Chapter XII: Of the Edwardian or Concentric Castles (4)

Falk strengthened and held the castle into the reign of Henry III., and thence ravaged the country below the Chilterns. At first a supporter of the young king, he afterwards resisted his authority, and, at the instance of his oppressed neighbours, Henry de Braibroc was sent to Dunstable in 8th Henry III., 1224, to try their complaints, when thirty verdicts were found against the baron, and fines imposed of £100 under each of them. In revenge, Falk kidnapped the judge and lodged him a prisoner in Bedford Castle, treating him with much indignity. His wife complained to the Parliament then at Northampton, and the king ordered him to give up the judge, but in vain. Henry was probably glad of the opportunity of crushing a very turbulent subject, and appears to have lost no time in punishing the affront. In June, 1224, commenced a series of orders, issued by the king himself, and which show the greatness of his preparations for a siege, and the vigour with which he pushed them forward. On the 22nd of June, Henry was at Bedford in person, and there remained during the siege until the 19th of August, nearly two months. The preparations were both extensive and minute, and the mandates, always described as pressing, were issued to a vast number of sheriffs and other persons as far south and west as Corfe Castle and St. Briavels. They require men, money, arrears of scutage, cord, cable, iron, steel, hides, leather for slings, twine for strings, mangonels, petraries, balistæ, quarrells, stone shot, quarrymen, masons, miners, carpenters, saddlers, wagons for conveying the royal pavilions, and almonds, spice, and ginger for the royal still-room. All the smiths in Northampton who can forge quarrell bolts, or feather them when forged, are to work day and night until 4,000 are ready and despatched. Large quantities of wine from the royal stores in London, at Northampton, and elsewhere, are to be forwarded with speed to Bedford. Knights performing castle guard at Lancaster are ordered up: greyhounds are sent for for sport. The sheriff of Bedfordshire is to supply quarrymen and masons with their levers, hammers, mauls, and wedges, and everything necessary for the preparation of stone shot for the mangonels and petraries. Miners come from St. Briavels, in the Forest of Dean. Windsor supplies its master-carpenter and his mates. Cambridge sends cord and cable. Charcoal comes with the iron and steel from Gloucester, and the adjacent abbey of Newenham spares a large quantity of raw stone to be converted into shot.

The details of the material supplied are recorded in the close rolls of the period. The particulars of the siege itself have been preserved by the neighbouring monks of Dunstable, from whose town, and probably from whose monastery, the judge had been taken, and whose fellow-townsmen played an important part in the siege. The king brought with him the Archbishop of Canterbury and divers bishops and abbots, by whose interest was granted to him two men from every hyde of their church lands to work the siege engines; an aid of “carucage” or a mark from each caruca or plough land of demesne, and 2s. from each held in tenancy, gifts which were guarded against being drawn into a precedent by special charter from the king.

Falk left his brother to abide the attack, and sought aid on the lands of the Earl of Chester, Ranulph Blundeville. The earl, however, was with the king, together with Peter de Rupibus, bishop of Winchester, William de Cantelupe, Brian de l’Isle, and Peter de Maulay. All were suspected of disaffection, and in consequence the earl and the bishop left the camp, although the earl was afterwards brought by the Bishop of Chester to his duty. Falk remained at Northampton until he fled to Wales.

The siege operations included on the east front a petrary and two mangonels, which daily battered the opposite tower; on the west front, two mangonels bore upon the old tower; on the north and south fronts were two mangonels, one on each, and each breached its opposing wall. The operations of these seven pieces of ordnance were materially aided by two large wooden turrets, tall enough to command the whole castle, and supported by other smaller turrets, all charged with archers and crossbow-men. There was also the timber covered-way, known as a cat, by the aid of which miners were able to undermine the wall, while the bowmen cleared the battlements above. These works were thickly covered with hides, rendering them proof against fire; and the slingers, of whom there were many, probably kept up a general and incessant shower of pebbles upon all who dared to show themselves on the ramparts.

The works were stormed by four vigorous assaults. First the barbican was taken, with a loss of four or five of the assailants. Then entrance was effected into the outer ward. This was the work of the men of Dunstable, and was attended with severe loss. In this ward were stored most of the munitions of the place,—arms, horses and harness, cattle, bacon and live hogs. Much forage was here burned, with the houses and sheds in the ward.

The miners next underworked the wall next the old tower, which wall fell. The resistance here appears to have been obstinate, many lives were lost upon the breach, and ten of the most forward assailants were taken and carried into the interior of the place.

Finally, on the vigil of the Assumption, 14th August, about the hour of vespers, the miners having undermined the foundations of the old tower, fired the props. The walls split, the smoke rose, and, the place being no longer tenable, the garrison hoisted the royal banner, and surrendered, sending out De Braibroc with the wife of Falk, and the other women. Next morning the king took possession. William de Breauté and the garrison were put upon their trial, and he and about eighty of his men were hanged out of hand. Three were allowed to join the Templars in Palestine, and the castle chaplain was delivered over to the archbishop as the spiritual power. It appears from the records that the remainder of the garrison escaped with fines and confiscations. The spoil was considerable, in treasure, provisions, and munitions of war. Henry left for Kemeston (Kempston) on the 18th, but was again at Bedford on the 19th, and at Dunstable on the 26th of August. Even when flushed by success he seems not to have been severe upon those not actually implicated. Alice, widow of the executed William de Breauté, was allowed her dower-lands in Bedford and Cumberland. On the 19th and on the 22nd, Margaret, wife of Falk, was allowed for her subsistence the manors of Heyford and Sabridgeworth. Gilbert de Breauté also was allowed a manor; and Falk, the author of all the mischief, had twenty marks allowed for his personal expenses on his way to exile.

