Chapter XII: Of the Edwardian or Concentric Castles (10)

And first of the doorways. With certain exceptions shortly to be enumerated, the doorways throughout the building are of the same general character. The arches are “drop,” that is to say, they are obtusely pointed arches, whose centres lie below their spring. This is obviously the best form of the pointed arch for the portals of a castle, and it is that usually employed in the military structures of the Edwardian period. With the same exceptions, the arch-mouldings are composed of a five-sided rib, upon the front and widest face of which a smaller rib, of the same figure, is placed. This pattern of rib-moulding is also very commonly employed in castles.

The principal portals, together with the doors leading from the first story of the towers upon the ramparts, are defended by portcullises, working in a D-shaped groove. This groove passes up as a chase or slot into the chamber above; but there is no evidence of the sort of contrivance employed in raising the portcullis. The portcullis, however, might have been raised by mere manual exertion, and a bar thrust across would be sufficient to retain it securely when raised. The sills are destroyed, so that it does not appear whether the points of the portcullis were received into, or had worn, small holes in them. Besides the portcullis, the larger portals are provided with a chase, but without side grooves, intended, as is presumed, to allow of the use of a sort of wooden frame. Also, in the main portals are four or five square holes or _meurtrières_ in the arch, through which beams to form a stockade might be dropped. It may be observed further that although some of the portal passages are of considerable length, yet the ribs of their vaults are all transverse, never passing diagonally from an angle towards the centre, in the manner employed at Caldecot and elsewhere, to vault a compartment of such passages.

There appears to have been more than one kind of drawbridge employed in this castle. In some places, as at the great gate, and at the passage in its gatehouse tower, the bridge, when drawn up, fitted into a depression, so as to lie flush with the upper wall, from whence, therefore, its length may be inferred. In other cases it simply rested against the wall, making a projection. It seems always to have been long enough, when up, to cover the gateway.

The method of hanging the bridge also varied. On the sides of some of the portals a stone has been inserted, into which the horizontal pivots of the bridge (of iron, from the small size of the pintle or hole) fitted; but, connected with the place for the gudgeon or pivot is another groove, which passes up at an angle of forty-five degrees for a few feet, and then passes on horizontally for a few more. It appears as though this were a contrivance, when the bridge was raised, for throwing its lower end upwards and forwards, so as more effectually to shield the upper part of the door, to present an oblique surface to missiles, and, by making the bridge lean back against the wall, to remove the strain from its chains or ropes, and to prevent it from falling, even should they be broken. It may be, however, that into these grooves fitted some lever, or other contrivance for working the bridge; where they occur, there are no holes above for the passage of the drawbridge chains into the portcullis chamber. Similar grooves are seen in the upper gatehouse at Chepstow.

The defences of the great, or water, postern are singular. The grooves, which in other cases form the portcullis slides, here stop abruptly a little above the arch. They are too deep for the hinges of gates, and were probably filled by a defence similar to a portcullis, but which was received into a cavity below. Indeed, as there is only a lofty wall, and no chamber above the postern, the regular plan was inadmissible.

There is a further contrivance for the defence of a gate, consisting of a sort of shoot, opening obliquely downwards from the sill of a window, employed in two places in this castle; one over the door of the eastern inner gateway, and the other over the door of the north-west principal bastion tower; in both cases evidently with a view to the defence of the towers when the enemy had gained the inner court.

The battlements and parapets throughout the castle are of a very plain description. They are massy and flat topped, the coping being a rough slab of sandstone. The height and thickness, together with that of the rerewall and the width of the rampart walk, may be always deduced from a careful inspection of the walls or towers against which they terminate. The parapet and rerewall are usually of the same height, and nearly as high as the top of the doors leading to them.

The embrasures are contained within parallel sides, and bear a small proportion to the merlons, which latter are each perforated by a loop. These details may be seen upon the summit of the leaning tower, or, more conveniently, upon the northern curtain, toward the north-west bastion tower. It is evident, from the unfinished character of the battlements, and the flat undressed coping, that they were intended to be masked by an exterior gallery, or brattice of wood, resting on the stone corbels which still remain. For this reason there are no machicolations in stone, or devices for dropping missiles through the floor of a projecting parapet—a contrivance which adds so materially to the grandeur of the towers of Warwick, Raglan, and Cardiff. Over the eastern middle gateway, the parapet has a false machicolation, or slight projection, supported upon a table of corbel blocks, but without apertures, or a projection sufficient to admit of any.

The windows, with certain exceptions, are either loops, or, if larger, of a very plain character. In the hall, however, and in the large rooms of the two inner gatehouses, they are very wide and lofty, and have been highly ornamented. The two latter rooms are so much injured, and the windows so mutilated, that it can only be said, that what little remains of ornament are seen resemble in style the more perfect ornaments of the hall. The oratory attached to the eastern inner gatehouse has a vaulted roof, divided into two square compartments, supported by transverse and diagonal ribs. The two windows towards the south are long and narrow, without a mullion, and trefoiled; their mouldings are only an exterior chamfer. There are some other windows in the gatehouses, looking towards the interior, which are much shorter, but otherwise resemble this. The four hall windows are lofty and well proportioned; they open to within four feet of the ground.

