Chapter XXVIII: Part 28

The keep stands unconnected with the curtains, and nearly on the central line of the area, about ten yards from its eastern end. It crowns a low mound, about 6 feet high, and 50 feet broad at the top, evidently artificial. If the mound ever had a proper moat, it has been long filled up. The tower is now about 40 feet high, and may have been 5 feet or 6 feet more. It is a cylinder of 36 feet in diameter, with walls 7 feet thick. Ten feet above the ground is a bold, half-round string or cordon, below which the wall batters, and at the base is 10 feet thick, augmenting its diameter there to about 42 feet. The present entrance is to the west, by a doorway of 5 feet 6 inches opening, having an interior door opening inwards and probably having had an exterior door also, but the doorway is now a mere breach in the wall, with but a fragment of the rebate of its inner door. The masonry, and the absence of bar-holes, show this doorway not to be original. Probably it was opened in the Decorated period, when passive strength was less an object, and a first-floor entrance was found to be inconvenient. Such later openings are common in keeps with close basements. There is one at Pembroke.

The basement chamber is circular, 22 feet 4 inches diameter, and its floor is at the ground level. In it are two loops, with flat tops, in recesses splayed to an opening of 3 feet, of which the cills are 3 feet from the ground. The wall is quite plain, and there is no trace of a well. This chamber was 11 feet high; no doubt, a store-room, and must have been entered from the chamber above by a ladder.

The first floor, of the same diameter, was 14 feet high. This was the principal chamber. The floor was of planks resting upon four large beams laid across, the outer beams receiving the ends of some shorter timbers laid at right angles to them. The doorway points about west, and is partly over that of the basement. It was 5 feet broad, and its passage-vault was round-headed, but the ashlar dressings are gone. There is no trace of a portcullis. In the substance of the wall is a square hole, probably once containing an oaken tie, such as was used at Brunlais and at Rochester. This doorway was evidently the original and only entrance to the keep. To the right of the entrance a second door opened into a mural stair, a fragment of the cylindrical shell of which remains. This led to the second floor and battlements. For its support the external wall is thickened by a half-round buttress, solid below, and ascending to the summit. The door and the staircase are utterly ruined. In this floor are two window openings in flat-sided recesses, apparently round-headed. The windows, probably large loops, are broken away, and the ashlar face of the recesses is gone, but the relieving arch in the wall is flat pointed. Near the north recess is a corbel of Decorated aspect, 6 feet from the floor.

The second story, entered by the winding mural stair, is much obscured by ivy. Its floor was of stout plank, resting upon a large single cross-beam, of which one support, a broad plain corbel, remains; the planks fitted into a rude groove or chase, not a set-off, in the wall, which is, therefore, not diminished in thickness. The curve of this story is a little impaired by a projection connected with the stair: and there is a sort of recess, which may have been the kitchen fireplace, the cooking being usually, in these towers, carried on in an upper floor, as at Castell Coch and Morlais. There were three windows in this floor, but of them little is to be seen, nor of what may remain of the ivy-covered battlements. The main floor was plastered, though thinly. It is evident that the floors were always of timber. The main strength of a tower of this character was passive, the loops and windows counting for nothing in the defence, but no doubt the battlements had a rampart walk, and the roof, therefore, was either flat, or if conical, sprang, as at Coucy, Coningsburgh, Pembroke, and Marten’s Tower at Chepstow from an inner wall. Nothing can be more senseless than, as some modern architects have done, to cover these towers with a conical roof springing from the outer wall, which thus could not be defended in the only way possible with such structures, from above.

