the country; the Romans, in those
marvellous public ways, many of which are still in use; and the English
in those names, boundaries, and customs, which are associated with our
religion and our civilisation.
Nevertheless, the mound of Old Sarum is a spot on which the descendant
of the Welsh-speaking Britons has a right to feel pride. All around it
savours of the remote antiquity of his race. The Norman fortress,
the city, the cathedral church, have all vanished; their very ruins
have perished, and the knowledge of their arrangements has only been
recovered by the accident of a rainless summer. Even the traces of
Roman and English residence within the vast enclosure are uncertain
and obscure. The seats of spiritual and civil authority were removed
in the thirteenth century, and the military sway did not long survive.
Political power, indeed, by a strange anomaly, lingered there until
our own day, and is redeemed from oblivion only by its accidental
connection with the name of the elder Pitt. But this also has departed.
The bare and gaunt banks and mounds, the skeleton of the past life, are
all that is left, and here, as at Stonehenge, the memory of the Briton
is once more predominant.
[Illustration: OLD SARUM.
Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.]
Old Sarum is a rudely circular and concentric earthwork, of unusual
height and area, and of more historic celebrity than is attached to
any other mere bank of earth in Britain, however stupendous. Moreover,
though really as much a natural knoll of chalk as Windsor, its sharp
outline and obviously artificial finish invest it, to the ordinary
observer, with the character of a work of man, and thus prodigiously
enhance the admiration with which it is wont to be regarded. Old Sarum
is really a knoll of the lower and flint-bearing chalk series, of
which advantage has been taken to scarp and elevate the highest and
central part into a steep flat-topped mound, round which is excavated a
formidable ditch, very broad and very deep. Beyond the ditch is a broad
and comparatively level annular area, sloping slightly from the centre,
and in its turn girdled by a second and still more formidable ditch. Of
this the counterscarp is a steep bank, outside of and beyond which is
the natural slope of the base of the hill, forming what, in military
phrase, would be the glacis of the place, and which, on three sides,
descends into the ordinary valleys of the district, but to the west is
continued downwards until it dies into the meads of Stratford, rendered
bright and well wooded by the fertilising waters of the Avon. The whole
height of the knoll above the river may be 300 feet, and perhaps 200
feet above the other valleys, and the fortified area is above 27 acres,
so that the fortress is one of great strength and magnitude.
Commencing with the interior, the central mound is, at its top, about
500 feet across. The sides are as steep as the rubbly chalk soil
will well admit of, and the material removed in scarping seems to
have been, in part, placed on the crest of the scarp so as to raise
the edge of the mound by an artificial bank, about 20 feet above the
central platform. This bank or parapet, now crowned with thorn-bushes,
is about 100 feet above the bottom of the ditch, and about half that
height above the level of the counterscarp. The ditch is about, at its
broadest, 150 feet. This ditch was the inner fosse of the fortress, and
surrounded its keep or inner ward, or the castle proper.
The annular space beyond formed the outer ward, the girth of which was
about 1500 yards, and within which were the city and the cathedral.
This ward is not quite circular, but, measuring from the inner to the
outer ditch, averages about 370 feet. It is parted nearly equally on
the north side by a bank, and on the south by a bank and ditch, the
former being on the eastern side. These run as radial lines, but do
not reach the interior ditch, neither does the cross ditch communicate
with the exterior one. In fact, the cross ditch, in its breadth, depth,
and irregularity, much resembles a quarry, and very probably was
opened to supply material for the hearting or substance of the castle
walls. Besides these is another bank, pointing to the south-east, so
that the whole area is divided into three sections, of which two lie
in the eastern half. Of course, the object of these banks was to shut
in the church, and to prevent the whole outer ward being taken by a
_coup-de-main_. They are all evidently additions to the circular works,
and probably of the Norman period. With these exceptions the surface of
this ward is nearly level, but round its outer edge runs a low bank,
and in places, in its rear, a slight ditch, no doubt caused by the
removal of the wall.
Outside this ward is the outer ditch, about 106 feet deep from the
crest and about 150 feet broad. The bank, which forms the outer edge
of this ditch, was evidently formed from its contents. It is about 40
feet above the bottom of the ditch, and about 15 feet above the level
outside, and it is very steep. This forms the outer line of defence,
and in modern warfare would be considered a weakness, as affording
cover to the assailants. Thus the fortress is composed of an inner or
castle ward, and an outer or city ward, with a bank and ditch defending
each, and a third bank beyond and on the edge of the outer ditch. The
outer ditch and bank are those attributed to Alfred. The diameter
of the whole place is a mean of 1,700 feet. These defences are much
stronger than those of the adjacent camps; Barnbury and Amesbury banks,
for example, are about half their strength. The earthwork most worthy
to be compared with Old Sarum is Badbury, in Dorset.