The exterior moulding of the windows is completely gone; that of the door was discovered by removing the grass about its base.

The interior mouldings of the windows are extremely rich, owing to the reduplication of the bands, to occupy the great thickness of the wall. The angles of the mouldings are, at two depths, removed, and their place occupied by a hollow groove, in which the pomegranate ornament is placed at intervals, making up the circle by its projection. Beyond each of these bands of pomegranates are pilaster strips, filleted at their angles, and surmounted by small angular capitals: within is a handsome ogee canopy, enriched with crockets and finials, in a very pure style.

The door has a good internal drip, but its inner moulding is composed of only one band of ball flowers. The outer mouldings are rich. There are three bands of pomegranates, which no doubt were continued, as in the windows, round the arch; and between them are two rows of small disengaged columns, with the circular concave pedestal. Of these only the pedestal remains.

The fourteen corbels upon which the beams of the roof rested are composed of three short clustered columns, connected by their posterior half, and separated by a fillet and bold hollow; above they are crowned with a neat cap moulding, and below, they rest upon three projecting busts, of which the central is the lowest and largest. A fillet runs up the centre of each of these columns, and, pausing at the abacus, is continued up the capital, and finally dies in the astragal. Corbels, of somewhat earlier date, but in general appearance resembling these, may be seen in the keep at Chepstow.

There are no decorations remaining about the fireplace. The plain stringcourse along the east end of the hall, returned from the corbel of the chapel window, is perfect. A base tablet is seen at the west end of the north side, but it is destroyed along its length.

A long window in one of the staterooms resembles, though on a much larger scale, the windows of the oratory already described. It appears, however, to have been trefoiled, with a quatrefoil above the head.

There are two small polygonal apartments on either side of the inner western gate, in the vaulted roofs of which a plain diagonal rib rises from a corbel at each angle, and meets its fellow in the centre. The corbels have three flat faces, and terminate in a point, which rests upon some animal, in every case wantonly defaced. They appear to have been lodges.

Caerphilly presents as little architectural decoration, in proportion to its extent, as any castellated building in Britain.

Generally, its series of concentric defences, and the general disposition of its constituent parts, resemble those of Harlech and Beaumaris. The plan of these concentric castles is very peculiar. It is unlike the earlier Norman castles, in which the keep was the principal feature, and in which comfort was sacrificed to safety; and it is also unlike the later castles, which possess not only large interior, but large exterior, windows, as at Sheriff-Hutton, and in which there is no building to which the name of keep could be attached.

Nor is the style of architecture employed at Caerphilly less characteristic of its age; the drop arch, the perfectly plain rib, the general absence of decorations and armorial bearings, the plain battlements, and the absence of machicolations, indicate generally the same period.

The columns of the hall doorway, the concave moulding of their pedestals, the triple cluster of columns forming the corbels of the roof, their bell capitals, and light cap moulding, are due to the Early English style, which prevailed from 1189 to 1307.

On the other hand, the pomegranate moulding, the rich, though chaste and somewhat stiff, canopies of the door and windows, the little pilasters in the windows with the pentagonal capitals, the ogee arches, and the plain fillet running up the columnar corbels of the roof, are marks all belonging to the Decorated style, which prevailed from 1307 to 1377.

The mixture of these two styles, very common in English buildings, denotes a period varying according to the preponderance of either, and in the present instance may legitimately be referred to the latter quarter of the thirteenth century, when the Decorated style was beginning to supersede the Early English. Instances of this transition, and of the ball-flower, or pomegranate, moulding, may be seen round the inside of the choir of Bristol Cathedral, and on the outside of the south aisle of Keynsham Church.

The earlier alterations at Chepstow, and more particularly the oratory attached to Martin’s Tower, and the columnar corbels in the keep, may be cited as of an earlier date than Caerphilly, having been evidently placed there before the decline of the Early English style.

The internal evidence of the building, which would place its date about the end of the reign of Henry III., agrees with the evidence of records cited hereafter, in which the castle is referred to, in the year 1272, as having been lately erected by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford.

Before this period, mention is occasionally made of the castle of Senghenydd, which, from its having been taken, retaken, and more than once utterly destroyed, was evidently a place much contested, but of no great magnitude or passive strength. After the erection of Caerphilly, Senghenydd Castle is not again mentioned. It is therefore not impossible that Senghenydd Castle was a rude fortification of timber and undressed stone, upon the peninsula afterwards occupied by Caerphilly.

Caerphilly having then certainly been founded by Earl Gilbert a little before 1272, the question arises as to whether the whole of it was then built.

The inner ward, its curtains, bastions, gatehouses, with all their contents and appendages, are of one date. The south wall was always of its present height, and therefore always intended to support the roof of the hall, the walls of which are bonded into it. The gatehouses are evidently part of the original plan, and the long windows of the staterooms, and those of the oratory in the inner gatehouse are, in their form and mouldings, precisely similar.