The curtain wall of the single ward within which this Juliet keep is placed is 8 feet thick, and from 30 feet to 40 feet high, the contained area being at a level 6 feet to 10 feet above that outside, and no doubt raised artificially. The four angle towers were cylindrical, 11 feet internal diameter, and with walls 8 feet thick. They have no internal projection, but the angle at each is crossed and filled up by a gorge wall, 7 feet long. Both towers and curtain have an exterior base about 12 feet high, battering below to a thickness of 10 feet, but without a cordon. Each tower is entered from the gorge by a door of 3 feet opening, and its basement is elevated about 4 feet or 5 feet above the inner court. Each has three loops in recesses 4 feet 5 inches deep, and 5 feet 8 inches broad. There are no staircases, though there seem to have been two upper stories, the highest rising above the curtain. The floors were of timber. The arches vary; some are round-headed, others lancet, others drop-pointed. The loops are square-headed. The south-west tower has been taken down, and the present entrance to the place is through the gap.

In the south front, 60 feet from the west end, is a half-round buttress tower, with no internal projection. The breaches in its interior and exterior faces show it to be solid. Opposite to this tower, in the north wall of the court, is a doorway of about 6 feet opening, the pointed arch of which is seen just at the level of the court. As the sill of this doorway must be at about the level of the Munnow, it was probably connected with a short canal for the admission of a boat, like what is seen at Tonbridge and Leeds Castles, and at Caerphilly. In this same wall, but close to the north-east tower, is a small, flat-sided recess, either a door or a window, and 6 feet above the court level. If a door, it must have been for the lifting of stores from a boat upon the mill-leat which flows below it.

There is no trace of a regular gatehouse to this court, but a part of the centre of the west wall has been rebuilt in an inferior manner, and probably represents the entrance. This entrance was likely to have been by a mere doorway in the curtain without a regular gatehouse, like the lesser gateway at White Castle. From this point a slightly-elevated causeway, crossing the court, leads direct to the central tower.

The walls are tolerably perfect, but the battlements have been removed, and the upper stages of the towers are in ruin. It is remarkable that the mural towers are without staircases, and there are no visible mural chambers or garderobes, or, with one doubtful exception, fireplaces, in the castle. The material is the old red sandstone of the district, as was the ashlar. The workmanship is ordinary but pretty good rubble, and the mortar coarsely mixed and freely used. The mill leat, and the Munnow immediately beyond it, form the defences on the north front. Along the other three fronts was a broad and deep ditch fed from the river, and now filled up. As the ground within the walls is 6 feet to 10 feet higher than that immediately outside, they are to that extent revetments. It is pretty clear from the appearance that the original fortress was a raised platform, in its centre a mound, and around it a wet ditch, the whole, no doubt, strongly palisaded.

Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.]

There is nothing of a Norman character in either the plan or details of the structure. The singular form of the area may be but an accommodation in right lines to an irregular earthwork. Had it been Roman, the platform would scarcely have been raised. The keep tower is clearly early English of the time of King John, or early in that of Henry III. The surrounding walls and towers are of the same date.

The history of Skenfrith is obscure, but it is evident that it was built simply to contain a small garrison, and not at all as a private residence. The area contains no trace of hall, chapel, or kitchen. No lines of foundation are visible, and whatever lodgings were erected were probably of timber, with roofs resting against the wall.

Skenfrith is said, at the entrance of the Normans into the district, to have been held by Bach, a son of Cadivor ap Gwaethvoed, which Gwaethvoed is the reputed ancestor of several families in Monmouthshire and East Glamorgan, and who, or his father, was likely enough to have obtained possession of it during the victorious campaign of Caradoc-ap-Griffith in 1065. The Pipe Roll of the first year of John shows the castles of Skenfrith, Llanteilo or White Castle, Kinton, and Ledbury, to have belonged to the king; and in 1205 (5 John) he granted Skenfrith, Llanteilo, and Grosmount to William de Breos, to hold them as they had been held by Hubert de Burgh, and Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, was allowed 20 marcs which he had paid to De Burgh for fortifying them. This probably was the date of the present masonry. John de Monmouth, a powerful local baron, had some claim upon these castles, which was admitted by the king; but nevertheless, in 1219, De Burgh was ordered to have seizin of the three castles forfeited by the defection of William de Breos. William’s heir was Reginald de Breos, who was in ill-health; he demurred to the decision of the king’s court. In 1220 they were held by De Burgh. In 1223 the king had occasion to send a messenger to Skenfrith, and in 1224 the Sheriff of Hereford was directed to send thither to De Burgh 2,000 quarrels (heads of cross-bow bolts), and all through the troubled reign of Henry III. these castles continued to be of great military importance. At the settlement of Wales by his son they probably were allowed to fall to ruin. With most of the surrounding property Skenfrith finally fell to the Duchy of Lancaster. As early as the time of James I. it was presented by the local jury as “ruinous and decayed, time out of the memory of man.”

