modern roof and appliances, but, no doubt, on an old site. At one
end of it is the well, about 5 feet diameter, lined with ashlar,
and descending to the level of the river. At the other end is the
kitchen-court, in which is seen a closed doorway leading into the
basement of the northern apartments. It may be of Decorated or early
Perpendicular date.
Looking to the rectangular and oblong outline of the defences, the
cross-roads, and the position with one open side upon a river, it is
difficult not to regard Tamworth as of Roman origin, or as modelled by
Roman occupation. The Icknield-street, in its course from Birmingham
towards Lichfield, passes, it is true, no nearer to Tamworth than
Wall, the ancient Etocetum, six miles distant, where it is crossed
by the Watling-street; but this latter, in its course to Atherstone
or Mancetter, passes through Fazeley, only a mile south of Tamworth;
and had it not been for its considerable angle at Wall, it would
have passed directly through the town. Nevertheless, Roman towns are
generally indicated by history or tradition, or the remains of Roman
masonry, or articles of domestic use, and these evidences appear here
to be entirely wanting.
But whatever may be the origin of the rectangular bank and ditch,
there can be very little doubt but that the mound and platform of the
castle were the works of Æthelflaed or her Saxon predecessors, the one
to support the usual timber stronghold of the Saxon thanes, the other
for the huts and sheds of their retainers and their cattle. Probably
a ditch included both mound and platform on the three landward sides,
and both these and the river front were strengthened by a palisade.
As no mention is made of the town walls, no doubt a similar defence
crested the bank all round. This is the arrangement well known to have
been usual, both in Normandy and England, in the centuries preceding
the Conquest, and a good and much earlier local example of it was given
by the Romans at Wall, where a few years since the palisades were
discovered preserved in a morass which formed their defence in front.
The Normans seem to have begun by building the enclosing wall, the
remaining part of which is certainly Norman, probably early, and older
than the keep. The domestic buildings were probably at first below the
court at the foot of the mound; afterwards the keep seems to have been
filled up by buildings. The main entrance was evidently by the upper
gatehouse from the town.
The curtain wall cannot be much later than the Conquest. It is clear
that it never was prolonged across the top of the mound, as the slope
of its rampart walk only points to the level of the top; probably,
therefore, when it was built there was a structure of some sort upon
the mound. It is also uncertain whether the curtain recommenced on the
opposite slope of the mound, and was continued down by the present
lodge towards the mill, in which case the area of the castle would have
been about 100 yards across.
The present shell, upon the mound, seems later than the curtain. The
entrance door and the middle band of the wall seem additions of one
age, perhaps of the reign of John or Henry III. The terrace and the
oldest parts of the interior are probably later, perhaps of the time of
Edward I. or II.
Leland, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., says, “The castle of
Tamworth standeth on a meetly high ground, at the south part of the
towne, hard upon the ripe of Anker, at the mouth of it. The base court
and great ward of the castle is clean decayed, and the wall fallen
down, and therein be now but houses of office of no notable building.
The Dungeon hill yet standeth, and a great round tower of stone,
wherein Mr. Ferrers dwelleth and now repaireth it.... The town of
Tamworth is all builded of timber.”—[Itin. iv. 122.]
The base court evidently was the platform, and the great ward no doubt
included all the ground south of the present curtain, and between the
mound and the mill.
In the east window of the church was a painting, of which a copy is
preserved by Dugdale. It represents the Conqueror enfeoffing Robert
Marmion with the castle. The king stands in front of a considerable
building, fronted by two drum towers of two stories, with conical
roofs, and connected by a curtain. In one tower is a gateway, and
behind the two are seen, in perspective, the stepped gable of a hall,
and the chisel-pointed roof of a rectangular tower.
On the proper right of the king and of the building, in the distance,
is the mound, crowned with a wall. This is, no doubt, a representation,
rather exaggerated, of the castle, as it stood in the later Plantagenet
times.