There are two entrances into the outer ward from the E.S.E. and W.N.W.,
nearly opposite. These are formed by a direct cross-cut through the
outer bank, and the filling up the ditch so as to carry a roadway,
which enters the outer ward in a cutting, as a hollow way. At the
eastern or main entrance this way is shallow, and speedily dies out,
but at the western, called the Postern entrance, though narrow, the
roadway is much deeper, and runs far into the ward. In each case the
way forks at the outer bank, and in the angle is placed a barbican of
earth, a sort of cavalier, commanding both branches of the road as well
as their combination. The eastern work is nearly rectangular, sharply
defined, and has an independent ditch of its own towards the field. It
is, probably, in its present form, Norman. The original entrances seem
to have been here, but the present arrangement is evidently later, and
possibly altogether Norman.
The inner ward has but one, an eastern entrance, opposite to that of
the outer ward. This also is formed by a notch cut in the scarp, the
ditch being filled up to carry a footway. This must always have been
very steep. It was evidently always the entrance, the bank elsewhere
being uncut. Fragments of masonry show it, in its present form, a
bridge being substituted for the causeway, to have been the entrance to
the Norman castle.
Besides these earthworks are certain remains of masonry, parts
evidently of very extensive and solid works, due to the Norman period.
At the entrance to the inner ward, on the scarp, are two masses of
chalk-flint rubble, with occasional blocks or lumps of sarsden stone,
evidently the core of a gatehouse and contiguous curtain once faced
with ashlar. The _enceinte_ wall seems to have crested the mound all
round, the present bank forming a ramp behind it. In the enclosure,
on the north side, are lines of foundation, obviously those of the
principal buildings, and opposite is a bold depression in the soil, no
doubt marking the place of the well, which must have been deep, and was
possibly large. The filling up of the ditch at the entrance is clearly
modern. This central mound may be original, but it is rather more
probable that the British work resembled Badbury, which has no central
citadel, and that this latter was added, and the ditch excavated in the
eighth or ninth century, to make a fortified residence for the English
lord. This, however, must always be a mere speculation. By whomsoever
made, the Normans found the mound here, and built upon it a shell, of
which the ditch was the defence, and the interior bank the ramp. If the
whole area be regarded as a castle, this was the keep, but if, as is
more probable, the outer area represented the city, then the interior
would be the castle, which in that case must be held to have had no
keep. It is a question of names only.
The other lump of masonry is on the line of the wall of the city
ward, towards the north-east. This is part of the curtain wall of the
city, about 10 feet thick and 12 feet high, and 25 feet long. It is
pierced by two holes, 18 inches high by 12 inches broad, placed about
6 feet apart and 8 feet from the ground. They seem to have carried
two beams, for what purpose it is vain to conjecture. The fragment
is of chalk-flint rubble, with occasional chain courses of sarsden
stone rudely dressed. The inner face of the wall retains its original
facing of dressed sarsden ashlar. Though placed, as indeed, with such
a weight, was prudent, 3 feet or 4 feet within the edge of the ditch,
it was evidently a part of the general _enceinte_ wall, described as
having been 12 feet thick, and strengthened with twelve towers. This
could not have been less than 20 feet high, and about 1,566 yards long,
a prodigious work, even without considering the radial walls dividing
the city from the cathedral. Unfortunately, these walls have all been
removed down to and in most places somewhat below the level of the
soil, the materials having been needed for the new city.
Besides these works, there was discovered, in 1795, a curious
subterranean passage, which passed from the north-west quarter of the
outer ward, outwards, towards the eastern ditch. It was cut in the
chalk 7 feet broad and from 7 feet to 10 feet high, bearing marks of
the tool. The entrance had columns and door-jambs, evidently Norman;
and the roof was round-headed, probably artificial, as it is described
as being only about 2 feet below the surface. There were steps cut in
the chalk, and but little worn. It was followed 114 feet, and there
found to be choked up with rubbish. It was closed by the farmer whose
land was trespassed upon, and is probably still intact. No doubt this
was a private postern, opening on the glacis or in the ditch, such as
exist at Windsor and in other fortresses on the chalk, and of a more
complicated character at Dover and Arques. They are all probably of
Norman date.
It may be observed, with respect to the outer defences which have been
attributed to Alfred, that they have the peculiarity of a high bank
outside the ditch, very unusual in Celtic camps. Probably all Alfred
did was to deepen this ditch, and throw up the outer bank; and probably
also all the ditches were again scarped and deepened when the Norman
city wall was built.
During the long drought of 1834 a very interesting discovery was here
made. The outer ward was at that time laid down in turf, and upon this
was seen in brown outline the plan of the old cathedral. It was placed
in the north-west quarter between the secret passage and the west gate.
The plan was a plain cross, 270 feet long by 150 feet broad, with a
flat east end; and the chapter-house was formed by an additional bay at
the north end of the north transept. There were double aisles to nave,
choir, and transepts. On removing the soil the foundations were seen,
and in them a cavity, probably the grave of Bishop Osmund, the founder.
On the north side of the choir was a square of 140 feet, the site of
the cloisters. Here were found also burial-grounds for clergy and laity.
