chamber is contained in the south-eastern angle, the door into which is
in the south wall, near its east end. This may have been an oratory,
but, as the east wall of the keep is gone, and with it the east end of
this chamber, which also is inaccessible, such details as may remain
have not been examined. In the west wall of the main chamber is an
excellent flat segmental arch in ashlar, which spans a fireplace and
a window looking down the loch. This upper story was covered with a
vault, in the west side of which are traces of a side arch, covering
that over the fireplace and window. Most of the main vault has fallen
in.
There do not appear to be remains of any garderobes. The parapet is
gone, but the wall is crowned by a bold moulding, and beyond this, at
each angle, there is a row of short corbels, which probably carried the
usual bartizan turrets. Over the door, at the top of the wall, are four
bold corbels, which evidently carried a machicolation for its defence.
Urquhart is more extensive than most Highland castles, and the traces
of barracks show that its area was turned to full account. It would
contain a garrison of from 400 to 500 men. Though the masonry is
rough, it is good, the proportions of the keep are excellent, and the
ashlar work used for the doorways, quoins, and window dressings, is
well executed. What arches remain are round-headed or segmental, not
pointed. At the north-east angle the keep has a small short buttress
set on anglewise, and one, also short, of a pilaster character, and
slight projection, set on the west face of the north-west angle. The
curtain springs from the keep, half of which is outside it.
Urquhart is one of the chain of fortresses which stretched across
the great glen from Inverness to Inverlochy, and were employed from
an early period to defend and overawe the country. By some accounts
it is spoken of as belonging to the Comyns of Badenoch, but certain
it is that when Edward I. was at Kildrummie, near Nairn, in 1303,
he despatched a party who laid siege to this castle, and with some
difficulty took it, putting Sir Alen de Bois, its governor, and the
garrison, to the sword. In 1334 it was held for Baliol by Sir Robert
Lauder, of Quarrel Wood, as governor; and the office seems to have
been heritable, for Lauder’s daughter married Chisholm, and their son,
Sir Robert Chisholm, of Chisholm, who had Quarrel Wood, had also the
constableship of Urquhart, then, and probably always, a royal castle.
Chisholm’s title, however, was insecure, for in 1359 David II. disponed
the barony and castle to William, Earl of Sutherland, and John, his son.
After this, Urquhart was held under the Crown by the Grants of
Freuchie, afterwards of Castle Grant, who, as chamberlains for the
Crown, got possession of most of the adjacent lands. In 1509, James
IV., under an Act of the Scottish Parliament, granted three-fourths of
Urquhart Lordship, and of the Baronies of Urquhart and Glenmoriston, to
Grant of Freuchie, and his two sons, from whom descended the Grants of
Glenmoriston and Corriemony. The castle has since remained in the Grant
family, and is now the property of the Earl of Seafield, whose house of
Balmacaan is in the lower Valley of Urquhart.
It appears that the Knights of the Temple had an establishment in the
Bay, and brought into cultivation the lands on its eastern shore.
Probably they were constables of the castle. On the farm of Phinians is
still a place called Temple.
Until after the rebellion of 1745 Glen Urquhart was in a very disturbed
state. Grant did not reside there, and the people were continually
attacked by the clansmen from Glengarry, Lochiel, and Kintail.
It is difficult to establish with any precision the date either of the
early or the present castle of Urquhart. The ditch is no doubt much
older than the siege of 1303. The remains of the castle now standing
can scarcely be older than the fifteenth century, and probably it was
one of those built about the middle of it, in accordance with the
strong recommendation published by James I. on his return from his
captivity in England.
An excellent account of this part of the Highlands, and of the descent
of the Urquhart property, will be found in the “New Statistical Account
of Scotland, for Inverness-shire,” p. 43.
[Illustration: WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.]
WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.
Wareham and Corfe are the keys of Purbeck, or rather Corfe is the
fortress and Wareham the bridge-head of that bold projection of the
chalk of Dorset, the southern headland of which bears the name of the
protomartyr of England, and of which the triple spurs of Durlston,
Peverell, and Studland form the eastern points, each with its own
bay, and the whole protecting from the prevalent west wind the great
indentation of the coast between Purbeck and the Needles, in the bight
of which opens the harbour of Poole, and, under Hengistbury Head, the
mouth of the twin streams that once gave name to Christchurch, before
either castle or priory rose upon the banks of the Avon.