Dugdale, writing after the civil wars, says, “The Norman castle stood
below, towards the mercate-place, where the stables now are.” The
mercate-house, rebuilt in Queen Anne’s days, remains; the stables are
removed to the other side, towards the bridge. The Norman castle means
the domestic buildings.
13 Edward I., Philip Marmion had made a certain “pour presture,” or
encroachment, to the injury of the king’s market, on either side of
Tamworth Castle, containing a width of 8 feet and a length of 40 feet.
The Mr. Ferrers whom Leland mentions was probably Sir John Ferrers
(died 1576), who married Barbara Cockaigne; and the domestic buildings
now standing were his work, and, perhaps, the work of his son and
grandson.
What originally stood within the shell is unknown, probably some
lean-to houses of early English and Decorated date, which were removed,
or nearly so, for the present structures. These latest works are mainly
of brick, with freestone dressings and door casings.
TAUNTON CASTLE.
Taunton Castle possesses an interest in the eyes of archæologists which
its present appearance and its Norman history may not seem to justify,
but which depends upon the fact that it is of English and not Norman
foundation, that it dates from a period nearly two centuries earlier
than any other fortress mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, and not only
is the date of its construction approximatively known, but its existing
earthworks, though mutilated, are beyond question original.
The castle stands upon one of the many low hummocks of gravel, often
with a base of red marl, which rise out of the extensive fen lands of
this very singular district, and which, before agriculture had drained
the marshes, were even more inaccessible (in military phrase were
stronger ground), than even the hill fortresses of the upper country.
The Thone, the river whence the town derives its name, rises by many
and copious tributaries over a wide sweep of country, north, west, and
south, and traversing the low land, which though neither so wet nor
so extensive as many of the adjacent levels, was yet broad enough and
marshy enough to serve every purpose of defence.
Here, upon the right bank of the stream, Ine, the celebrated leader and
lawgiver of the West Saxons, is reputed to have established himself
in the year 702, while engaged in securing his frontier against the
western Britons, who, under the leading of Geraint, still maintained a
footing in the broken ground east of the Tamar, upon Exmoor and among
the Brendon and Quantock Hills, holding probably the camps which still
remain, but little altered by the lapse of a thousand or eleven hundred
years.
This seems to be the origin of the town of Taunton, and here, upon the
edge of one of the inosculating branches of the sluggish stream, Ine
founded his castle by throwing up banks of earth girdled with deep and
formidable ditches, and no doubt further strengthened by stockades of
timber, or at best by walls the workmanship of which scarcely deserved
the name of masonry. Such as it was it was destroyed, that is, burned,
by Queen Æthelburh in 722, who probably however left the earthworks,
the better part of the defence, much as she found them.
The spot selected, resting upon the river, is covered by a loop, which
has been converted into a mill stream, working a mill placed a little
below the castle. This river or north front is tolerably straight and
about 180 yards long. The west front, about 168 yards, is formed by
what seems to have been a tributary stream called the Potwater, which
here joined the river nearly at a right angle. The south and east
fronts, of 340 yards, were formed by a curved watercourse, probably
artificial, which connected the tributary, by a second junction, with
the river, and thus completed the circuit of the defence. The enclosure
was thus a sort of quadrant, the river and the brook being the radii,
and the curved ditch the arc. The area thus enclosed measures about
seven acres, and lies between the river and the town, which covers its
east and south sides.
Within this area, occupying its north-east corner and about a quarter
of its extent, is the inner court or citadel of the place, roughly
rectangular, and measuring about 123 yards east and west, by 73 yards
north and south. Its east and north faces rest upon the main ditch and
the river, and its south and west faces are covered by a curved ditch,
artificial, which gives the eastern outer ditch a second connexion
with the river, and divides the outer, called “Castle Green,” from the
inner court. The position was a very strong one, having the river, and
beyond it a morass, towards the north, or threatened side, and to the
south a ditch, in part double, and always filled with water.
The inner court is further subdivided into two parts, of which the
eastern half seems to have been raised into a sort of platform upon
which probably Ine’s actual residence was placed.