It appears that the curtain connecting the north-west bastion tower with the west gatehouse was originally as low as the northern curtain, but that a sort of gallery, and its superincumbent rampart, have been added. A cluster of buildings has also been added on the outside of the south curtain, at the angle formed by its junction with the south-west tower.

The general design of the middle ward, and most of its buildings, are clearly of the date of the inner ward. The western gatehouse, however, appears to be of somewhat later date; the false machicolations, the holes for the portcullis chains, the chimneys rising above the parapet, and the less durable character of the masonry, seem to indicate this. The walls, moreover, by means of which this gatehouse is connected with the curtain of the inner ballium, though of the same age with the former, are not bonded into, and are separated by fissures from, the latter—a tolerably sure indication of difference of age.

It is not improbable that the whole exterior line of defence on the east, and the horn-work on the west, were the last parts of the castle completed. They form, however, parts of the original design, since, had the ground on which they stand been left unoccupied, the castle would not have been tenable.

With respect to the redoubt, it is perfectly evident, from its appearance, that it was thrown up, not only when gunpowder was in general use, but when the science of fortification was pretty well understood. It seems, like the earthworks at Donnington and other castles, to be of the age of Charles I.

The injuries received by this castle are similar to others at Corfe and elsewhere, known to be referable to the same period of civil strife in which the battle of St. Fagan’s, and the occupation of Cardiff, prove the men of Glamorgan to have taken an active part. Nothing, therefore, seems more probable than that the redoubt should have been thrown up hastily by one party for the defence of the castle, and that the dismantling of the whole should have been perpetrated by the other, to prevent such a defence being practicable in future. Though history has afforded no clue as to the one of the contending parties to which either proceeding is to be referred, there can be no doubt but that the blowing up of the towers was the work of the Parliament.

There seems no reason to suppose that the works of Caerphilly were never completed. The flanking towers on either wing rest upon the lake, and the horn-work is a sufficient defence in the opposite direction.

About three-quarters of a mile from Caerphilly, on the Rudry road, are the ruins of the “VAN,” or “Ffanvawr,” the ancient and very stately manor-house of the Lewis family, the direct descendants in blood, and the heirs in heritage, of Ivor Bach, on whose land Caerphilly was erected.

Most of the outer walls of the house, and a curious old dovecot, remain standing. They are of the age of Elizabeth or James, but much of the hewn stone employed in the windows, doorcases, quoins, and stringcourses of the lower story, are either of oolite or Sutton stone, and are very evidently a part of the spoils of Caerphilly. Most of these stones have been worked up, and their original ornaments destroyed, but one long stringcourse of Decorated date, evidently much earlier than the wall in which it is embedded, extends along the west front of the house.

These stones could not have been removed from Caerphilly earlier than the reign of Elizabeth, in which reign, or rather in that of Henry VIII., the castle was used as a prison. Probably the central parts were so occupied, and the parts allowed to be spoiled were those connected with the east front. In appropriating the stones of Caerphilly to the erection of their manor-house, the Lewis family, from whom the ground was originally wrested, may have committed a breach of taste, but none had a better moral right to help themselves from that source.

CARDIFF CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.

The castle of Cardiff, though not unknown to border fame, has been the theatre of no great historical event, nor does it present any very striking peculiarities of position, scenery, or structure. Its claim to more than local interest rests upon the character and fortunes of the great barons whose inheritance and occasional residence it was from the 11th to the 15th century, from the reign of Rufus to that of Henry VI. Probably a Roman castrum, and certainly a hold of the local British princes, it was won, in 1090, by the sword of Robert Fitzhamon, lord of the Honour of Gloucester, and by him constituted the “caput” of his newly acquired seignory of Morgan and Glamorgan.

Mabel, the heiress of Fitzhamon, conveyed his possessions, with her hand, to Robert Consul, Earl of Gloucester, bastard son of Henry I., and the reputed builder of the Norman parts of the castle.

They were succeeded by their son William, Earl of Gloucester, who died 1173, leaving daughters only; the inheritance was then for a time held by King John, then Earl of Moreton, by marriage with Isabel, the youngest co-heir; and on her divorce, soon after 1199, by Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, who died, 1216. Isabel’s third husband was Hubert de Burgh, she died childless.

Upon this, Almaric d’Evreux, who married Mabel, the elder co-heir, became Earl of Gloucester; but Mabel’s issue also failed.

Amice, the second co-heir, had married Richard, head of the powerful house of De Clare; and their son Gilbert, Earl of Hertford, thus finally became Earl of Gloucester, lord of that honour, and possessor of the castle of Cardiff. He died 1229.

Four earls of the race of Clare possessed Cardiff Castle for nearly a century; and though chiefly resident at Clare and Tonbridge, did much to adorn the castle and consolidate the seignory.

In 1320, Eleanor, the elder co-heir of the last De Clare, was married to Hugh le Despenser the younger, the minion of Edward II. During the minority or attainder of their son, Hugh d’Audley who had married the second co-heir, had the earldom, and possibly held Cardiff at his death in 1347. The Despensers then reappeared in the person of Thomas, son of Edward, who was son of Hugh and Eleanor de Clare. This Thomas was created earl of Gloucester in 1397, and attainted and beheaded in 1400. His son Richard, who succeeded, died a minor and childless, in 1414.