The parish church, containing some fragments of early English or early Decorated date, stands a few yards west of the castle. It contains an altar tomb, bearing the effigies in a sort of trick of John Morgan, who died 2nd September, 1557, and Ann, his wife, who died 4th January, 1564. On the side of the tomb are figures in relief. The armorial bearings are,—quarterly, 1 and 4, Barry of 9, on six escutcheons, 3, 2, 1, as many lioncels rampant, 2 and 3, three towers, in the nombril point a roundel. Evidently these are the arms of Cecil, and point to the connexion claimed by that family with Wales. Another shield bears on a chevron three sprigs, between three spear-heads; crest, an arm embowed grasping a ——. John Morgan is said to have been of Wayne, in this parish.

THE ANCIENT DEFENCES OF SOUTHAMPTON.

At the head of the inlet known as Southampton Water, between its two principal tributaries of the Test or Anton and the Itchen, intervenes a considerable neck or tongue of gravel, which is thus bounded on three sides by water, and is a position of considerable natural strength, and the more valuable that it overlooks a fine roadstead, having the Isle of Wight for its breakwater. By whom this spot was first occupied is unknown. Bittern, an unquestionable Roman station, under the name of Clausentum, is nearly two miles farther up the Itchen, and upon the opposite bank. Even the origin of the present name of the town is a subject of dispute. The Anton presents a tempting source, but it seems most probable that the name means simply “the town of the southern dwelling,” as opposed to Northam, a place close to the Roman station. Certainly the name has no reference to Northampton.

“Hamtunscire” is mentioned in the “Saxon Chronicle” in A.D. 755, and the town was a Saxon place of some mark, coining money in the reign of Athelstane, and occasionally plundered by the Danes. Canute held it, and his experiment upon the advancing tide is said to have been tried in Southampton Water.

Southampton is named in Domesday, and the Normans found it a convenient port both for military and commercial purposes. It was visited and maintained by the Plantagenet monarchs, who here mustered and embarked their troops for Normandy. Hence the town was fortified from an early period, both after the Saxon and the Norman fashion.

The walls enclosed a roughly rectangular space, averaging about 370 yards east and west, by 770 yards north and south, but in actual circuit about 2,200 yards, or 1¼ mile. This area is divided lengthways by the main street, but the western is the larger moiety, partly because it contains the older castle, and partly because of an irregular projection upon what is called the “tin shore.” The north and south gates were upon the main street. There was an east and a west gate, but not at all opposite to each other, nor were the roads cruciform. There is no reason for attributing to the moderately rectangular plan a Roman origin. It was probably dictated by the general figure of the ground.

The surface of the area varies from 15 feet to 35 feet above the adjacent sea level. The northern half is higher than the southern, the western than the eastern. The highest ground, therefore, is in the north-west quarter, where was the castle.

In consequence of this, the wall of this quarter, towards the west, is built against a scarped bank, and is a revetment 30 feet high, whereas elsewhere the wall is built upon ground nearly level, or at best not above 3 feet or 4 feet higher on the inner than the outer side. Besides the castle there is no considerable earthwork, and no reason, therefore, for attributing the defences of the town proper to a period earlier than the incoming of the Normans.

The earthworks of the castle are, however, considerable. The naturally high ground was scarped and pared and somewhat raised, and near the centre of the area the highest point was surrounded by a circular ditch, the contents of which, thrown inward, converted the raised platform into an artificial mound. This, beyond doubt, was the Saxon fortress.