The late Mr. Warre, a very great authority in Somerset earthworks,
speaks of a mound here, but as I cannot make out that there is any
record or tradition of a mound in the technical sense, that is,
a conical heap of earth, probably he calls by that name the very
considerable bank and contiguous platform of earth, much of which is
still seen. What occurred here, and by whom occupied, or what changes
took place between the reign of Ine and the end of the eleventh century
is not known, but the Normans, accustomed, as far as practicable, to
occupy the Saxon seats, soon perceived the advantages held out by the
position and earthworks at Taunton, and William Gifford, who held the
lordship as Bishop of Winchester in the reign of Henry I., seems to
have decided upon building a regular castle. His successors, bishops
of Winchester, were much here, and the castle received much addition
at their hands, especially in the early Decorated period, of all of
which traces more or less considerable still remain. The outer ward
is traversed east and west by a road upon which were two gatehouses,
of which the western was till recently represented by a fragment of
wall and a stone bridge across the moat. Traces of a barbican, in
part of timber, were discovered a few years ago while digging on
the counterscarp. Of the eastern gatehouse the remains are still
considerable. It was of large size, the entrance passage being 60
feet deep, with portals at each end and at the outer end, and a large
square portcullis groove. The upper floor contained a fine room, of
which on the north side there remain two windows in the early Decorated
style, which is that of the whole gatehouse. The gateway was placed
just within the ditch, on the counterscarp or town side, on which
some foundations, probably of a barbican, were laid open a few years
since. The wall of the outer court is gone, save a small fragment on
the south-west quarter, neither are there any of the ancient buildings
remaining within the area, Bishop Fox’s school, the oldest of them,
being later than the period when the defences were of much value.
The defences and contents of the inner ward are less imperfect. The
masonry here did not extend actually to the river, the immediate bank
of which, as at Leicester, is very low, so that the enclosed ward
occupied only about two-thirds of the whole moated area. The walled
part is roughly triangular, the base being the east side, and the
truncated part open to the west. This area seems further to have been
divided by a cross wall into two parts, the keep, hall, and gatehouse
being in the western, and in the eastern, the earthworks, which
favours the notion of this having been the old English citadel. These
earthworks are two banks along the east and south fronts, expanding at
their junction into a rectangular platform of about 80 by 120 feet.
The banks have been used as terraces or ramps, the Norman wall having
been built against them and along the river edge of the ditch. These
banks are about 18 to 24 feet broad and about 10 feet high. Along
the east face about 150 feet of the original wall remains tolerably
perfect, and is about 25 feet high outside. This is returned along the
river or north front, and near the angle is a buried arch at present
invisible, and which may have been a postern or a sewer. From the south
face the wall has recently been removed. At the south-west corner of
this court is a dwelling-house, part of the wall of which is old,
either Norman or Edwardian.
The smaller or west court contains the chief remains in masonry, and
of these the most remarkable is the keep. This is a well-defined
though mutilated tower, standing upon the _enceinte_ wall, of which
it forms the north-west angle. It is rectangular, 50 feet north and
south, by 40 feet east and west, with walls about 13 feet thick. There
is no chamber below ground. The basement is vaulted with a heavy
barrel vault, apparently original, and round-headed. Outside are flat
narrow pilaster strips, dying into the wall at about 30 feet. There
are traces of Norman loops in the wall, which may have been 50 feet
high, and probably included three stories. At the north-east angle
is a well-staircase leading to the battlements, probably in part an
Edwardian addition. The entrance is most likely to have been in the
south face, no doubt on the first floor, though there is nothing left
to show this.
From the keep, along the north front, the original, though much
mutilated, Norman wall, with its flat pilasters and the jamb of one
original window, crests the rising ground, as at Leicester, about 50
feet from the river, and, also as at Leicester, evidently formed one
side of the hall. At the end of the wall, about 140 feet from the keep,
is a postern, with a segmental arch, possibly in substance Norman,
though mutilated.
