plan a rhomboid, in length from north to south 600 yards, and from
east to west 300 yards, covering about 19 acres, and its table summit
ranges from 300 feet to 336 feet above the sea level. The two eastern
or seaward faces, measuring together about 700 yards in length, rise
abruptly from the sea beach, and are absolutely impregnable. The
north-western face, 300 yards in length, and looking towards the north
bay and sands, is lower, but still precipitous. The south-western
face, also 300 yards in length, looks towards the town. Though not
precipitous it is very steep, and at its base a broad ravine, known
as the castle moat, intervenes between the castle and the town. A
chapel and a burial-ground formerly occupied the seaward salient of
the cliff, and behind these was Our Lady’s Well, the spring supplying
which was reputed inexhaustible. The lowest and the only weak point in
the platform was the landward or western angle, and here was posted
the keep, from which northwards and southwards along the crest of the
contiguous faces a curtain-wall was extended. Northwards, this wall
was in length about 70 yards, ceasing as the cliff rose in height, and
rendering artificial defence unnecessary. Southwards, the wall, from
20 feet to 25 feet in height, was carried all along the south-western
front, and was strengthened, either originally or at an early period,
by ten or twelve half-round turrets of various sizes. The six smaller
were solid, like those of Coningsborough and Knaresborough; the larger,
from 25 feet to 30 feet diameter, were hollow. These towers were parts
of circles in plan, and have been much mutilated. They were probably
cut down and filled with earth during the siege of 1640, when a
swivel-gun seems to have been mounted _en barbette_ on each. At present
they are open at the gorge, and no higher than the contiguous curtain.
Three loops may still be traced at their basement level, and two or
three others at what must have been the first floor. Outside the wall
are a number of buttresses of various sizes, shapes, and dates, some
of which seem original, and of the late Norman period. The largest of
these bastion towers is known as “The Queen’s Tower.” Near the centre
of this front, upon the curtain, was a building about 110 feet by 40
feet, called “Mossdale,” or “The King’s Hall.” No doubt here stood the
hall, kitchen, and other offices for the accommodation of the garrison.
The present building is a modern barrack, built with the usual
disregard of taste that has long characterised such buildings.
Where the curtain of the south-eastern front terminates on the sea
cliff there seems anciently to have been a tower, known as “Cockbill.”
More recently a small battery has been constructed outside the wall,
and upon the crest of the slope, raking the ditch, and commanding a
part of the harbour. Probably this battery was thrown up in preparation
for the Parliamentary siege, for the remains of the tower above it
are known as “Charles’s Tower.” Although the southern curtain has
been much mutilated and restored, and towers, bastions and buttresses
incorporated with its substance, the greater part of it is old, and
probably original.
[Illustration: PLAN OF SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.]
For the protection of the keep, quite as much from the mercenaries who,
in the twelfth century, often formed the garrison, as from the exterior
foe, an oblong space 112 yards north and south by 573 yards east and
west, was walled in as a base court or bailey. It is taken out of the
platform, and includes the keep. Its outer or western wall is the outer
wall of the place, its opposite or eastern wall shuts out the keep from
the main platform, and at the exterior foot of this wall, and within
the platform, is a deep ditch. If the keep be regarded as the centre
of the fortress, this enclosure is the inner ward, but as regards the
position of the main entrance the platform deserves that name. It
will, on the whole, be convenient to reserve the name of platform for
the large area, and refer to the other as the bailey. Probably the
bailey originally contained the Lords’ Hall, or kitchen, chapel, and
lodgings. All traces of these have, however, disappeared above the
surface. The position of the well is marked by a depression in the
sward. The entrance to the castle occupied a hollow way below, and to
the west and north of the keep traversed the bailey close below the
keep, and entered the platform at the point now occupied by the modern
guard-room. The approach to the castle must always have been settled
by the peculiar character of the ground. There is, in fact, but one
practicable line, that along the ridge between the edge of the cliff
overlooking the north bay and the head of the ditch between the castle
and the town. This ridge has been fortified on one side, where the
cliff is about 240 feet high, by a light parapet wall, and on the other
by a much stronger wall, which branches off from the curtain of the
bailey, and commands the head of the ditch. Where they commence the two
walls are about 50 yards apart, but they rapidly converge, and at 70
yards from the keep are but 12 feet apart, and thus continue, forming
a raised causeway, along which the approach is carried. This causeway
traverses the depression of the ground at the head of the castle moat
by a sort of viaduct, which at its deepest point is about 25 feet
high, and is in length, from its entrance in front of the keep to its
termination in the barbican, about 70 yards. It is of masonry with
lateral parapets, and a roadway 10 feet 6 inches broad. Near its centre
is a strong pier, or rather a tower, about 32 feet broad, angular below
the roadway and rounded above. This tower is pierced by a passage, and
is, in fact, a gate-house, having for its defence a battlemented floor
above the gateway, which was reached by a narrow staircase contained in
one of the piers. The corbels on which the battlements rested remain.