The earldom of Gloucester was not revived, but, including the first Hugh, five members of this unfortunate race held the seignory and castle for ninety-four years.

Isabel le Despenser, sister of Richard, and the final heiress, was born at Cardiff Castle, which she did much to strengthen and embellish. She married the cousins, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Worcester, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The Earl of Worcester married before 1415-16, and died about 1421, leaving a daughter, whose descendants became barons Le Despenser in her right, but who did not inherit Cardiff. Countess Isabel’s chief works at Cardiff were probably executed after her second marriage, which took place before 1425. Her charter to Cardiff, as Countess of Worcester, in 1423, confirms those of her paternal ancestors. Her son, Henry, Duke of Warwick, succeeded his father in 1439, and died in 1446. His heiress, Anne Beauchamp, had but a brief and nominal tenure of the seignory, dying in 1449, an infant of six years.

The castle then descended to the representative of another Anne Beauchamp, sister and heiress to the duke. She married Richard Nevile, the great Earl of Salisbury and Warwick, who thus added Cardiff to his already extensive possessions. One of the town charters, dated Cardiff Castle, 12th March, 1451, was granted by Richard, Earl of Warwick, Lord le Despenser, &c., and Anne his wife.

Upon the earl’s death, in 1471, Cardiff Castle fell to Anne, his younger daughter and co-heir by Anne Beauchamp, in whose right her husband Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III., became lord of Cardiff Castle and the seignory, and in the latter capacity granted various charters and confirmations yet extant.

Upon the fall and death of Richard, the claims by heirship were set aside and the castle and seignory escheated to the Crown. They were subsequently granted to Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford; but on his death, in 1495, again became crown property. The seignory, with its “jura regalia” and prerogatives of marchership, was not again revived; but Henry VII. and his son leased the lordship to Charles Somerset, who was residing at Cardiff in 1513; and Edward VI. granted or sold the castle of Cardiff, with much of the landed estate and the manorial rights of the old seignory, to William Herbert, the first of the new earls of Pembroke, in whose heirs general the whole has since remained.

The history of this long succession of powerful lords, most of whom set their mark upon the great transactions of their age and country, has invested the castle with something of historical interest; which, however, can scarcely be extended to the particulars of the building itself, the subject of the present paper.

The castle of Cardiff stands upon the broad gravel plain between the rivers Taff and Rhymny, upon the left bank of, and two hundred yards from the former stream, at about the lowest point at which, in ordinary seasons, it is fordable.

The position, having a river in front and rear, and the sea close upon the southern flank, is such as would be selected by a commander skilled in the art of war, and enclosed in an enemy’s country; and such as, with disciplined troops, would be impregnable.

These conditions, the name of the place, and its position upon the well-known “via maritima,” are suggestive of a Roman origin; an opinion, indeed, but moderately supported by scanty discoveries of Roman remains, but in unison with the form and character of a part of the earthworks which enter into the composition of the present castle.

These appear to have been a single lofty bank raised from an exterior ditch, and enclosing much of three sides of a quadrangular space, of which the fourth lies open towards the river; a practice by no means unusual in Roman or “quasi-” Roman encampments. It is possible, though scarcely probable, that the earthwork was once complete on the three sides down to the river, and that the south-western part was destroyed to form a very considerable mound, which still remains towering over the banks of the enclosure, and is crowned by the shell of an early multangular keep. Wallingford, Tamworth and Wareham are instances in which a quadrangular earthwork has been in part retained and in part removed by the builders of a Norman castle, and in each of which also there is a mound.

Whatever may have been its origin, the castle of Cardiff covers a plot of ground nearly square in plan, being 200 yards east and west by 216 yards north and south; and bounded on the north and east, and partially on the south, sides, by banks of earth, and on the west and remainder of the south side by a wall. The banks are about 30 feet high, 90 feet broad at the base, and 12 feet at the summit, along which runs a light embattled wall about 6 feet high and 2 feet thick. This wall is mentioned by Meyric, in 1578, as in decay, and it was rebuilt from its shallow foundation of only 2 feet in 1861. It cannot have been intended as a serious military defence, and the recent excavations did not reveal any traces of an older or more substantial work. At the south-east, north-east, and north-west angles, the banks are strengthened, possibly to carry towers, of which, however, no foundations have been discovered. The earthwork is returned about 70 yards along the south, and about 30 yards along the west, fronts, to give support to, and cover the commencement of, the walls of those sides which, with an inconsiderable exception, are evidently very ancient, and were probably executed by Robert, Consul or Earl of Gloucester.

These walls are magnificent works, being 40 feet high and 10 feet thick, and perfectly solid.

The main buildings of the castle are in the line and form a part of the west wall. In the centre of the south side is the gateway, once of the outer ward, now of the general inclosure, a mere arch in the curtain, and, in its present form, probably of the age of Henry VIII., whose arms may have occupied a square stone frame remaining above and on the outside of the gate.