In the centre of the south front, but at the south-east corner of
this section of it, is the gatehouse, a rectangular structure,
with an Edwardian portal, and some Perpendicular additions, square
portcullis grooves, gates, and lodge. In the front are seen the holes
for the chains supporting the drawbridge, now replaced by a permanent
structure. Above the entrance passage is a chamber.
Right and left of the gatehouse the curtain extends about 70 feet,
terminating a short time ago in bold drum towers, of which one is gone,
and the other caps the south-west angle of the ward, and connects
this front with a short curtain leading to the keep. Against this
wall stands a line of buildings ranging with the gatehouse. Opposite,
against the north wall, is the hall, modern as to its inner wall,
fittings, and roof, but very evidently occupying the site of the
original Norman hall and domestic buildings.
The south-west drum tower has been rebuilt or faced, but evidently
represents the Edwardian or early Decorated works that replaced the old
Norman curtain. The ditch along the west, and part of the south fronts
of this ward, has been recently filled up. The drum towers, curtain,
and keep stood on its edge, and formed its scarp.
Here, then, we have a combination of earthworks dating from the
commencement of the eighth century; walls and keep the work of the
early part of the twelfth century; and towers and gatehouses towards
the end of the thirteenth century or early in the fourteenth century.
Bishop Langton executed some additions here in 1490, and placed his
arms outside the inner gatehouse. In 1496, the castle was taken by
the Cornish rebels who rose against the close taxation of Henry VII.,
and here massacred the Provost of Penrhyn. Bishop Horne made further
repairs here in 1557.
In the Parliamentary wars, Taunton was first occupied for the
Parliament, then taken by Lord Hertford for the King, and finally
retaken for the Parliament by Blake, who held it against a far superior
force. The infamous Jefferies held the “Bloody Assize” in the present
hall.
It has been thought that Ine’s castle was confined to the inner ward.
No doubt his strong house was there, but the whole enclosure is not
larger than Framlingham or other Saxon holds.
The absence of a mound is rather peculiar, and it is remarkable
that the Normans should have placed this keep on the lowest ground.
Altogether, looking to its very curious though scanty remains, and its
very ancient history, Taunton Castle is a work of unusual interest, and
it is much to the credit of the Somersetshire archæologists that the
keep has been converted into a museum, and the walls and earthworks
converted into an embellishment to the ancient town to which the castle
unquestionably gave rise.
THURNHAM CASTLE, KENT.
Thurnham, called also, from the hill on which it stands, “Godard’s,”
Castle, near Maidstone, is a curious example of a Norman castle placed
upon what is evidently a British camp.
The camp crowned the high point of a very steep spur, which juts out
between a depression on the one side and a small deep combe on the
other, in the great escarpment of the lower chalk, about four miles
east-north-east of Maidstone. The earthworks were formed by scarping
the central knoll, and perhaps raising it a very little, so as to form
a slight mound, and thus especially strengthening its weak sides,
those towards the root of the spur. On the lower or Thurnham front the
defences, naturally strong, are reinforced by a ditch and bank, placed
some little way down the hill, far below the body of the fortress, and
intended to command the road which here winds up the ridge from the
village and church of Thurnham, at the foot of the hill. The ground
within this outer defence has been extensively opened for chalk, and
is so disfigured by heaps of quarry rubbish that but little can be
accurately ascertained of its ancient dispositions.
The Norman castle occupied a platform close west of the mound, and
probably included within the British camp. Here stand the remains of
the gateway and court, but as a trace of masonry is still seen upon
the mound, it may be that it was included in the _enceinte_ wall, or
that upon it stood one of the circular or polygonal shell keeps which
sometimes, with the Normans, took the place of the ordinary square
keep, especially where there was an earlier mound to be fortified.
The ruins are not considerable. They are composed of the two parallel
walls of a gatehouse, having on either hand two large round-headed
recesses, dividing the passage into two bays, and there are besides two
small lodge doors, also round-headed, on the east side.