The rectangular area was also well defended. It had the sea for its ditch nearly at the foot of the wall along the west and south fronts. Along the east a broad and deep ditch, wholly artificial, and in part, at least, admitting the sea, ran along the foot of the wall, and divided the town from a strip of lower land, which slopes towards the Itchen, and is now covered by an important suburb. Along the north front a ditch, also artificial, was cut across the ridge; it is said, to a depth allowing it to be filled from the sea. As this would involve a depth of about 40 feet, with a corresponding breadth, the tradition is probably an exaggeration.

The north and east walls, least affected by any irregularities of ground, and nearly straight, are in length about 318 and 790 yards. The south and west fronts are curved and broken to suit the ground, and measure about 320 and 650 yards. The south-west angle is largely rounded off. Of recorded gates, there were the north or Bargate, still standing; the east gate, removed; the spur gate, remaining; the south, or water gate, removed; the west gate and the postern, preserved; Biddles, or Bridle Gate, gone; and the castle water gate, closed up.

The mural towers were chiefly drum, or half round. The north front is flanked by two drum towers, and west of the Bar is one, and east of it two, half-round. Upon the east wall, north of the east gate, was one; and, south of it, six, of which one remains, half-round, and one rectangular. At the south-east angle, the south wall was prolonged eastwards as a spur-tower, covering the ditch; this remains. Upon the south wall there were six towers, including the south flank of the spur gatehouse, and, on the opposite flank, the Bugle Tower. All but one are half-round. The west wall had many buttresses, and few towers. There was one where the south wall of the castle joined the town wall; and near the north end is a fine half round tower,—an addition.

Passing to the details, the north gate, called the Bar, is a large, handsome structure, about 60 feet broad by 60 feet deep in the centre. It is of two stages, pierced below by a central and two lateral passages, and contains above a chamber, 52 feet long by 21 feet broad, used for public purposes. In each wing is a staircase. That to the east is old, that on the west may have been so. The side passages are modern. They communicate with the central roadway by two cross arches on each side, of which the two next the north are original, and probably led into the flanking towers. An examination of the central passage shows the original gate to have been late Norman; at least a round-headed portal there placed is probably in that style, though it has rather a Decorated aspect. Then in the early Decorated time two bold half-round flanking towers were added, and still remain. At this time the rear was probably refaced, and four windows and a centre niche inserted, and the council-chamber enlarged, and probably the east staircase added. The Norman gatehouse had an upper room, of which a round-headed door, with a foliated head, remains. Next, in the Perpendicular period, a bold projection, three sides of an octagon, was added to the front. The gateway, thus advanced, is flanked by two bold, narrow buttresses, which run up to a very bold corbel table, having six machicolations in the central face, and three in each of the oblique lateral ones. The battlements are good Perpendicular, and carried round the rear towards the town; one embrasure is occupied by an alarm-bell. This gate has been much injured by restorations. The openings to the rear, archways and windows, have been refaced; but they preserve much of their old type, and have a Decorated aspect. The main passage has been cut away and widened, and the portcullis grooves are gone. When the ditch in front was filled up, a century ago, all trace of the drawbridge was lost. It appears that this bar was formerly a prison, and the curious cross arches were part of the arrangement for that purpose.

West of the Bar much of the wall remains, but is so blocked in by houses as to be invisible. Forty-six yards from the gate is the site of a half-round tower, beyond which the wall extends in a straight line to Arundel Tower, so called from Sir John Arundel, an early governor. This is a drum, 22 feet in diameter, which caps the north-east angle of the town. This tower is 50 feet to 60 feet high, and seems to rise out of a rectangular mass of masonry, possibly added to strengthen it. Here the internal level is 30 feet, or more, above the external, being a part, no doubt, of the old earthworks.