Immediately upon the surrender, Henry broke up the siege establishment. Nine hundred quarrels, the residue of the 4,000, were returned to Northampton, and the sheriff of Beds is debited with the remaining iron, charcoal, &c., collected for the siege operations. The mangonels and heavy artillery were to be taken to pieces and returned to Northampton Castle. Various payments were also made and rewards given, chiefly out of the confiscated De Breauté lands. John de Standon, the king’s miner from the Forest of Dean, had land granted him under St. Briavels.

The castle itself was far too strong and too dangerous to be spared, and the orders for its destruction are very sweeping and specific. By an order of the 20th of August, five days after the surrender, the sheriff is ordered to level the banks, fill up the ditches, and make plane the surface of the outer ward. He is to reduce the mote or mound, and the walls of the inner ward by one-half their height, and to level three-fourths of the old tower towards St. Paul’s, that is on the north-west. The stones are to be divided between William de Beauchamp for his proposed house, the church of St. Paul, Bedford, and the priories of Caldwell and Newenham; but the last is to have the larger share, because it supplied stones for shot for the siege.

Five days later came out another order enforcing the former, and directing Henry de Braibroc and William de Pateshull to see to its prompt and accurate execution. It was also specified that William de Beauchamp might, if he pleased, build a dwelling-house on the site, and use the reduced wall of the inner ward, but he was not to raise the mound or the wall above a certain height, or to embattle it. He might only erect it. Braibroc is to see the stone from both walls and mound distributed as directed. September 16th, the sheriffs of Herts, Cambridge, and Hunts were ordered to send men to aid Braibroc and Pateshull in the work of destruction, and they are to take tools with them, and stay until the mound is lowered and the ditches filled up as ordered. Beauchamp was further allowed half the timber from the barn and the old tower.

Thus passed away the strength and glory of the castle of Bedford, the great fortress of the Ouse. Whether William de Beauchamp built upon its site does not appear. He died 44 Hen. III., and within a very few years his name was extinct and his barony divided.

The castle, or its site, probably as the seat of a manor court, is named from time to time in the _Inquisitiones post Mortem_. Thus, 5 Ed. II., Roger L’Estrange, by Margaret his wife, was seized of “the Castle” and the “site of the Castle” of Bedford; 1 Ed. III., John de Mowbray was seized of the site of Bedford Castle and the fishery of the Ouse; and 40 Ed. III., another John had suit of court in the castle of Bedford; and 50 Ed. III., Elizabeth, wife of John Mowbray, holds of the same castle. Also, 6 Rich. II., another John Mowbray is seized of Bedford Castle and Bedford Barony; and, finally, 8 Hen. IV., Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshall, holds Bedford Castle in chief, by the service of almoner to the king at his coronation; so that the tenures and privileges attached to the castle remained in force long after the fortress itself had been razed. In Leland’s time, the castle mill,—that great evidence of feudal customs,—remained; and he also mentions the “great round hill” as a burrow for foxes. There were not then any buildings.

It is evident from present appearance that the mandate of Henry III. was strictly obeyed. No trace of a ditch is to be seen between the mound and the river, and the mound itself is so much lower than is usual with works of that diameter as to make it probable that at least one half has been removed and employed in filling up the ditches.

It is not easy to gather from the account of the siege a clear idea of the disposition of the parts of the castle. There were two wards, and the outer, judging from its contents, must have been of considerable area. It probably included the inner ward and the mound, and abutted upon the river. The barbican would scarcely be placed upon the river or outside the town, and probably was to the north-west, or near the church of St. Paul.

The inner-ward wall probably surrounded the mound, on the outside of its ditch, and was thus open to attack when the outer ward was taken.

The old tower, last taken, and the fall of a part of which reduced the garrison to surrender, was probably the donjon or shell crowning the mound. This would be of Norman date, and therefore might well be called the old tower, as distinguished from Falk’s additions, and the repairs after the siege by Stephen. Thus, if the explanation be accepted, Bedford Castle had a shell keep or donjon upon a mound, surrounded by a ditch and wall, and this again by another wall, at a greater distance, the principal storehouses and dwelling being, as was usual, in this larger or outer ward. The History of Bedford Castle and of its siege are the subject of an elaborate paper by the late Rev. C. H. Hartshorn, privately printed in 1861.

BERKHAMPSTEAD CASTLE, HERTS.