From this tower there seem to have dropped two drawbridges, one each
way. That falling outward covered a pit 15 feet broad, now vaulted over
as a permanent bridge. Its place is marked by an arch in the causeway,
there about 20 feet high. The spandrel walls and parapets seem
original, and the bridge worked between them, as was not uncommon, and
may be seen at Goderich, and at the constable’s gate at Dover Castle.
The second bridge dropped inwards towards the keep. Here the pit seems
to have been a break in the causeway, not an archway through it. This
bridge also has been replaced in masonry. Each of these drawbridges
fell upon cills between small turret buttresses, no doubt intended to
strengthen the approach, and to shelter two cross-bow men, who could
retire over the bridge as the enemy advanced.
The barbican, at the outer end or head of the causeway, is a mere shell
of masonry of irregular shape. It occupies a knoll higher than the
causeway, and has a rather steep approach from the town. The gateway
opens between two half-round towers, beneath a pointed arch, recessed,
but within an outer arch, above which is a projecting parapet, a sort
of _brétasche_ in stone. There is no portcullis, and no trace of a
drawbridge or outer ditch. The entrance to the causeway is 15 yards
behind the great gate, through a hollow way, and the wall between them
is looped with six openings looking towards the main ditch. In its rear
the barbican rests upon the crest of the cliff, and has a mere parapet.
It is prolonged 30 yards to the proper right of the gateway, which
it thus flanks, and is strengthened in that direction by two small
half-round turrets. In parts of the causeway are loops towards the main
ditch, and a doorway, probably a postern, long walled up. The causeway
and barbican are later than the keep and main curtain, and probably of
the time of Henry III., or rather later. They have been much altered
and repaired, and no doubt played a part as outworks in the siege of
1640.
Outside of the natural ravine which forms the main ditch or moat,
along the crest of its counterscarp, has been thrown up a bank of
earth, probably masking the line of a palisade, intended to keep off
skirmishers, and to guard against any attempt at scaling the main wall.
The keep, though mutilated, is still the main feature of the castle. It
is a rectangular tower about 56 feet square at the base and about 70
feet high above the inner ward, and about 90 feet from the outer side,
where the ground is some 20 feet lower. The walls are 11 feet thick,
and of the same thickness to the summit. The west front and a few feet
of its adjacent sides are gone, but the foundations remain, completing
the square. The material is a sandstone of a deep red colour. The
stones are about 2 feet to 2 feet 6 inches long and a foot high,
nearly square, and laid with rather open joints. The interior seem to
have contained a basement and three upper floors, but the basement is
partially filled with earth, and its existence only indicated by a
broken loop, seen about 16 feet from the ground on the north front. On
the west and north or lower faces the keep has a bold battering base
from 15 feet high to 8 feet or 10 feet. This was unnecessary on
the other faces where the level of the soil is so much higher.
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.—THE KEEP.]
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.—THE KEEP—SOUTH FACE.]
The east, the most perfect face, has the usual flanking pilaster
strips, 10 feet 6 inches broad and of a foot projection, which rise
unbroken to the summit, and no doubt supported the usual angular
turrets, now removed. The angle at which the adjacent faces of the
building meet is hollow, and is occupied by a bold round bead, 12
inches diameter; in fact, a three-quarter shaft, but without base or
capital. In the centre of the face is a third pilaster, 8 feet broad,
and quite plain. On this side the basement floor has no openings. The
ground, in fact, is above its level. The first and second floors are
marked each by two round-headed recesses, 7 feet broad and a foot deep,
the second contains a pair of narrow tall round-headed windows, having
side columns, and in the centre a pair of coupled columns, common to
both openings. The caps are fluted, and the window arches have a bold
torus moulding, the only semblance of ornament throughout the building.