Continuing along the west wall, at 763 yards is a bold, half-round tower, 20 feet diameter, and 30 feet high, of excellent rough ashlar, with bold machicolations at the level of the adjacent curtain. This is Catchcold Tower. Built against the bank it looks solid, or like a bastion, but it is said to be hollow, though how entered does not appear. This tower, with the adjacent wall for some feet, is apparently a Perpendicular addition to what seems to be a Decorated wall. Beyond the tower is a flight of steps, modern, ascending 30 feet to the summit of the wall, which is there common to both town and castle. The wall then runs forward obliquely, probably to allow of the inclusion of the earthworks of the castle. It seems in substance Norman. The salient is capped by a rectangular buttress, the hollow angles of which on each side are crossed by low, pointed arches, pierced as garderobes, as at Porchester. This buttress tower is of Decorated date.

Then follows about 134 yards of straight wall, probably Norman, about 38 feet high, and backed to the summit with earth. Upon it a small rectangular buttress marks the junction of the north wall of the castle with the town-wall. Further on are five rectangular buttresses of various dimensions. The three first are evidently additions upon the Norman wall, the rest seem original. Part of the wall here is divided into two stages by a bold horizontal bead. Below are two narrow windows of about 18 inches opening, resembling large loops, and which seem to have had square heads. Above are traces of two windows, apparently round-topped. There must have been an interior chamber, now closed. The central buttress is broad and flat, and here are traces of the old water-gate of the castle, which must have been reached by steps, the ground behind being above 30 feet high. Close north of this water-gate is a large vaulted chamber, built against the town wall, and now closed. This part of the wall now ends in a rectangular projection, probably the root of a tower, and marked the junction of the castle south wall with the town wall.

From hence the wall is low and thin for about 33 yards, marking the end of the castle ditch, and out of the regular line, having, no doubt, been rebuilt in modern times. On the rising ground of the castle counterscarp is the root of another square tower, marking the recommencement of the regular town wall, which then turns inwards so as to protect Biddles or Bridle Gate.

This gate, now removed, opened into a steep and rather narrow ascent called Simnell-street, out of which, on the north side, opens Castle-lane, thought to represent an old entrance to the castle.

At Biddles Gate commences a very curious part of the wall, which, as far south as a little beyond Blue Anchor postern, is unlike anything known in England. The original wall, here about 30 feet high and 4 feet thick, with the soil nearly level within and without, seems to have served not only for the town wall, but for the wall of several dwelling-houses within it, the doors and windows of which are visible in the wall, though now closed up. These openings show the wall to have been Norman, and of a moderately early period. This wall was not found sufficiently strong for the purpose of defence, and a second wall, also 4 feet thick, was built against it on the outside. But this second wall was built like an aqueduct, as an arcade, upon tall and slender piers, about 2 feet 2 inches broad, from which, at 10 feet 6 inches high, spring arches mostly semicircular, but some pointed, and two very flat and probably much later, above which was the parapet. The arches are about 12 feet span. The result was to increase the rampart to a walk of 5 feet, with a parapet of 2 feet, and probably a rear wall of 1 foot. Of course, an arcade so placed afforded great shelter for those attacking the wall from without; but to obviate this, while the piers touched the wall, a space like that for a portcullis, a chase about 2 feet broad, was left between the arch and the wall, by means of which any one standing at the base of the wall could effectually be molested with missiles or a long pike. Eighteen arches of this arcade remain. The arrangement is a very curious one, and supposed to be singular. This masque or outer wall may be of late Norman date, but is possibly early English. The piers interfere much with the earlier doors and windows. The wall, where double, is 35 feet high. There are traces of some kind of building outside a part of the wall.

A hole broken through the wall into Blue Anchor-yard shows the rear of the wall, and a little further south is Blue Anchor Postern, an original archway in the wall, much cut about and enlarged, but of which the portcullis chase, worked from the battlements, as at Fishergate, York, still remains. From the postern a very steep, winding narrow lane leads up into the town, between lines of ancient houses, of which two, one on each side, next the gate, are Norman. Both are curious, but that on the south side especially so. It is the shell of a Norman house, of the age of the older part of the wall. It is called, locally, King John’s Palace, but is, in truth, an ordinary Norman private house, and a fairly perfect one. The principal room was on the first floor. The roof is gone, but the door and windows remain. These are coupled, small, round-headed, and divided by a short column, with a slightly sculptured capital. The space within the walls is 43 feet by 45 feet. There is a good Norman fireplace, with hood and flanking columns. In the south and part of the east wall is a mural gallery. The house on the northern side of the lane is 44 feet by 15 feet. There is a good view of the town wall, and a plan of the two houses, in Parker’s “Domestic Architecture of the Twelfth Century,” p. 34.