Westwards from the gatehouse runs a low curtain wall, about 13 feet
high, and 4 feet thick, for about 80 feet, ending in a broad flat
buttress, perhaps the base of a square tower. The wall thence may be
traced southwards, along the edge of the steep, whence it seems to have
been continued towards the mound. A hollow way, cut in the chalk, winds
from below, beneath and close to the west of this wall, and, making
a bend, enters the gatehouse from the north. There are no traces of
ashlar. Much of the wall shows a face of coursed flints. The work may
be late Norman.
On the summit of the knoll is a depression in the soil. This part of
the work is so covered with thick bramble and underwood that it cannot
be very accurately examined.
Thurnham or Turnham occurs in Domesday, and was one of the numerous
manors given by the Conqueror to Bishop Odo, and held under him at the
survey by Ralph Curbespine. It then contained a church, and had been
held under the Confessor by Sbern Biga.
On Odo’s fall, 19 W. C., it was granted to Gilbert Maminot by the
tenure of castle guard under Dover Castle. The holders under Maminot
were a knightly family, who took their name from the place. Robert
de Turnham held it _temp._ Henry II., and founded Combwell Priory.
Possibly he built the castle. Robert had Robert, who died _s.p._ 13
John; and Stephen, who died also _s.p._ 16 John.
In the reign of Edward I., Thurnham was held by Sir Roger de Northwode,
who died 13 Edward I., leaving John, who married Joan de Badlesmere,
and died 14 Edward II. Their son John died before his father, leaving
Roger, who had Thurnham, and married Juliana, daughter of Geoffrey de
Say, chief lord of the manor. Their son, Sir John, third baron, died 2
Richard II.; and his son, Roger de Northwode, who was never summoned to
Parliament, alienated Thurnham, and died _s.p._, leaving a brother.
The Northwodes are said to have resided here, but the castle is thought
to have been dismantled at an early period. Thurnham Castle is not
named in the Ordnance map.
TICKHILL CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
Tickhill is a place of high antiquity, and both before and for some
centuries after the Norman Conquest its importance as a strong place
and the head of an extensive lordship was very considerable. Mr.
Hunter, the accurate and accomplished historian of the district,
suggests “The-Wickhill,” in allusion to the village mount, as a
probable etymology for the name, and cites “Thunder-cliffe,” or “Th’
Under Cliffe,” as an analogous case. It seems that near Sheffield
Castle was a small green called “The Wick-er,” and “Ticken-hall,” near
Bewdley, was the seat of an early fortress.
Tickhill, however, though obviously an early name, is not recorded
in Domesday, but is thought to be included in Dadsley, a name still
extant in the immediate neighbourhood. In “Dadesleia, Stantone, and
Helgæli,” Elsi and Siward held eight carucates,—Roger de Buisli held
seven in demesne; there were also thirty-one burgesses, a class whose
presence has been held to indicate a burh or castle. Roger de Buisli
was tenant in chief of these and other manors, comprising the Honour
of Tickhill, a division certainly based upon an earlier fee, of which
Tickhill was the chief seat. The Norman Honour numbered sixty-five and
three-quarters knights’ fees, and extended from Yorkshire into the
shires of Derby, Lincoln, Notts, and Leicester, including one manor
in Devon. Tickhill, which seems to have been sometimes called Blythe,
which, however, was also the name of a place in the adjacent part of
Lincolnshire, was the chief seat of the powerful house of de Buisli
during their somewhat brief career.
Roger de Buisli received Tickhill from the Conqueror, who erected it
into an Honour in his favour. Roger had a choice in his wide Yorkshire
domains of three ancient English seats, Laughton-en-le-Morthen,
Mexborough, and Tickhill. He selected Tickhill; and the two other sites
retain their English earthworks, unaltered by Norman masonry, and
changed only by time. Laughton seems to have been originally superior
even to Tickhill, probably as the residence of Earl Edwin, being named
in the Domesday Survey. Roger himself probably fortified Tickhill with
masonry, the gatehouse and much of the wall being apparently his work.
The foundations of the shell-keep look rather later, but may also be of
this date. He was also the founder of Blythe Priory, in 1088. He died
1098, and was succeeded by his son Robert, who died childless in the
reign of Henry I.