The upper floor is marked by no recesses, but there are two pairs of
small tall round-headed windows, with square jambs and architraves. The
windows composing each pair stand about a foot apart. In the flanking
pilasters are two pointed loops, corresponding to the second-floor
level, and lighting mural chambers.
The north face probably corresponded with that to the east, with the
addition of two loops from the basement, one of which is now closed, as
are the two windows above it. One flanking pilaster of this front is
gone with its west end.
Of the south face the west end is gone, but what remains is full of
interest, as it shows how the entrance was arranged. The face is plain,
without any regular pilasters or plinth. Towards its west end is the
inner entrance, just beyond which the curtain-wall of the bailey sprang
from the keep. This entrance is 7 feet broad, and the depth of the
thickness of the wall. The passage is round-headed and ribbed. The
inner doorway is round-headed, the outer face segmental. A flight of
steps within the passage leads up to the floor of the first story. It
is evident from a short pilaster, some springing stones, and certain
other indications on the face of the wall, that the entrance was
covered here by a small forebuilding. Against the face of the keep
was built a rectangular block about 30 feet long and perhaps 20 feet
broad, ending against and abutting upon the curtain. It contained a
vaulted passage, and over its outer doorway, at its east end, was a
large funnel-shaped machicolation for its defence. Within this the
vault led on until on the right hand in the keep-wall was the inner
entrance already mentioned. There was no portcullis, but above the
doorway is an opening or _meurtrière_, by means of which the entrance
could be defended against those who might have forced the outer gate.
The ramparts of the forebuilding were on the level of the second floor
of the keep, and were reached from it by a small narrow doorway opening
from a mural chamber in the south wall. Close east of this is another
small door, a little higher, the use of which is not very evident,
unless it opened upon a hoard or _brétasche_ a little in advance of the
stone parapet. A little west of and below these is a third and shorter
doorway, which seems intended for the working of the _meurtrière_ over
the inner door. It is connected with a small and very narrow mural
staircase.
The interior of the keep is not only filled up so as to hide the
basement floor, but its eastern part has been converted into a powder
magazine, and is inaccessible. It is said that the magazine includes
four rectangular mural chambers, one 14 feet by 5 feet in the south
wall, two 6 feet and 7 feet square, in the east wall, and one 5 feet
by 6 feet in the north wall, but these have not been examined. The
first floor was about 32 feet square, but divided into two nearly
equal parts by a bold arch running north and south, and springing
from two wall piers. The arch is gone, but the broken wall shows it
to have been 4 feet 6 inches thick, and to have carried a solid wall,
which divided the second and ceased at the floor of the upper storey.
In the east wall of the first floor is a central fireplace of 7 feet
opening with a round head and of no projection, round-backed, and with
a vertical mural vent. On each side of it is a deep recess of 6 feet 9
inches opening, round-headed, and containing a pair of coupled windows
already described. There are two similar recesses in the north wall,
one on each side of the cross arch, of which the eastern is at present
walled up, but seems to have had besides its windows a small lateral
door opening into a dark mural chamber, which occupied the north-east
angle. The other recess, west of the cross wall, is open, and its two
windows remain. In the south wall is a small doorway which leads into
a mural chamber occupying the south-east angle, but now inaccessible.
At the other end of this wall is the entrance door, and between it and
the cross arch a steep narrow stair leading to the opening above the
entrance doorway.
At the second floor the cross-wall was pierced by a small doorway
near its south end, of which one jamb remains. This floor also has a
fireplace in its east wall, resembling that below, but with a segmental
arch, while above it, in the wall, is a semicircular arch of relief. On
either side is a recess with coupled round-headed windows, the shutter
rebates of which are pointed. In the north wall are two doorways
leading into mural chambers, and at its western end a recess and double
window, as before. In the south wall are two openings; one, a door
leading into a mural chamber in the south-east angle, lighted by a loop
already mentioned, and the other a large recess within which are the
two doorways opening towards the forebuilding. On the other side of
the cross-wall, over the main door, are traces of a large recess with
coupled windows.