Close west of the gate is a lofty tower, apparently of early English or early Decorated date, and restored by the late Lord Bute. This is the black tower. Though so near the gate it is clear that it never had any direct communication with it, nor was intended as a gatehouse. Meyric describes it as a great tower, some stories high, and covered with lead, with two chambers in each story, the lowest being prisons, known as Stavell-y-Oged and Stavell Wen. One, the larger of these prisons, now disused, has a pointed vault and a small loop, high up in the east wall. This tower has four original entrances: one to each of the basement prisons, one from the remains of the great curtain, and one from the ramparts of the castle wall. All are on the north and western faces, and there is no doorway opening towards the great gateway. It is thus clear that this tower, though placed close to the gateway, was never used as a gatehouse.

The northern bank of the general enclosure presents a slight angle outwards, and near the salient a tunnel has been cut through it. This was done about thirty years ago, to give a carriage drive towards the Senghenydd road.

Outside, at the foot of the bank, along the north, south, and east fronts, was a wet ditch, anciently fed by the Taff through the intervention of the mill leat. This moat covered the three fronts, extending as far as the north or Senghenydd gate of the town. In the time of Meyric it was dry and silted up. More recently the eastern portion has been to some extent superseded by the Glamorganshire canal, and the northern, at a lower level, is now a part of the feeder by which the river water is conveyed under the canal to the Dock reservoir. The southern arm has been filled up and built over for many centuries, and its existence is only known from the soft, black soil found in occasional excavations. The mill leat which supplied the lord’s mill, at which the people of Cardiff were bound to grind, and which was occasionally used to flood the low ground for purposes of defence, still runs along the west front of the castle. In the reign of Elizabeth there were three grist-mills and a tucking-mill dependent upon the castle, and one grist-mill was standing in 1660, but was afterwards replaced by a tanyard, removed in 1861, when the new lodge and town bridge were erected. The bridge then destroyed was built about 1796, and replaced a structure of four stone arches, probably of the age of Elizabeth (and referred to in certain Acts of Parliament), placed rather above the castle; so that the high-road from it, towards the west gate of the town, crossed the marsh by a causeway and the leat by a bridge of three arches, and defiled close under the main buildings of the castle. Part of the old gate of the town, with its iron gudgeons, may still be seen in the brushwood a few yards in advance of the great tower, showing how the road entered the town under the castle wall. A small Tudor archway still remains on the right of the old entrance, nearly in a line with the Red House, a building of considerable antiquity, now much altered, and known as the Cardiff Arms Hotel. Recently some excavations between this building and the castle disclosed the foundations of the old town wall, and a large arched passage which might be either a postern or a sewer. It was not followed up.

The area within the castle wall is about 10 acres, and within the counterscarp of the moat about 13 acres.

Within the great enclosure, near to, and a little west of, the centre of the north bank, is the Mound, a grand earthwork, which rises from a circular base of 60 yards in diameter to a height of 32 feet above the surrounding ground. Its summit is a platform, also circular, 36 yards across, and crowned by the remains of the keep, called by Leland the White Tower. This is a shell, or polygon of twelve nearly equal sides, 80 feet in diameter, the wall being 9 feet thick and 30 feet high, and constructed mainly of rolled pebbles. This wall is pierced by the putlog holes, so common in the older masonry, especially of this district; and in one of the eastern sides is a fireplace of enormous dimensions, but the chimney of which appears as a mere recess in the wall, with no present traces of a fourth side or front. Near it is a sink, so that this was evidently a kitchen: a part, no doubt, of the buildings which the wall supported. The walls have never been strengthened by buttresses or pilaster strips; but the exterior angles of the polygon are capped with ashlar quoins, which appear to be of the date of the Beauchamp alterations, with some recent additions, one of which may be the fireplace. The entrance was through a lofty and strong gate-tower, duly portcullised on the south side, and of which a part remains. The shell is probably the work of Robert Consul; but the style and finish of the gate-tower testify to its being due to Isabel Beauchamp, or her husband, of Warwick.

This gatehouse was connected with a cluster of towers of great strength, which occupied the southern slope of the mound, and terminated below in a second gateway, which was the first or outer entrance from the middle ward into the keep. Here, though in an older structure, was the reputed scene of the barbarity practised upon Curthose, and of his subsequent imprisonment. Meyric describes the rooms in these buildings as “not so fair as strong.” They were probably barracks. Much of this building fell down late in the last century, and was removed. It was, no doubt, of Norman foundation, and probably altered both by the De Clares and by Isabel Beauchamp.

Since this account was drawn up, the ditch of the mound has been carefully opened out, and once more supplied with water. This laid open the piles of an early bridge, and the arch of a later one, probably of late Norman date, with the base of a gateway at the foot of the mound, and a well close to it. Also were laid bare parts of the steps by which the mound was ascended, laid alongside of a cross wall as at Tickhill.

The keep does not seem to have contained any central building. A plain stone stair, of which traces remain against the wall, led to the battlement, which was also accessible from the gatehouse. Probably an interior lean-to or shed surrounded the court.