The Castle of Berkhampstead stands in the parish of Berkhampstead St. Peter, in the county of Hertford, and, geologically, upon the lower chalk. Its position is in a chalky bottom, on the left bank of the Bulborne rivulet. Between the stream and the castle the ground is naturally low and marshy, but it is now traversed by the Grand Junction Canal and the London and North-Western Railway, which, with the water-course and the turnpike-road, separate the castle from the town.

To the east and north-east of the castle the ground rises steeply towards Whitehill and Berkhampstead Common. To the west and north-west it rises more gradually towards Berkhampstead-place. Between the two, towards the north, is a combe or nearly dry valley, occupied by the old park, called the Berkhampstead estate, and in this valley stands the castle, about 400 yards from its termination in the river.

The constituent parts of the castle are a mound; an inner _enceinte_ or ward; an inner ditch; a second _enceinte_; a second ditch; a third _enceinte_, enveloping the northern half only; a ravelin upon the west face; and a third or exterior ditch, also confined to the northern half of the work.

The mound is wholly artificial. It is conical, about 60 feet high and 40 feet diameter at the top, having steep sides and a wet ditch round three-fourths of its circumference. Its top was crowned with a circular shell of wall, about 8 feet thick, of which the foundations only remain. Up its southern side is a curtain-wall, much ruined, and about 8 feet thick. This commences at the ground level at the top of the mound, and runs into a fragment of the _enceinte_ wall of the inner ward. It evidently connected this wall with the keep, and was probably, as at Tamworth, parapeted on either face of its rampart walk. It was not continued down the further side of the mound, which was not a part of the _enceinte_, but a citadel placed outside it, and connected with it only by a single wall.

Probably the ditch of the mound was originally continued all round it, and simply traversed by the wall. Much of the ditch between the mound and the inner ward is filled up, probably very recently, as the process is now in progress, the object being to connect the level sward of the _enceinte_ with the mound for pleasure purposes.

The inner ward is an oval space, about 500 feet north and south by 300 feet east and west. It is encircled by a wall, about 7 feet thick, and now about 20 feet high, and which may have been 4 feet to 5 feet higher. Traces of the crenellations are visible. This wall is broken down in parts, but nearly three-fourths of it remain. The northern, or end opposite to the mound, is concave, the ditch of the mound having been run into it. There is a fragment of a mural tower on the west face, much mutilated and apparently rectangular. In the east face are two openings, one of which may have been a postern. In the north-east quarter a cross-wall seems to have belonged to a domestic building. The gap for the main gateway is at the south end. There are no traces of towers there, and there do not appear, judging from the wall, ever to have been any. The interior _terre-plein_, or platform, is level, no terrace against the wall, and no trace of a bank against which the wall could have been built. Outside the wall is a space of about 5 feet broad, beyond which the ground falls sharply towards the wet ditch.

The inner ditch is carried quite round both mound and inner ward wall, being in plan an unbroken oval. It is deep and everywhere wet, and in parts it opens out into a pool. This is the case where it gave off the ditch embracing the mound, now in part filled up, and in the south-eastern quarter, where its overflow escapes into the river.

Outside, and forming the counterscarp of this ditch, is the second or middle _enceinte_. This is a steep and narrow bank, carrying a walk of about 8 feet broad, having about an equal slope inwards towards the inner ditch, and outwards towards the outer. For about its northern two-thirds this bank is very uniform, but at the south-west quarter it swells into a small mound or cavalier, about 22 feet in diameter at top, and about 20 feet high, close to which the land has been cut away to effect a modern entry. Opposite to this, on the south-east quarter, is another rather larger mound, about 30 feet across and 25 feet high; and at this point the bank makes a loop outwards, which somewhat destroys the symmetry of its plan. These two mounds are evidently intended to flank the extremities of the outer bank.

This middle bank is perforated by a modern culvert at its southern part, by which the waters of the inner ditch escape; and a few yards east of this the bank is crossed by two parallel walls, 12 feet apart, and which evidently belonged to the outside of the main entrance.

The second or middle ditch, also deep and wet, envelopes the middle bank very regularly. At present it is wanting on the south side, for a short distance, having been filled up and converted into a road when the railway was constructed.

Outside this ditch is the third or outer _enceinte_, a steep bank, which forms the counterscarp of the middle ditch, and envelopes rather more than the northern half of the castle. It is about 10 feet broad above, and is strengthened outside by eight bastions, also of earth, placed at distances of from 60 feet to 150 feet, and each, at top, about 30 feet broad by 40 feet projection, and rounded. The five best marked of these, being steep and about 20 feet high, lie to the north-west. A small streamlet coming in from the north then cuts the line, and to the east of this, covering the north-east and east faces, the bank is continued for about 580 feet, strengthened by three bastions, which, however, are low, and have nothing of the sharpness of the others. These latter three have scarcely any ditch, but the other five have at their feet a ditch, which, even now, is boggy, and no doubt was once a formidable defence. West of this outer bank, and ranging with it so as to cover part of the west face of the castle, is an earthwork of very doubtful character. Its lines are rectangular, it has a ditch, and it much resembles the early ravelins which were common in the fifteenth century, and not unknown in the fourteenth and thirteenth.

Connected with its ditch is a pond, which appears to have been a mill-pond and fish-stew. No doubt all these extensive ditches were turned to account, and fed the mill which is known to have been attached to the castle.