South of the postern the wall ceases to be double, and is all of one date, and about 6 feet thick. In this part is a flattish rectangular mural buttress tower, much blocked in with houses, but having its south hollow angle crossed by a squinch arch carrying a garderobe. Near this is a high pointed doorway, evidently an insertion, of 24 feet opening, leading into Collis-court, and about 60 feet further is the west gatehouse.

This is a perfect and plain rectangular gatehouse, 30 feet deep by 24 feet broad, without buttresses, flush with the wall outside, and of bold projection within. It is pierced by a high pointed vault, of 12 feet opening. The passage has been a good deal mutilated with a view to widening it. Near the centre was a good recessed doorway, the profile of the head of which is still traceable where it has been roughly cut from the wall. Between this and the inner face are two square portcullis grooves, and just within the inner entrance is a chase, 18 inches broad, over the head of the arch. In the vault, in front of the central door-case, are nine holes, about 4 inches square, three in the crown line, and three along each haunch. These latter converge towards the central line.

The gatehouse has a portcullis chamber on the first floor, and a second floor above this. An open stair against the south side leads to the battlement, from which a door, an insertion, opens into the portcullis chamber. These upper rooms are plastered and papered, and nothing can be seen in them.

South of this gate the wall continues in a fairly perfect state for 80 yards, and finally has been pulled down and removed. It may be traced as far as the site of a half-round tower, and some remains of an arch. Beyond this, also, the line of the wall may be traced as far as the site of Bugle Tower, 180 yards from the west gate, and which caps the south-west angle of the town.

The south wall is almost wholly destroyed, and the foundation either removed or covered up by the broad and handsome quay which now intervenes between the base of the wall and the sea. This front was more or less convex, or rather polygonal, the angles being capped with drum towers. There are some traces of the south gatehouse. In the rear of this part of the wall are the site of St. Mary Magdalene’s Hospital, and in Porter Lane what was called Canute’s Palace. A representation of the south gate before 1784 is preserved by Grose. It had a low, broad Edwardian arch, with bold machicolations above, and toward the east it was protected by a long flanking wall, parallel to its approach. It was removed 1830–40.

Forty yards from the south gate was another half-round tower, and thence the wall ran straight east for 83 yards, when it reached the south-east angle of the town. In the rear of this part of the wall, in Winkle-street, is “God’s House,” a Norman church, now restored very badly, and converted into a French Protestant place of worship.

At the south-east angle of the town, in the end of the east wall, is a gate, called God’s House Gate, or South Gate, but which should be called Spur Gate, as it opens upon a work of that class. This gatehouse is rectangular, quite plain, and without buttresses, having two upper floors. Its dimensions are 28 feet broad by 23 feet deep, and the south end projects as a low salient of two faces, upon the south wall, now removed. The passage is vaulted with a high pointed arch 12 feet broad. Like the west gate, it had a central recessed doorway, now much cut away, and two portcullis grooves. The vault in front of the door is supported by two, and in rear of it by three, cross-ribs. Altogether, in substance, this gatehouse resembles that of the west gate, and is of early Decorated date. Its front may have been rebuilt when the spur tower was added.