On the face of the opposite fronts of the gate-tower of the keep and of the Black Tower, are sections of the great curtain wall, which extended from one to the other. This wall, thus seen to have been 7 feet thick and 30 feet high, and embattled on each face, was probably not the work of the founder of the castle. It was removed late in the last century, but the foundations remain, and have been laid open. From Meyric’s description, and an oil painting preserved in the castle, it appears that it was pierced near its centre by a gateway, flanked by one if not two semi-drum towers which projected towards the outer ward, and which, in fact, formed the real gateway to the strong part of the castle. There was a second smaller door, a sort of postern, in the southern drum. The foundations corroborate this view. Probably the curtain was an addition by an early De Clare, after, and probably in consequence of, the well-known and successful attack of Ivor Bach.

CARDIFF CASTLE.

G. T. Clark del J. H. Le Keux sc ]

For the completion of the defence it was absolutely necessary that the great curtain should have been continued north of the keep. This portion, however, has been removed. It certainly was never bonded into the keep wall, but a corbel remaining on the north and outside of this may have been connected with it.

The lodgings, or habitable part of the castle, form a rectangular pile, 145 feet long by 55 feet deep, which occupies about two-sevenths of the western side of the court towards the southern end, and thus forms a part of the outer line of defence. This pile is composed of a tower, a central part or body, two main wings, and two lesser wings. All are built against the great Norman wall; the tower and lesser wings outside of it, the remainder inside.

The tower is a bold and well-proportioned octagon of 10 feet in the side, three faces of which project from the outer or west front, while the remainder is incorporated into, and now forms part of, the older Norman wall. It rises from a square base of 26 feet, passing by broaches into an octagon, to a height of 75 feet, or 12 feet above the contiguous buildings. It is boldly machicolated, having five corbel arches on each face, and a lofty parapet above, with two embrasures each way, the intervening merlons, eight in number, being pierced with a cruciform loop or oillet. The four outer or western angles, at the base of the parapet, are capped with bold grotesque heads of animals as gurgoyles.

The base is solid. About 6 feet above the ground it contains a rude chamber, 13 feet square, having a barrel vault, slightly pointed, with doorways, which seem to be original, in its northern and southern, or gable ends. The northern door, now blocked up, was, as late as the last century, a postern; and the chamber was a passage, and seems, from traces of a wall, to have contained a sort of lodge, subdivided into two cells.

Above this chamber is the cylindrical interior of the tower, 13 feet diameter, now a mere shell, occupied by a stair, and vaulted above. There are six windows in two tiers, the lower 38 feet from the ground. They are almost loops, small and square headed, but boldly splayed within, so as to give light and air, and showing the great thickness of the wall. Their arrangement proves the upper part of the tower to have been occupied by two chambers. It is difficult to speculate on the use of the lower part, which must always have been dark, and is rather large for a newel staircase. The present stairs and the groining above are very modern, though the latter may cover older work.

The shell is original and untouched. The material is lias ashlar, backed with rolled pebbles from the Taff. The quoins and battlements are chiefly of a white limestone, dressed with care. This tower gives character to the whole mass of the building. It has been compared with Guy’s tower at Warwick, which, though of smaller dimensions, it much resembles; and it is, no doubt, the work of the same nobleman or his wife, possibly of the same architect, and probably was built between the years 1425 and 1439, during which period Richard, Earl of Warwick, was lord of Cardiff.[3] Some of the prints of the last century show a turret rising out of the Cardiff tower; but this seems to have been a fiction, for no traces of such a turret are found, and in that position it would have been inconsistent with the internal arrangements of the tower.

Immediately behind the tower is the central part, or body of the building, about 70 feet by 30 feet, now composed of a dining-room and entrance lobby on the main floor; a basement, with cellars and offices below, and a range of bedrooms above. The tower is divided from this building by the older main wall of the castle, 10 feet thick and 40 feet high, which runs through the whole, and is much cut about and mutilated by later communications.

The present dining-room and lobby appear to have composed a hall, 62 feet long by 18 feet broad and 13 feet high, having a flat ceiling, probably like that of the hall at Warwick. A passage cut through the wall leads from the lobby into the tower at the foot of the stair, and is no doubt as old as the tower. In recent times, probably by the first Stuart, the face of the great wall has been cut away 3 feet, from the floor level upwards, to give a width of 21 feet to the dining-room. Also, about five years ago, a passage 32 feet long and 3 feet wide, was cut like a tunnel through the axis of this wall, to give a way from the tower to the breakfast-room and offices beyond.

The eastern front of this hall, which looks into the middle ward, forms the centre of the present façade. It is divided into three compartments by four octagonal turrets of half projection, about 4 feet in the side. These rise to the roof. That to the south contains a stair, with an original door from the court. The other three consist of two stages of three windows in each, divided by a string-course. In the lower stage the two central turrets are more ornate than the rest, and have their angles capped with slender buttresses surmounted by pinnacles. This tabernacle work is original in the southernmost of the two, but was added to the other when the windows were pierced in it, and it was cased, a few years ago. These turrets are battlemented and looped above, and range with the regular parapet of the building, but they are not machicolated, their structure being but slight. The stair-turret is much older than the rest. The stair, 7 feet in diameter, rudely restored upon an original newel, communicates with the basement as well as with the court, and by doors, now closed up, opened into the hall and bedrooms. It is from the position of these doors, and from the turret windows, that the height of the old hall has been inferred. The stair is lighted by square-headed windows, and above by a small quatrefoiled opening. It leads up to the roof.