Berkhampstead is altogether a very striking and a very peculiar fortification. The mound was no doubt an English burh, and, as was not uncommon, had its own defences. The inner _enceinte_, though not, as is usual, encircled by a bank, was encircled by a steep slope and ditch, which, with a palisade, would have been a very sufficient defence. These probably were the whole of the original works, and within them may well have been held the famous Council of Berkhampstead in 697. The two outer works seem to be later. The outer certainly, from its bastions, must be later than the Conquest, and the middle bank is far too slight in its construction and too sharply preserved to be of remote antiquity. But it is remarkable that there is no trace of any other than the inner _enceinte_ wall, and it is pretty evident that there was never any other. The earthworks, except the mound, would not have carried a wall, and had such been built it would have been liable to be mined and overthrown with very little trouble. Evidently these banks were crested with palisades, and probably careful cutting into them would show traces of the stakes.

Further, it is singular that, though there is a second and a third line of defence, there is no middle or outer ward. These lines of defence include ditches only, and not the space which, however narrow, was always left between the walls of castles for the assembling their defenders. Here the garrison of the two outer lines must have been ranged in line close in rear of the stockade, with but room to pass between it and the ditch in their rear.

It should be mentioned that an earthwork, composed of bank and ditch, and known locally as Grimsdyke, traverses the high road above the town, and there are several barrows in the immediate neighbourhood. The Berkhampstead earthworks are quite peculiar, but the neighbourhood is rather rich in military earthworks of a circular character, among which, to the south and west, may be mentioned Bushwood, Hawridge, Cholesbury, and, at a greater distance, Kimble.

The masonry that remains is all of chalk flint rubble, bathed in a pure white mortar, and probably faced with coarse flints, picked, if not squared. Here and there parts of the face remain. This work may be Norman, or it may be later, though probably not much. The absence of towers is remarkable. There is no ashlar at all. This, no doubt, was removed when Berkhampstead Place was built, but there could not have been very much of it.

Berkhampstead was a seat of the Kings of Mercia, and the place of meeting of a council of magnates summoned, in 697, by Wightred, king of Kent; and, at the time of the Confessor, it belonged to Edmar, a thane of Earl Harold. It was evidently a strong place, for when the Conqueror gave it to his brother Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, amongst the vassals there was a certain “Fossarius,” whose duty must have been to clean the castle ditches. Robert is said to have fortified it with a double ditch and rampart, and he held it at Domesday. Moreover, under the Conqueror, it was expanded into a very extensive Honour, of which it was the _caput_. The manor is named, but not the castle, in Domesday.

The castle seems to have been held by King Stephen and by John, with the earldom of Cornwall. It had suffered in Stephen’s wars, and John gave it, 1206, to Geoffrey Fitzpiers, Earl of Essex, who rebuilt or restored it, and may have erected the present walls. Prince Louis laid siege to, and took it, in 1226. The attack was from the north side, and the castle held out for a considerable time.

Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, brother to Henry III., held it. He wrote to his brother from hence in 1261, and died here in 1271-2, as did his wife Isabel Mareschal in 1239. His son Edmund had the castle, town, and halimote. In 1299 the castle was returned as yielding no rental; but the millpool and the castle ditches let for the fishing at 20s. per annum. There was then a water-mill and a park with deer. It was a part of the dower of Margaret of France, the second wife of Edward I., who died 1317. Edward II. gave it, with the earldom of Cornwall, to Gaveston; and to the Black Prince, as Duke of Cornwall, came from his father the castle, manor, vill, park, and honour of Berkhampstead, the lands of which extended into Herts, Bucks, and Northamptonshire. It was put in order for the residence of John of France, and the Black Prince was here not long before his death. It was also used by the favourite of Richard II., Robert de Vere, Marquis of Dublin, who had licence to inhabit it. Here, also, died Cicely Nevill, the mother of Edward IV.

Queen Elizabeth leased it to Sir Edward Carey, whose grandson employed its material to build Berkhampstead Place, since which it has been leased to various persons, and was finally sold to the Egertons, whose descendant in the female line, Earl Brownlow, is the owner also of the adjacent park of Ashridge.

BERKELEY CASTLE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

The Severn, below Shrewsbury, which on the map seems to mark a natural division between England and the southern part of the Principality of Wales, neither is, nor ever has been, really the dividing line. It is not, in those parts even, a county boundary, Gloucester, Worcester, and Salop being astride upon the stream, with large portions of their area upon its western bank. To go back to the sixth century, when the West Saxons, starting from the coast of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, pressed hard upon the Britons, many indications still show how firm was the resistance, so long as the ground was favourable; but, when once fairly driven over the crest of the Cotteswold, the Britons evidently retired more rapidly across the open country, nor is it until the commencement of the high ground is reached, that we find works which abundantly show how fierce was the struggle, how close and persistent the attack. The high ground which forms the western edge of the Marches is studded thickly with camps, the position and figure of which show them to be British, while the adjacent frontiers of Gloucester, Hereford and Shropshire, are covered with moated mounds, placed both within and without the Dyke of Offa, and which show both the extent of the English conquests and the manner in which they were maintained before and during the eighth and ninth centuries.