To the Northmen, these headlands, bays, and rivers were intimately
known. Their long ships here found shelter while the hardy seamen
ravaged the country of which they were one day to become joint
inheritors. Though called, like Sheppy and Portland, an island, Purbeck
is, in truth, not even a peninsula. If, indeed, it were to subside
from 50 feet to 100 feet, the great chalk ridge which extends from
Lulworth to Studland would alone be visible above the waters, and the
low broad valley which marks the course of the Nether Frome and the
Piddle would be covered, and form, with Poole harbour, a considerable
estuary. Even now the river valleys are low and moist, and in the
eighth and ninth centuries were no doubt an impracticable morass. Where
nature had done so much, there remained but little needed from art, and
accordingly the military remains in Purbeck are scanty. Worbarrow, a
strong half-circular camp of banks and ditches, crowns the steep cliff
at one end of the great ridge, and Corfe or Corfe-gat, occupies a gap
or gate near its centre, while Wareham, posted to the landward of the
marsh, and between the two rivers, guards effectually the approach from
the north. Camps on sea-cliffs are generally supposed the work of those
who used the sea, and drew up their galleys upon the beach; if this be
so, Worbarrow must be the work of the Northmen, though in any other
position it would be regarded as British. Corfe is probably entirely an
English port; what Wareham is forms the subject of the present notice.
Wareham, a town which is still a Parliamentary borough, though one of
its members was shorn away in the great struggle for reform, is built
upon a knoll of chalk, the eastern extremity of a broad low ridge
which descends and becomes narrower from the west and north-west, and
finally sinks down into the lowland a little east of the town. This
ridge divides the valleys of the Frome and the Piddle, the principal
streams of Dorset, and its termination marks the meeting of the waters
which flow together into the backwater of Poole Harbour. The Piddle
lies to the north of the ridge, and the Frome to the south. The
town between them is about half a mile broad, and their bridges are
connected by its main street. In figure the town is nearly square,
the west face about 600 yards, the north face 650 yards, and the area
is pretty evenly divided by the main street, which is crossed by a
second street, at right angles, thus dividing the town, after the Roman
fashion, into four quarters. As at Wallingford and Tamworth the outline
of this rectangular figure is an earthwork, within which the town was
built, and which is now all too wide for its shrunken prosperity. The
defence is a simple bank and ditch, the contents of the latter being
piled up to add to the height of the former; but as the area inclosed
is naturally high, with a steep slope to the north and east, on these
two sides the bank is a scarp only, the river on the north forming
the ditch. To the east the ground is not quite so low, and there is
no river: here therefore is a ditch. The northern scarp is about 45
feet high, with a slope varying from one and a half to two to one. Its
crest is 15 feet broad, and it rises about 15 feet above the ground
within and behind it. Towards the west end this bank is rugged and
angular; the eastern half is very uniform, and seems never to have been
disturbed.
The northern side is straight, or nearly so; the eastern has a low
salient near its centre. This side is not carried to the river. There
is indeed a hollow way, which seems to represent the ditch, but the
bank is wanting for the last 200 or 300 yards. The western face is far
stronger, and more perfect. Here the bank, of full size, is carried
down to the margin of the river, and the ditch is broad and deep. This
was the weak side, the exterior ground being high. This bank also is
much cut about, and it is pretty clear that in the Parliamentary wars
an attack must have been apprehended from the north-west, as the bank
is notched as for embrasures for guns, and there are various small
mounds to prevent them from being reached by a lateral and raking fire.
The ditch also, instead of being cut to a central line, V-shaped, as
usual in mediæval fortifications, and as is the case with this ditch
near the river, is broad and flat-bottomed, as though it had been
widened and partially filled up to suit the requirements of the art of
defence as practised in the seventeenth century.
There is no earthwork along the south or Frome front, towards which the
ground slopes gradually. No doubt the river was a defence, as it was on
the other front, but the absence of any special work on the south and
south-eastern quarters looks as though those who constructed the work
came from the sea, and desired to guard Purbeck, whereas the historical
presumption is that Wareham must have been thrown up against invaders,
and that it was a British fortress against the Saxons, and an English
fortress against the Danes.