The three curtains or wall spaces connecting the four turrets are also pierced by two rows of single windows, six in all—the lower range square headed, the upper pointed. All are of two lights, with a transom. The turret and curtain windows are all alike, save that in the former the lower tier are pointed.

The present entrance door is modern, made by cutting down a window, and probably all the windows have been renewed during the past half-century. A drawing of this front in 1776 shows, however, windows generally resembling the present, excepting that the turret second from the north, like the stair-turret, has no large windows.

Passing into the interior, the three turrets appear as bays from the main and upper floors, the middle one opening by a sort of passage, as though it had been once a mere dark closet, or perhaps a staircase: the other two open by pointed arches with plain, bold, round, and hollow mouldings. The wall is 5 feet thick, and the passage through it is divided by three ribs into two panels, which are continued through the soffit. The bays themselves, 8 feet wide, with walls only 18 inches thick, have five faces, of which the two inner ones are blank, and the three outer pierced by the windows already described. Each of the six angles, and the centres of the two blank sides are occupied by a slender pilaster shaft, rising from a tall octagonal base, and terminating in a delicate cap, decorated with a sort of trefoil. These shafts are arranged above with some ingenuity, so as to support the sixteen ribs of a groined octagonal roof, meeting at a central boss. In the two northern bays and those of the upper story, this boss is a mass of foliage, probably a very modern restoration; but in the southern bay of the three, that next the stair-turret, it bears an original and elaborate armorial achievement. Within a wreath formed of a vine stem, truncated so as to represent the well-known ragged staff of Warwick, is a shield, set anglewise, of Newburgh and Beauchamp quarterly; and in the centre, Despenser, on an escocheon of pretence. The helmet has large tasselled lambrequins, and upon it is placed the Beauchamp crest of the siren’s head, ducally gorged. The whole is painted in colours, probably after the original pattern; and it is obviously the achievement of Richard Earl of Warwick, and Isabel Despenser, who therefore built these turrets, as is also evident from their style. It is, however, probable, that the ribs and groining of the central bay were copied from the others, and added when its windows were opened, and its walls cased or reconstructed.

It appears from Meyric’s description, and the drawing, two centuries later, by Grose, that the entrance to the hall in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, was at its southern end, at the south-eastern corner, near which were the kitchens. The turret-stair seems then to have been either closed, or used only for communication between the basement, bedrooms, and roof. Grose shows its outer door, as now, partially below the level of the soil.

At the upper or northern end of the hall, on the site of the present drawing-room, was “a fair dining chamber,” and two other rooms; and, above these, two other stories, this being the part of the castle in which the lord and his immediate family and attendants were lodged. It will be observed that all these arrangements, about the existence of which there can be no doubt, leave the most highly decorated bay window, or oriel, and the staircase, at the lower end of the hall. This could never have been intended when the bay was constructed, and this, therefore, indicates an earlier and reversed arrangement.

It is well known that Earl Henry, son of the Herbert purchaser, made considerable alterations in the castle lodgings; but what they were has not been recorded, nor, as yet, inferred. It may, however, be safely asserted that he actually reversed all the internal arrangements. It is clear that in the hall of Richard Beauchamp, the south, with its heraldic oriel, was the dais end; and this will account for the group of buildings convenient to this end, which he raised outside of the great wall; and thus, also, the entrance to the great tower would open, as was proper, upon the lower end of the hall. Meyric says the Herberts removed the flower-garden to the north from the south end of the building, where, no doubt, it had been placed for the convenience of the occupants of the dais. This also accounts for the turret-stair, which gave a ready egress into the lord’s private garden, and an access downwards into the cellar, and upwards into the first floor, where naturally the safest and best bedrooms would be placed. Also, the drawing of 1776 shows certain broken walls about the southern end of the building, on the side of the modern offices, as though the entrance of the Herberts had been accomplished by the incomplete removal of old buildings, an inference which is strengthened by a tower shown in the old oil painting in the castle. It is, therefore, I think, incontestable that the dais of Richard Beauchamp, and probably of the De Clares, was at the southern, as that of the Herberts was at the northern end. The north wall of the former hall is modern, built by the Stuarts; but the south wall is original, and, from the considerable distance between it and the oriel, it is possible that there was a small withdrawing-room cut off from the hall, into which the staircase turret opened.

The basement is composed of one spacious chamber, or cellar, 62 feet long by 18 feet broad, and spanned by a rather highly-pointed and four-centred vault, without ribs or groins, but of good workmanship, and as perfect as when first constructed. This proves, incontrovertibly, the dimensions of the ancient hall above it. It is, of course, of Beauchamp date. At its north end is an original doorway of 4 feet 6 inches opening, with irons for double doors, and holes, showing that these doors were barred from within. One end, possibly of the original oak bar, remains in its hole. There seems to have been a similar door at the southern end; and it is evident from the old work that the turret-stair opened into the south-west angle of this vault. There are also two other openings, each in the old and enormously thick wall, at the south-west angle, which may be original.