The Normans trod very closely in the footsteps of the English, and although their fortresses were of a stronger and more permanent character, they occupy, for the most part, ancient sites. The three counties, from the bordering Chepstow, the home of Strongbow, to Clun, the cradle of the house of Stewart, were bristled thick with fortresses; some, like Chepstow, Goderick, Kilpeck, Ewias, Hereford, Ludlow, Wigmore, Richard’s Castle, Cleobury, Brampton, Bishop’s Castle, and Clun, either places of great strength, or held by powerful barons; others, as St. Briavels, Wilton, Penyard, Weobly, Croft, Clifford, Whitney, Eardisley, Huntington, Lingen, Hopton, de Botwood, Stoke-Say, or Wattlesborough, either fortified houses or castles of smaller area and inferior strength. Upon the line of the Severn, in the rear of all these, there were but eight of any importance, Bristol, Berkeley, Gloucester, Hanley, Worcester, Hartlebury, Bridgenorth and Shrewsbury, and of these Berkeley was in many respects the most remarkable, and has endured the longest.

The other castles are either ruins or have altogether been swept away. Of Bristol there remains only a portion of a crypt. Gloucester, Hanley, and Worcester are gone. Of Bridgenorth a part of the keep is all that is seen; and of Shrewsbury a fragment of a Norman gatehouse, the much-altered walls of the hall, and, older than all, the mound that gave character to the whole. Berkeley, on the other hand, has been inhabited from its foundation to the present day. With one temporary alienation to the Crown, it has always been in one family, and it is as little altered as is consistent with modern usages and modes of life.

The castle, church, and borough town of Berkeley, contained within the hundred to which they give name, are placed upon the southern extremity of a tract of ground which rises about 50 feet above the meadows to the south and west, and the drainage whence is carried on by the channel of the Little Avon, which falls into the Pill or Creek of Berkeley, and so reaches the Severn, here expanding into an estuary, the southern shore of which is about two miles distant from the castle. The castle stands upon the southern extremity of the high ground. A few yards to its north is the parish church with its detached tower, and again a little to the north is the town, which has grown up under the protection of its lordly neighbour. A deep and wholly artificial ditch intervenes between the churchyard and the castle, crossing the high ground, and cutting off and isolating the latter, of which it protects the northern and western faces. These, to the south and east, are made secure by the natural declivity, scarped and rendered steeper by art. The meadows out of which the castle hill rises, being but little above the adjacent Severn, were formerly an extensive and almost impassable morass, adding much to the strength of the place. Under the skill and labour of centuries, they have become grass-lands of great beauty and fertility, and form a charming foreground to the castle. Beyond, are elms and oaks often of great magnitude, disposed in frequent hedgerows, and in the distance to the west are the Welsh mountains, and to the east the nearer scarp of the Cotteswold, here and there covered with thriving plantations.

Town and castle stand geologically upon the Old Red Sandstone, which, a very few yards to the east, is succeeded by the Ludlow rocks, which are again covered up by the marls of the Lias and New Red, and towards the Cotteswold by the Lower Oolite.

Like Warwick, Windsor, Arundel, and some other ancient piles, noticed by Shakespeare,—

“There stands the castle by yon tufted trees,”

between its town, and its park, now, indeed, disparked, but which extended far and wide to the south-east, and is traversed by an extended avenue. As was the case at Warwick, there is a deer-park entirely detached from the castle.

The main approach to the castle lies through the town, on leaving which, a road, passing the church, leads up to the entrance, and crosses the ditch by a permanent bridge, by which the draw-bridge was superseded by Henry Lord Berkeley in 1587, and beyond and partly standing in which is the _outer Gate-house_. This is a rectangular building of no great merit, pierced by a portal having a low drop arch on each face. The passage is plainly vaulted in calcareous tufa, and in the crown of the vault are three square holes or _meurtrières_. There is no upper story, nor, at present, are there any flanking towers or curtain. There is a basement below the road-way level, entered from the ditch, but, probably, at one time filled with earth. This gate-house may be of Decorated date. It has no portcullis. From the ditch, the side walls of the bridge look original, and may have been, as at Goderich, the lateral walls between which was the pit of the draw-bridge.

Entering the outer gate, the visitor finds himself upon a triangular platform, of which the outer gate-house is the apex, and the inner gate-house and part of the keep the base; on the left a modern wall, which replaces the curtain, crests the scarp of the ditch, and forms the north side of the platform 66 yards long. On the right a low parapet, 54 yards long, forms the south side, and caps a revetment wall of about 10 feet in height, at the foot of which the ancient scarp has been laid out in good taste in a terrace garden. This triangular platform is scarcely an outer ward: it is rather a barbican covering the main entrance and the keep. Its area is 7,750 square yards. There is no trace of a second ditch in advance of this side of the keep and the inner gate, but it is very probable that there was one, though, if so, it must have been filled up when the courts were added to the keep, as otherwise it would have completely occupied them.