Of the four pretty equal quarters into which the area is divided, the
south-western contains a later and subsidiary work, thrown up upon the
bank of the Frome, and a little in the rear of the main defence. This
is a conical mound, flat topped, rising about 50 feet above the river,
and about 60 feet in diameter at its summit. It has a ditch proper
to itself, about 60 feet wide, dividing it from the main bank, and
to its east and south-east are traces of other and lower earthworks,
which no doubt included the base courts or wards usually appended to
such mounds. This whole tract, however, is exceedingly obscure, being
laid out in lanes and courts and walled gardens. Here stood the Norman
castle, built, as usual, upon the earthworks of the English residence.
There is another earthwork, also within and later than the main
defence, found in the north-eastern quarter. This is a rectangular
inclosure about 60 yards by 30 yards, within a bank of about 4 feet
high with a base of 12 feet and an exterior ditch about 6 feet broad.
There is an entrance at one end, and the angles are slightly rounded
off, and, as the north-east angle rises somewhat with the tail of the
adjacent bank, it is clear that it is a later work. This looks exactly
like a small Roman camp, though in such a position it seems much out of
place. It is called the bowling-green, and may have been laid out for
that game. It is difficult to say what it is.
Of the two roads which intersect Wareham, that running north and south
is the main one, and leads to Corfe. The Frome bridge over which it is
carried is said to replace one built in the reign of William Rufus. The
east and west road is an important way in one direction, as it leads
from Dorchester, and may well therefore be Roman. After reaching the
cross it is continued eastwards, but this branch of it led nowhere from
the town.
Wareham, like Wallingford, was well supplied with ecclesiastical
establishments, there having been within its limits eight churches and
a priory. The priory, originally founded it is said by Adhelm, bishop
of Sherborne, who died 709, certainly existed as a nunnery before 876,
when the town was taken by the Danes. The church, dedicated to the
Virgin, is now the principal church in the place, and Trinity, now used
as a school, was probably the chapel of the castle. St. Martin’s is a
small church upon the eastern edge of the deep cutting through which
the north road enters the town. It has a small late tower, but the nave
and part of the chancel seemed early Norman date. The sites are pointed
out of the chapels of St. Peter, St. Nicholas, St. John, St. Michael,
All Hallows, and another St. John.
Nothing of the masonry of the castle remains above ground, but the
adjacent walls evidently contain much old material, and in one of them
is an old Norman doorway, with a bold chevron moulding round the head,
interspersed with a line of roundels. This no doubt belonged to the
castle.
There is a great resemblance in position and plan between Wallingford
and Tamworth and to some extent Cardiff, and Wareham. In each case the
general earthwork is rectangular, of bold profile, and has a single
ditch, and is placed near a river, and on that side unbanked. Each
also has a mound towards the river, with its own proper defences, and
upon each the Normans placed a shell keep. There is no evidence of
Roman occupation of any of these places, though the road from Wareham
to Dorchester may be Roman, and if the line of the Ackebury ditch
from Sarum to Badbury were produced, it would pass close west of this
place. Possibly the rectangular defences were the work of the Romanised
Britons, the mound being an English addition of the ninth century. The
work has never been known as a “Chester.”
Wareham was an important place in the West Saxon kingdom. King
Beorhtric, who married the daughter of Offa, and in whose time the
Danes first landed in Britain, was there buried in 800. In 876 the
Danes attacked and took Wareham, but submitted to Alfred, and retired
to Exeter. Florence says of the Danes:—“Castellum quod dicitur Werham
intravit; ubi monasterium sancti-monialium inter duo flumina Fraw et
Terente it in paga quæ Saxonice dicitur. Downseto, tutissimo situ
terrarum situm est, nisi ab occidentali parte tantummodo, ubi contigua
est terra.” And it is on that side that the works are the strongest.