No fireplace remains in the upper floor, which seems to have been
occupied by one large chamber, having in its east wall two pairs of
coupled windows in deep round-headed recesses, and the same probably in
its north and south walls. There may, indeed, have been a fireplace in
the west wall.
[Illustration: SCARBOROUGH CASTLE.—INTERIOR OF KEEP.]
The floors throughout seem to have been of timber. There are no traces
of a mural staircase leading from one floor to another, but there may
have been such in the north-west or south-west angles. Neither is there
any mural gallery surrounding the building.
It is in all respects unfortunate that Scarborough Castle is still
regarded as a military post. Here, as at Dover, no one is allowed to
sketch or measure within the area, although the force employed to see
to the observance of this order renders it practically powerless.
But the empty powder magazine is locked up, and effectually prevents
a thorough examination of the keep; if this were removed, and the
basement excavated, an absolutely correct plan of the keep might be
obtained, which now is impracticable.
A county that contains within its borders the castles of York and
Richmond may yet be proud of the possession of Scarborough, which,
though not superior to those, claims with them equal rank. No doubt
the circumstances of each are different. The position of Richmond on
the Swale, its ancient Norman keep, early and curious chapel, and the
considerable remains of its hall and other domestic buildings, no less
than the rank and warlike character of its earlier lords, have invested
it with a peculiar and unrivalled interest. At York, the castle,
spacious in area, and strong, if not striking in position, played no
inconsiderable part in the Norman Conquest; and while surrounded with
the works of the Romans and Romanized Britons, claims an origin from
those of our Teutonic ancestors whose name is embodied in that of
England. The claims of Scarborough to rank and fame are of a different
though scarcely inferior character. Its position above the Northern
Ocean is wild and grand in the extreme. Its area, defined and protected
by Nature, is calculated to contain, not a garrison, but an army; and
its keep, in itself equal to Richmond or most other Norman structures,
is here not a citadel but the mere gateway and key to what is really
the fortress, and which rises from the seashore above and behind it.
SKENFRITH CASTLE.
Among the numerous strong places in Monmouthshire, which, from
their character and position, seem to have been thrown up during
the occupation of that border territory by the Mercians and the
English during the eighth and following centuries, Skenfrith holds a
conspicuous place. Its fortune, moreover, was, to be adopted, like
Caerleon and Grosmount, by the Norman invaders, who placed a keep upon
its ancient, though inconsiderable, mound, and girdled its elevated
platform with walls and towers of considerable strength, so that it
became of even greater importance in the twelfth and thirteenth than
in the preceding centuries. It stands in the deep valley, and upon
the bank of the Munnow, five miles below the castle of Grosmount, and
six above that of Monmouth on the same river, besides which it forms
the south-eastern point of the celebrated Monmouthshire trilateral,
Grosmount and Whitecastle being the two others, so celebrated in Border
warfare, and especially in the contest between Henry III. and the
Mareschals, earls of Pembroke. Churchyard writes of them as,—
Three castles fayre, are in a goodly ground,
Grosmont is one, on hill it builded was;
Skenfrith the next, in valley it is found,
The soyle about for pleasure there doth pepe.
Whit-Castle is the third, of worthie fame,
The country round doth bear Whit-Castle’s name;
A statelie seate, a lofty princely place,
Whose beauty gives the simple soyle some grace.
Unlike the elevated and rock-founded castles of Chepstow and Ludlow,
the strength of Skenfrith was in the low and marshy character of
its position. The Munnow flows within a few feet of its walls, and
overflowed into its ample ditches, and a few yards below the castle
is the bridge mentioned by Leland. Skenfrith marks the uniting point
of several valleys, and even now, with the advantage of modern roads,
is by no means easy of approach. Probably, in some measure on this
account, it has suffered but little from additions or alterations,
and as little from violence. Time, the greatest but least violent of
revolutionists, has been the principal agent in the changes that have
taken place, and the great obstacle to the study of the castle by the
antiquary is the rich and redundant mantle of friendly ivy by which it
is draped.