The keep covers about 35 yards, or above half of the base of the barbican, and lies to the left or north of the gate-house. Part of it has been removed and a large breach formed, showing that the interior is full 22 feet above the ground level outside. The _inner Gate-house_ is in the same position as at Alnwick. It is in truth not a regular gate-house, and has no flanking towers or _machicoulis_, but the entrance passage pierces a lofty pile of buildings which connect the domestic apartments with the keep, and complete the circle of the main court. The portal is about 11 feet broad and 30 feet deep, and its roof is flat and of timber. It has two drop arches. On the right is a lodge door, and the inner archway has a half round portcullis groove. Above are two stories through which are doors, no doubt modern, into the keep. Probably the Norman entrance was here, a mere opening in the wall. Much of the structure seems Decorated with later alterations. South of, and flanking the gate, between it and the south-east angle of the place, is a small Tudor building.

The gateway opens into the _Great Court_ of the castle, a roughly rectangular space, having the circular keep encroaching considerably upon its north-west angle, and the remainder of the space set round with domestic buildings built against and completely concealing the lofty curtain.

This court, which is, in fact, the castle, measures outside upon its south face 60 yards, and its east face 72 yards, these two being set nearly at right angles. The north and west faces are about 60 yards and 76 yards, but the north-west angle is occupied by the keep, which covers about 40 yards of the north, and 42 yards of the west face, forming a part of the _enceinte_. The buildings project about 30 feet, so that the inner and open part of the court is much reduced in area. The curtain, originally thick, has been strengthened outside, probably in the Decorated period, by nearly thirty broad and thick and very clumsy buttresses, some of which probably conceal the early Norman pilaster, for most of the wall is certainly of that date. Some of these buttresses are pierced by loops, showing an immense thickness of wall.

On entering the court, on the left is the high plain wall of the keep, with its forebuilding and exterior staircase ascending to the entrance. On the right are domestic buildings, drawing-rooms, bed-rooms, &c., extending to the south-east corner. The face wall, though much altered, and pierced with Tudor windows, seems in substance Norman with large Decorated alterations. The pointed Norman arches may be traced in the wall. These buildings have a basement and two upper stories. It is uncertain whether they stand upon a vault.

The chapel occupies the south-east angle. The hall is next to it along the east side, and the butteries, kitchen, and offices fill up the north-east angle and the north side as far as the keep. In the south wall, near the gate-house, but at the exterior ground level, is a small pointed doorway, probably a postern, and connected with it a small chamber, about 6 feet below the level of the court, of doubtful age, but with an old doorway. It has a flat roof, and wooden floor of the room above: being filled with the bins of a modern cellar, it cannot be examined.

The _Chapel_, dedicated to the Virgin, rests on the vault of the great cellar, and measures 29 feet by 18 feet. It is entered by a modern door in the north wall, west of which are traces of what seems to have been the original entrance. It has a rather flat apsidal east end of three faces; the vestry, a mural chamber, opening in that to the south-east. The south side is the outer wall, 14 feet thick; it is pierced by a mural passage, a sort of aisle, at the floor-level, which opens into the chapel by four foliated arches, each corresponding to a window or loop in the curtain. There is a small Decorated piscina. Against the west wall is a sort of pew of two stages, the upper being an enclosed gallery for the family, opening from the principal rooms.

The roof is open, at a very low pitch, with timber ribs rising from corbels. These, with cross ribs, divide the roof into large panels of a very curious character. The walls of the chapel are Norman, but the roof and fittings are mostly Decorated. Maurice, Lord Berkeley, 38 Edward III., obtained from Pope Urban II. a bull bestowing certain spiritual privileges upon all who worshipped here or in the chapel in the keep.

The _Cellar_ below the chapel is part of the original castle. Its level is a little below the floor of the hall. It is in plan an equilateral triangle about 40 feet in the side. Its roof is vaulted and groined in three hexagonal bays, springing from three shafts of late Norman character. Nine triangular vaultings, abutting on the walls, complete this very curious roof. Opening from this is another vault, also a cellar, at a lower level by about 5 feet. It is much smaller, and has a ribbed and vaulted roof. Unfortunately it is used as a cellar, and obscured by modern fittings. It has a small Tudor window.

From the chapel and drawing-room a broad wooden seventeenth century staircase descends into the hall at its south or dais end, in which is a large and handsome fireplace, probably of the same date.

The _Hall_ is 32 feet broad by 61 feet long, and has an open pointed roof. It is built at the ground level against the east curtain, which is, or was, pierced by four windows, three in the hall and one within the buttery screen. The latter is late Norman, with slender flanking shafts. The other three are full centred, with a keel bead at the angle, and an interior drip. They seem Decorated, and no doubt replace Norman loops. In the west or court wall are four large and lofty flat-topped and somewhat peculiar windows of two lights each, broken into four by a heavy transom. The upper lights are trefoil, the lower shoulder-headed. Between each pair, outside, is a triangular buttress. The entrance from the court is in the west side, at the north end, by a handsome and spacious porch, vaulted and groined. The exterior doorway is an arch composed of four quite plain straight sides, parts of an octagon, similar in outline to those above the Berkeley tombs at Bristol, known locally as the Berkeley arch. This is repeated with the addition of some ornament in the inner doorway, which opens into a narrow strip of the hall cut off by the screen. On the left, in the end wall of the hall, are three fine Berkeley arches opening into the butteries, of which the central was formerly a door. Above this passage, high up, is a small music gallery, probably of Tudor date, or even later. The roof of the hall is poor, but said to be of the fourteenth century. No doubt this represents the original Norman hall, rebuilt, as regards the court wall, in the Decorated period.

Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London. _Face p. 233, Vol. 1._

BERKELEY CASTLE—THE KEEP.

_From the Hall._]

In the hall are placed, not inappropriately, the earlier charters of the family, protected with glass. Perhaps, however, looking at their extreme value as connected with the castle, it would be safer to restore them to the muniment room, and replace them for public exhibition by photographs.

To the north, beyond the lower end of the hall, are the butteries, kitchen, and pantries, the latter against the curtain. The _Kitchen_ is an irregular hexagon, averaging 13 feet 6 inches in the side. In the three longer sides are recesses for a fireplace, and hoods over cooking-places. The original doors were in the buttery on one side and the scullery on the other, and there were two windows towards the court. The roof is of open work, very plain, heavy and poor, and very high up. It is said to have been brought from Wootton Manor House, and placed here by Henry VII. The scullery, &c. occupy the north-east angle of the court, and, like the adjacent chambers, is of irregular form, governed by the general outline of the castle. The larders, dairy, &c. are against the north curtain, and from the bakehouse a modern vaulted passage leads to the ancient well, which is in the court. The oven is in the north-west corner, and two bold drop-arched stone ribs traverse the chamber, and stiffen its vaulted roof. All these rooms form the ground floor, and carry an upper story. Their front towards the court seems to have been modernised, but in substance they are Decorated, with considerable remains of older Norman walling.

The KEEP is the most interesting part of this very remarkable castle, since it is a shell keep of a known date. It is nearly circular, about 50 yards diameter, and the containing curtain-wall is about 8 feet thick, reducing its inner area to near 45 yards. The floor, of earth, is about 22 feet higher than the exterior ground, and, the wall being 40 feet high inside, is about 62 feet outside, the lower 22 feet being a revetment, and very thick. Upon its circuit are three half-round projecting towers or bastion turrets, 20 feet in diameter, of the height of the curtain, which seems to have been open at the rear, or closed only with timber. One of these projects to the east, and is abutted upon by the northern curtain of the castle court. In its base is a well, under a barrel vault, and above, resting upon this, is the oratory, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. The western or end wall of the oratory, and the outer stair leading to it, are modern.

The oratory is at present used as a muniment room. The ecclesiastical features are much injured and obscured. The eastern end is a half round, and there are remains of the flanking shafts of the Norman east window, and a small piscina. It appears to have been vaulted.

The second half-round tower is 64 feet from the former, and projects to the south into the court, commanding the inner face of its entrance, and the approach to the keep. In it, below the ground level, but not much lower than the level of the court below, is a circular dungeon 25 feet deep, into which Edward II. is said to have been finally thrust.

The third tower is 50 feet from the second, and projects to the south. Here also has recently been discovered a chamber somewhat similar to the dungeon already mentioned, also not vaulted, and of very rough masonry, as though a mere foundation intended to be filled up with earth. These two last towers are blocked in by later masonry, the first within, the latter both within and without, as it projects into the buildings of the gateway. As this tower could never have been intended to be thus concealed, it points to the conclusion that the keep was built before the wall of the inner court.

Besides these three half-round towers is a fourth, rectangular, and a much larger work, to the north, forming a part of the exterior line of defence. This is known as Thorpe’s Tower, and the family of that name are said to have held their adjacent estate of Wanswell by the tenure of its defence. This tower is 64 feet long by 17 feet deep. It forms a part of the curtain, having a very slight interior projection. At each end it expands into a square turret, that to the west 17 feet, that to the east 20 feet. The western turret and the body of the tower are thought to be solid, which is very improbable. They are not unlikely to have been filled in with earth to increase their power of resistance when the castle was battered from the churchyard. The eastern turret contains a square well-staircase of fifty-four steps, which leads to the battlements, and has a mural chamber on its way. The entrance below to this staircase is by an original full-centred arch, partially blocked up. This tower is somewhat higher than the curtain, with which it does not communicate. It is said to have been originally higher by a few feet more. Even at present it is the highest part of the castle, and hence the family banner is displayed. Below and outside this tower, to the north, are some modern offices.

Between Thorpe Tower and the Well Tower is seen in the wall the outline of a recess for a loop, and above it a segmental arch and Norman moulding, now closed up. The whole south side of the keep area is occupied by a block of building, about 80 feet long by from 20 feet to 30 feet deep. No doubt part of this building may be original, but by far the more prominent part is evidently modern, and sadly out of place. It covers the rear of the two southern half-round towers, which are thus not seen from within.