Some of the Danes left Wareham by sea and some on horseback. In the
following year, however, they were again at Wareham, and their fleet
was wrecked off Swanage, and 120 ships lost. At this time Wareham
became the Danish head-quarters. A century later, in March, 978, King
Edward, slain at Corvesgate or Corfe, was buried silently at Wareham,
to be translated afterwards to Shaftesbury. In 982, Wulfwin, abbess of
Wareham, there died. In 998, the Danes were again there, and in 1015
Canute sailed up the Frome, burning and plundering as he went. Domesday
relates that the Confessor held 143 horses in demesne in Wareham. There
were two mint-masters, but at the survey the town was in a desolate
condition, and many houses were destroyed.
The castle is mentioned in Domesday:—“Of the manor of Chingestone the
king has one hide in which he made the Castle of Wareham, and for that
he gave to St. Mary’s the church of Gelingham, with its appendages,
to the value of 40 shillings.” It is the only castle mentioned in
the county. Chingestone is the manor of Corfe Castle, and St. Mary’s
the Abbey of Shaftesbury. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was for a time
imprisoned in the castle, as was Robert de Belesme, who is here said
to have starved himself to death. Town and castle were burned in the
wars of Stephen and Maud. Her great champion, the Earl of Gloucester,
embarked here on his way to Anjou in 1142, and William, his son, was
governor when the town was taken by Stephen. The Earl then retook it,
the castle holding out against him for three weeks. It was at that
time that he took Lulworth, and probably built “Bow and Arrow” Castle
in Portland. King John landed at Wareham in 1205 and visited the
place four times, staying about fifteen days in the years 1209–12–15,
and 1216. Peter of Pomfret, was hanged here in 1213. Then and long
afterwards it was rather a noted seaport, and as late as 1558 ships
of fair size reached its quays. The “Castle Hill” was granted away by
James I. The western earthwork long bore the name of the “Bloody Bank,”
from the execution there of Judge Jeffreys’s victims.
[Illustration: WHITE CASTLE.
Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.]
During the civil war Wareham was the scene of much fighting, being
taken and retaken many times. It was garrisoned by the Parliament in
1642, then taken for the king, then in 1643 retaken for the Parliament.
In 1644 the Royalists took it by storm. It was in these wars that the
west bank was so much altered, to make it suitable for the defensive
system of that day.
WHITE CASTLE, MONMOUTHSHIRE.
White Castle, called also from the parish in which it stands, Llanteilo
Cresseny, and in the records “Album Castrum,” stands upon very high
ground about five miles east of Abergavenny, and commands an extensive
and completely panoramic view over a country eminently characteristic
of the old red sandstone. Within the wide circumference are mountains
and hills green to their summits, deep valleys, oaks and elms of
great size and in great profusion, and pastures of unusual richness.
It is not to be marvelled at that the Welsh, having lost so glorious
a possession, should strive to recover it, or that the English and
the Normans, having won, should spare no labour or expense in the
construction of strong places to enable them to retain it.
Unlike Grosmount, Skenfrith, Goodrich, and Chepstow, and the other
castles upon the Munnow and the Wye, and the seaboard of the Channel,
White Castle is far removed from any watercourse or defensible river,
and is only to be reached by a long and steep ascent. It is five
miles and a half from Skenfrith, and five from Grosmount—Grosmount
and Skenfrith being four miles and a half apart—and forms the western
and most exposed point of the celebrated trilateral. Its decay is due
rather to time than to violence, for its walls and towers are all
standing, and what is wanting are those parts which would naturally
give way to rain and frost, or from time to time be removed for the
rebuilding of houses and cottages in the neighbourhood.
White Castle is also as peculiar in its arrangements as in its
position. It has no keep, and so far it resembles the Edwardian
castle; but, unlike those structures—of which Caerphilly in South,
and Beaumaris in North Wales, are typical examples—its main defences
are confined to a single line, covered, however, at the principal
entrance by a walled earthwork or barbican, and at the lesser entrance
by a second and rather smaller earthwork, without, or with but little
masonry. Its ditches also are on a formidable scale, both for depth,
breadth, and extent, and altogether, both in position and details, it
is not inferior in strength to any castle in the March, and is besides
in the first class as regards capacity.