Skenfrith belongs to that family of castles of which Coningsborough and
Launceston are the English types, and of which Brunlais, and, in some
degree, Tretower, are local examples. Its keep is a cylindrical tower,
with a widening or battering base, to which the elder antiquaries
gave the name of a Juliet. This stands within an inclosure formed of
curtains and bastion towers, in this instance forming a trapezium in
plan, of which the northern and southern sides are 74 yards and 71
yards, and the eastern and western 31 yards and 59 yards. The diameters
of the area, measured across the keep, are, northern and southern, 48
yards, and eastern and western, 57 yards.
The keep stands unconnected with the curtains, and nearly on the
central line of the area, about ten yards from its eastern end. It
crowns a low mound, about 6 feet high, and 50 feet broad at the top,
evidently artificial. If the mound ever had a proper moat, it has been
long filled up. The tower is now about 40 feet high, and may have been
5 feet or 6 feet more. It is a cylinder of 36 feet in diameter, with
walls 7 feet thick. Ten feet above the ground is a bold, half-round
string or cordon, below which the wall batters, and at the base is
10 feet thick, augmenting its diameter there to about 42 feet. The
present entrance is to the west, by a doorway of 5 feet 6 inches
opening, having an interior door opening inwards and probably having
had an exterior door also, but the doorway is now a mere breach in
the wall, with but a fragment of the rebate of its inner door. The
masonry, and the absence of bar-holes, show this doorway not to be
original. Probably it was opened in the Decorated period, when passive
strength was less an object, and a first-floor entrance was found to
be inconvenient. Such later openings are common in keeps with close
basements. There is one at Pembroke.
The basement chamber is circular, 22 feet 4 inches diameter, and its
floor is at the ground level. In it are two loops, with flat tops, in
recesses splayed to an opening of 3 feet, of which the cills are 3 feet
from the ground. The wall is quite plain, and there is no trace of a
well. This chamber was 11 feet high; no doubt, a store-room, and must
have been entered from the chamber above by a ladder.
The first floor, of the same diameter, was 14 feet high. This was the
principal chamber. The floor was of planks resting upon four large
beams laid across, the outer beams receiving the ends of some shorter
timbers laid at right angles to them. The doorway points about west,
and is partly over that of the basement. It was 5 feet broad, and its
passage-vault was round-headed, but the ashlar dressings are gone.
There is no trace of a portcullis. In the substance of the wall is a
square hole, probably once containing an oaken tie, such as was used at
Brunlais and at Rochester. This doorway was evidently the original and
only entrance to the keep. To the right of the entrance a second door
opened into a mural stair, a fragment of the cylindrical shell of which
remains. This led to the second floor and battlements. For its support
the external wall is thickened by a half-round buttress, solid below,
and ascending to the summit. The door and the staircase are utterly
ruined. In this floor are two window openings in flat-sided recesses,
apparently round-headed. The windows, probably large loops, are broken
away, and the ashlar face of the recesses is gone, but the relieving
arch in the wall is flat pointed. Near the north recess is a corbel of
Decorated aspect, 6 feet from the floor.
The second story, entered by the winding mural stair, is much obscured
by ivy. Its floor was of stout plank, resting upon a large single
cross-beam, of which one support, a broad plain corbel, remains; the
planks fitted into a rude groove or chase, not a set-off, in the
wall, which is, therefore, not diminished in thickness. The curve of
this story is a little impaired by a projection connected with the
stair: and there is a sort of recess, which may have been the kitchen
fireplace, the cooking being usually, in these towers, carried on in an
upper floor, as at Castell Coch and Morlais. There were three windows
in this floor, but of them little is to be seen, nor of what may
remain of the ivy-covered battlements. The main floor was plastered,
though thinly. It is evident that the floors were always of timber.
The main strength of a tower of this character was passive, the loops
and windows counting for nothing in the defence, but no doubt the
battlements had a rampart walk, and the roof, therefore, was either
flat, or if conical, sprang, as at Coucy, Coningsburgh, Pembroke, and
Marten’s Tower at Chepstow from an inner wall. Nothing can be more
senseless than, as some modern architects have done, to cover these
towers with a conical roof springing from the outer wall, which thus
could not be defended in the only way possible with such structures,
from above.