The entrance to this keep is peculiar. Usually, as at Tamworth, Lincoln, York, Cardiff, and Arundel, the entrance to a shell-keep was at its ground-level, and that of a rectangular keep, as at Castle Rising and Dover, at its first or second floor. Here, however, both conditions may be said to be fulfilled, for although the entrance is on the ground level as regards the interior of the keep, it is the full height of a first floor above the ground outside, and this height is gained by an exterior stair, guarded by a middle and lower gate, and above the latter by a regular tower. This forebuilding is common to rectangular keeps, but does not occur elsewhere in shell keeps. Here the _Forebuilding_ is 72 feet in length, and is applied to the south-east side of the keep, or that within the court. In breadth it varies from 15 feet to 10 feet. Five steps ascend to its outer gate, a large full-centred archway contained within a plain chamfered moulding. As the doorway has been blocked and reduced in size by a perpendicular work, its jambs are concealed or may have been removed. Within is a vaulted passage, carried through the gate-tower, which is 15 feet square, and has an upper story. From the doorway twenty-four steps ascend to an open platform, having on the right a high and pierced parapet, and on the left the wall of the keep. At the stair-head a ledge on the right serves as a way to the upper floor over the gateway. This is a small chamber lighted by two windows and a lancet loop. The two larger windows and the door are of Tudor date, as may be the whole room; but, if so, it is a rebuilding, for the original tower must have been on the same pattern. In the room is an ancient bed and some hangings of needlework or tapestry, very early, but scarce of the age of Edward II., whose chamber this is reputed to have been.

A little beyond the stair-head, against the walls, right and left, are seen the rebates of the middle gate, and in front, in the wall of the Oratory Tower, is the weather moulding of a roof. Hence it would seem that the staircase, as at Castle Rising, was covered all the way up.

The main entrance to the keep opens upon the platform at the stair-head. It is a handsome, full-arched doorway with closed tympanum and flat head. It was flanked by highly ornate shafts, of which one remains. This portal opens into a vaulted passage through the keep wall, and enters the keep under an original archway, segmented with Norman mouldings. The jambs are worked in a very bold chevron pattern. From the exterior platform a narrow stair is continued to the battlements of the curtain over the bakehouse; but this may be an addition, for usually every part of a Norman keep was complete in itself, and had no direct communication with any other part of the castle. There is another and parallel stair in the wall, but opening outside and leading to the room above the bakehouse. This is not original.

The keep is constructed of exceedingly rude rubble masonry. Upon two parts of its face are nine narrow and shallow pilaster strips: three towards the barbican, and six between the inner gate and the forebuilding. The keep wall has a rude plinth, with no set-off or string. It is evident that this, as at York, and in other shell-keeps, was lined by lodgings, having an upper floor, placed all round against the wall with an open court in the centre. These were probably of timber. In the part of the keep towards the barbican is a breach about 40 feet broad down to the level of the inner floor. It is said that this part of the wall was partially broken down during General Massey’s attack, and was afterwards enlarged to its present condition, as at Kenilworth, rather as a matter of favour, to render the castle untenable without injuring it as a dwelling. Had the keep been blown up as was usual by gunpowder, it would have presented a very different aspect.

If the masonry of Berkeley Castle were to be removed, as at Kilpeck or Ewias Harold, its remains would show a mound of earth, and attached to three sides of it a platform, the whole encircled with a ditch or scarp. It would, in fact, be a moated mound with an appended platform, of a character very common in England, in the Welsh Marches, and in Normandy, and would resemble such works as Tamworth and Towcester, the dates of which are given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The inference is, therefore, that Berkeley was the seat of an English lord, probably from the ninth century. Had the fortress been an original Norman work, it is scarcely probable that a shell would have been the form of keep selected, or that, having been so selected, its lower 22 feet would have been filled up with earth. Evidently the Norman builder, finding a moated mound of no great height, but of considerable breadth, built his shell round it, as at Pontefract, as a revetment wall, and upon this, when clear of the top of the mound, raised his curtain. At a lower level, along the scarp of the existing ditch, he, or his immediate successor, constructed the walls, which, then as now, contain the whole castle.

All the main walls of the castle are either Norman, or rebuilt upon Norman foundations, or very nearly so. Probably the keep was built first and the court enclosed shortly afterwards. Much was done in the Decorated period. The inner wall of the hall, at least, was rebuilt, and it may have been enlarged. The porch was added, the chapel much altered, and the domestic buildings possibly gutted and recast. Henry VII., when in possession, seems to have made some inconsiderable alterations, and others have been added since.

Berkeley is a rare example of an estate which has descended in the male line from the reign of Stephen, and in the female line from the Norman Conquest. The first of the latter ancestry is entered as the Lord of Berkeley in Domesday; the first of the former is also there entered, though as proprietor of other estates. Few, if any, of our oldest families can say with truth as much, but further than this the Berkeley tenure has been “per Baroniam,” and from the Conquest they have been barons of the realm, first by tenure, and when, in the reign of Henry III., tenure fell into disuse, then by writ; but by one right or the other they have ever sat in the great council of the nation.

There is no reason to suppose that the Romans had any settlement at Berkeley. Their camps and villas are frequent in the neighbourhood, which was traversed by Roman roads, but of their presence in Berkeley itself there is no other evidence than the fact that the two main streets of the town cross in its centre at a right angle, in the Roman manner.