The two greater wings are evidently the work of the first Stuart owner, sixty or seventy years ago, when, no doubt, the central wall was first cut into longitudinally. The northern wing is an entire rebuilding of the Herbert residence, of which nothing now remains. The wall between this wing and the central part was built with it, and replaces the original northern end wall of the hall of the De Clares and Beauchamps.

The southern wing is of the same Stuart date, excepting that the wall between it and the central part is original. It is the southern end wall of the old hall. The wing itself covers the old entrance used by the Herberts, and stands on the site of a group of towers, shown in the oil painting in the castle, and of which the entrance was a part. Probably these towers were Clare and Beauchamp work, and demolished by the Herberts. They are shown in the painting, but they are wanting in the drawings of 1776.

There remain to be noticed two lesser wings, or groups of buildings, placed outside the great wall, one on each flank of the building, and each connected with the central octagon tower by a sort of corridor.

Of these wings, the southern appears to be coëval with the tower. Its two lower stories, 14 feet square, are vaulted. The southern corridor, which connects the wing with the octagon tower, communicates in its first floor with the basement story of the tower, and seems to have been the passage from the tower postern towards the interior of the building. The present wall, however, is in part, if not altogether, modern, and presents difficulties which have not as yet been cleared up.

The northern wing and its corridor are Stuart work. This wing is occupied, on the one floor, by the back drawing-room, to enlarge which above 7 feet have been cut away from the face of the great wall.

Seldom has an old wall been so severely treated, or stood the mutilation so well. The gain, however, has been an excellent back drawing-room and study, accessible, by means of these tunnellings, from both the great drawing-room and the lobby.

Altogether, notwithstanding many faults of detail, the general result of the alterations and additions made since 1775 has been decidedly successful. The great court has been cleared, and the keep, though deprived of its ditch and lower gatehouses, still presents a venerable aspect, and in summer, when its surrounding thorns are in bloom, one of singular beauty. The Black Tower has been restored nearly after the old pattern. In the main building, the great tower which once capped the north-western angle, has, by additions on the north, been placed in the centre of its front; and within the court, the addition of the south, and reconstruction of the north wing, and the opening of windows in the blind turret, have added much to the completeness of the whole.

In place of the old hall is an entrance lobby and a dining-room, which, with a breakfast-room and drawing-room, all of large size and excellent proportions, a back drawing-room, study, and some smaller apartments, form a suite, quite equal to the aspects and pretensions of the building. The antiquary, indeed, may be permitted to regret the extent to which the internal features have been removed or masked by modern plaster-work and upholstery.

In speculating upon the age, absolute or relative, of the different parts of this castle, our only guide, down at least to the age of Elizabeth, is the internal evidence of its structure, and especially the plans of its basement and main stories. From these it may be safely inferred that the great west wall of the enclosure, the work of Robert Consul or his successor, was originally continued in an unbroken line, the Norman buildings having been in some other part of the court as well as upon the mound. The castle of Robert Consul was probably a rectangular enclosure, 216 yards by 84 yards, contained within three very substantial walls, and possibly a wooden palisade, on the line of which stood the mound and its keep; and east of this enclosure was a second rectangular space, the outer ward, 216 yards by 116 yards, contained within three banks of earth, strengthened by a moat on the north, by a moat and the town gate on the east, and by a moat and the town itself on the south, and perhaps further defended by a palisade of timber or a mere breast-wall along the crest of the bank. The entrance, even then, from the town was, probably, where it now is, by an archway in the curtain opening into the outer ward; and that from the outer into the middle ward was probably in the centre of the intervening defence. There was certainly no tower at the south-west angle, and probably none at the north-west; and the Black Tower also seems of rather later date. The castle was, in fact, in two parts, the one a mere enclosure of strong walls, and a palisade, with a circular mound; the other, and larger part, an enclosure within earthworks.

Such seems to have been the Norman castle, calculated from its enormous passive strength to defy any military machines likely to be brought against it by the Welsh. The next additions were probably the Black Tower and the cross curtain wall; and the next, with a view to the occasional residence of the De Clares, the older part of the present lodgings, built within and against the western wall.

The extent of this structure cannot now be determined; but it is probable that it included the present front or east wall of the centre of the building, the south or cross wall connecting this with the great wall, and a corresponding north wall, destroyed by the Herberts or Stuarts, and rebuilt by the latter. There would thus be a clear space of about 61 feet by 18 feet for the hall; and no doubt there were besides kitchens at the northern, and some additional buildings at the southern end. This would give a moderate hall and lodgings, and, with the Black Tower and the keep, afford very fair accommodation for a baron and his train. The southern stair-turret was, probably, an early addition to this work.

Whether the great curtain wall which divided the castle proper from the mere earthen enclosure be regarded as coëval with the outer wall, or of later date, the gateway in it, with the drum towers, of which a sketch and the foundations remain, were evidently later, and probably De Clare insertions.