It is composed of a central ward, in general figure hexagonal, but
oblong and somewhat pear-shaped, its internal diameter, north and
south, being 50 yards, and its greatest cross diameter, east and west,
37 yards. The northern end measures, also internally, 15 yards, the
southern 18 yards. The sides next to the north end are, in length, 27
yards, those next the south end 23 yards and 26 yards. The wall is 10
feet thick at the base, and slopes externally to 7 feet at a height of
15 feet. In height it is about 30 feet to the rampart walk or allure.
The towers at the two southern angles are 18 feet internal diameter,
with walls 7 feet thick. The two middle towers are 12 feet, the other
two at the northern angles form the great gatehouse, and are 13 feet.
They are about 45 feet high. The four southern towers have a basement
floor a little below the court level, with one loop; a first floor with
three loops, and a second floor, whence was a way to the ramparts of
the curtain. There seems, also, to have been an upper or third story.
The floors were all of timber, and there are no staircases or mural
chambers. The gorge walls of the two southern towers are broken away,
that of the western partially so; that of the eastern is perfect, and
contains the entrance doorway of 3 feet opening. The gatehouse towers
are also entered at the gorge from the court, but the gorge wall is
thicker, and contains a series of mural staircases ascending to the
summit. These are not “turnpike,” and are not continuous, but begin
anew at each floor. The gateway, concealed, save from the front, by
the unusually bold projection of the flanking towers, has a passage 10
feet wide and 8 feet deep. The barrel-vault remains, but the ashlar of
the internal gate is gone, and its former existence is only shown by
a bar-hole. Of the outer gateway two bar-holes remain, and a fragment
of the portcullis groove, which is 4 inches square, and placed outside
the gate, so that the grate was wholly visible even when raised,
unless, indeed, concealed by a timber brattice. It was worked from a
machicolation between the towers, now gone. The flanking towers are
without loops, that to the left on entering is approached from the
vault by a narrow doorway. If there was a drawbridge attached to this
gate, its heel must have rested upon a large stone about 10 feet in
advance and 6 feet below the level of the portal. The ditch at this
point is nearly 100 feet broad, and 30 feet to 40 feet deep. It is
evident that there were no bridge-piers of masonry in the ditch, so
that the roadway probably rested on trestles.
The opposite and lesser gateway is in the south wall, close to its west
end, and flanked, therefore on one side by the south-western tower.
It seems to have been a simple opening in the curtain, about 10 feet
broad. It is now a mere breach, but the bar-holes remain. There is no
sign of a portcullis. The approach to this gate came up along the edge
of the ditch, between it and the wall, from the east, and was commanded
by two loops in the curtain and by the south-eastern tower.
The area of the court is quite clear of buildings, but a few heaps of
rubbish show that it contained barrack buildings of timber, with stone
basements, placed against the walls, which have been plastered. There
is no trace of hall, chapel, kitchen, well, or permanent lodgings, and
no ornament of any kind; no moulding, no mural chambers or garderobes,
no staircase save in the great gatehouse, and only two small
fireplaces, in the first and second floors of the north-eastern gate
tower. The towers are not only bold and lofty, and about 60 feet high,
but the outer half of their bases is carried many feet down the slope
of the ditch, giving them great breadth of base, and a very substantial
and massive character.
The great barbican is a very remarkable work, not unlike a similar
defence at Castle Rising, which there, however, is confined to an
earthwork, whereas here the defences are both in earthwork and masonry.
The work is irregular in its shape, concave where it rests upon the
counterscarp of the main ditch,—on its other faces convex. In depth, or
from north to south, it measures about 56 yards; in breadth, 74 yards.
It is defended by a ditch of moderate dimensions, which communicates
with the main ditch at each end, but is scarce a quarter of its depth.
The curtain wall is very irregular in outline, the west side being made
up of about four straight pans of masonry, meeting at various angles.
The front is a long straight wall, and the east side, also straight,
meets it at a right angle. The curtain of this outwork is about 5 feet
thick, and from 15 feet to 18 feet high. Upon it are four mural towers;
three, drum-shaped, are 10 feet in internal diameter, with entrances at
the ground floor from the court. In height they rise a story above the
curtain. They are looped to the field, have timber floors, and their
staircases seem to have been of timber. One tower is angular, and has
evidently been the kitchen, part of the oven and the outline of the
large fireplace being still visible.