It is certain that the greater part of these earthworks are of
pre-Roman origin, and that Sorbiodunum is the Latinised form of
the British name,—“dun,” or “dunum,” denoting an eminence; the
figure, which, like Badbury, has been called a regular circle,
scarcely deserves that name, the regularity, such as it is, being
evidently caused by the natural outline of the hill; nor are the
banks and ditches in either work laid down according to any rules of
castrametation. The district is crowded with works, many of which are
certainly pre-Roman, and of the places around a few, such as Wilton,
Durrington, Verwood, Amesbury, and the Avon, retain a British element
in their names. Most of these being constructed upon hills of irregular
outline are themselves very irregular, so that, by comparison, Old
Sarum and Badbury appear as regular circles. The fact is, that all
follow the contour of the ground.
That the fortress on this spot was held by the Romans, and is the
Sorbiodunum of Antoninus, is very probable indeed. It has been
described as the centre of six Roman roads, radiating towards
Dorchester, Ilchester, Silchester, Winchester, Cunetio by Marlborough,
and Aquæ Solis or Bath. Of these the two from Winchester and Silchester
have been traced up to the east gate of the fortress; and as much may
perhaps be said for that from Cunetio. Dr. Guest, however, lays down
but four roads—to Winchester, to Silchester, a western road to the
Severn traversing the great ridge wood, and that called Achling Ditch,
which leads direct to Badbury rings near Wimborne. Even this restricted
view shows Sorbiodunum to have been an important Roman station,
and there are not wanting in its neighbourhood earthworks, such as
Rollestone and Bury Hill, of a rectangular plan, although, being on low
ground and but slight, they are not all shown in the Ordnance Survey of
1817 as they would be in a map of the present day. The Romans trusted
rather to discipline and palisades than to heavy earthworks: hence
their traces are but slight, and are often overlooked, and disappear
before the plough. It is, however, very curious that, notwithstanding
all these indications of Roman sway, there should be so very few
remains of Roman habitation. Nothing whatever has been found within the
fortress, and but very little in its suburbs.
What the Belgæ did with Sorbiodunum, during the century and a half of
their occupation, is unknown. This period of the history of our island
is obscure, and yet to it has been attributed by Mr. Fergusson the
adjacent monument of Stonehenge; the work, at least in its present
form, of a people accustomed to the use of tools of metal, and with
some notion of construction and of architectural effect.
Sorbiodunum, recorded as Seoresbyrig, or Searbyrig, which Sir R. Hoare
rather happily suggests may mean “the dry,” or “waterless city,”
played a part in the Belgic and Saxon struggles. In 552 Cynric, King
of Wessex, no inconsiderable leader of the “aspera gens Saxo,” here
conquered the Britons and probably established himself on their
territory. Ine A.D. 688–725, gave certain lands to the church of St.
James in Salisbury, as did Æthelburh, his queen, to that of St. Mary.
According to a statement in “Ancient Wilts,” Alfred directed Leofric,
Earl of Wilts, to add to the fortress a ditch to be defended with
palisades, at which all who lived within the castle, and those outside,
were to give aid. In 960 Ædgar held a Council here to devise means
for keeping off the Danes: a not uncalled-for step, since in 1003
Swein, after burning and plundering Wilton, committed like ravages at
Seoresbyrig in his way thence to his ships. Finally, the place seems
to have become a royal demesne of the Confessor, being so recorded in
Domesday. Sir R. Hoare also cites a coin of that king, claiming to have
been struck by Godred at Sarum.
The Norman history of Old Sarum is an occupation of the older fortress,
and the foundation of the early city. The invaders disturbed as little
as possible the existing tenures and boundaries; they placed themselves
in the English seats of property, and from them administered the old
estates. The defences alone were changed. To walls of wattle or rude
masonry and stockades of timber succeeded works in substantial masonry,
and all the newly-invented appliances of a Norman fortress. At the
time of Domesday the Conqueror held some rents here; but the manor, a
large one, was in the bishop, a very important person. To the five sees
created in the West Saxon kingdom, A.D. 905–9, a sixth, that of Wilton
or Wiltshire, was shortly afterwards added, the episcopal seat of which
was at Ramsbury. After an ineffectual attempt in 1055 to remove this to
Malmsbury, Bishop Herman, the Lotharingian, in 1075–8, with the consent
of the king, combined Ramsbury with Sherborne, and translated the seat
to Sarum. Here, in the outer ward, Herman in 1078 laid the foundation
of the cathedral, which was completed or nearly so by his successor,
Osmund de Seez, Earl of Dorset and Lord Chancellor, who being a wealthy
baron in England and Normandy, endowed it richly by charter in 1091,
the year before its consecration. Part of the land is described as
“ante portam castelli seriberiensis terram ex utraque parte viæ in
ortorum domorumque canonicorum necessitate.” The gate referred to is of
the inner ward, the canons’ houses having been on the outer. There was
thus a castle twenty-five years after the Conquest; but whether it was
a Norman structure or that left by the English is uncertain, probably
something of both. Here also Bishop Osmund arranged the celebrated
ordinary for “the use” of Sarum. Roger, his successor, Justiciary of
England and Treasurer, is said to have walled in the outer enclosure
between 1102 and 1139.