The spur work projects from the northern flank of the entrance of the gatehouse for about 80 feet. It is composed of a sort of lofty gallery, or curtain, terminating in a rectangular tower, about 22 feet square, with buttresses capping the two east or outer angles diagonally. It is of three stories, and is built across the eastern ditch, no doubt to contain and protect its sluice communicating with the sea, which originally flowed up to the wall of the tower. There are seen large arches in the north and east faces, which look as though there had been a passage for boats; but these seem really to have been arches of construction only, intended to throw the weight of the building upon the corners, which probably are more deeply founded than the curtain. In the north face is also a large modern arch, a relic of the canal which was to have been carried beneath the tower. The spur-work and the gatehouse were long used as a Bridewell. All still bear marks of that degrading occupation. The whole spur-work is good Perpendicular. Leland calls this the south gate, and the spur tower the Castellet. Grose gives a view of it about 1770. From the Spur Gate the town wall is tolerably perfect as far as the first half-round tower, 60 yards. From hence the wall may be traced 35 yards to a flat buttress, 14 feet broad and 3 feet deep, of which there are some remains. Beyond this, at 37 yards, is the site of a rectangular tower, 30 feet broad and 24 feet deep These two are said to be additions of the time of Edward VI. They look much older.

From hence to the north-east angle of the tower the wall has been pulled down, but its line may be traced, partly by occasional foundations, partly by its materials which have been used in the houses built on its site, and partly by the direction of the lane called “Back o’ the Wall,” which runs along its rear, and by the parallel road which runs along the counterscarp of the ditch, and is called “Canal Walk,” from an abortive canal which was carried along the line of the ditch at the commencement of the present century.

The east gate spanned East-street, and was taken down in 1772. Grose gives a drawing of it, and attributes its erection to the year 1339, 13 Edward III. Between this gate and the north-east angle was one mural half-round tower.

Of Polnymond Tower, which caps the north-east angle, there are considerable remains. It is a three-quarter drum tower, about 28 feet diameter. From it to the bar, 160 yards, the wall, or part of it, remains, but so clustered with buildings as to be inaccessible to ordinary visitors. Here are remains of two half-round towers, and a breach in the wall, called York Gate, probably representing a postern.

The east ditch is marked by a depression, in part due to the canal. The north ditch is completely obliterated and built over, and its breadth is not recorded, and has not been ascertained by probing. If Hanover Buildings mark its counterscarp, it was 46 yards broad; but if, as is much more probable, its limit is marked by Cold Harbour, it was only 24 yards, which tallies with that along the east front.

THE CASTLE.

The castle was very probably the oldest, and perhaps the only præ-Norman fortification connected with the town. It occupied nearly the whole of the north-western quarter of the walled area, and included also the highest ground. In plan it was a rough semicircle, the chord of 124 yards being the town wall, and the arc measuring about 300 yards. There is, however, also a considerable knoll, on the south-east of the area, of about 45 yards diameter, about half of which lay outside the curved _enceinte_.

This was the keep. Leland calls it the dungeon (donjon), and the “glory of the castle.” “It is,” says he, “both large, fair, and very strong, both by works and by the site of it;” and other writers describe it as a lofty mound. As usual, in forming such works, advantage was taken of high ground to make it the base of an artificial mound encircled by a deep and broad ditch. The keep, no doubt a shell of masonry like Arundel, towered above the rest of the works. Of the curved wall of the _enceinte_ a part remains to the north. It was built on piers about 8 feet square and 9 feet apart, a round-headed arch with a tendency to a point connecting these. The tops of these arches were about 12 feet above the base of the piers, and upon them rested a wall, which carried the battlement. The arches were buried in a bank of earth about 15 feet high. This bank has been removed to allow houses to be built up to the wall, which now, therefore, stands like a Roman aqueduct. The foundation is excellent, so that this plan was adopted solely to save material and to profit by the older bank. The roughness of the masonry shows the height of the bank, above which the remaining wall rises about 4 feet. It is much to be regretted that this curious piece of Norman wall has been so badly treated. About 90 yards of it remain, including eighteen arches. It stops at the Castle-lane, where was the main gate of the castle, removed at the end of the last century.

The wall, beyond the gate, was continued up the mound to the keep, and beyond it till it reached the southern gate, whence it was continued till it again struck the town wall. Thus the keep was upon and formed part of the _enceinte_, as was usual. From the south gate, also removed in the last century, a winding road, commenced from the wall, led down to Simnell-street, a few yards within the postern.

Near the castle, against and within the town wall, is a large subterranean vault, now closed; and, judging from the openings in the wall, there was a corresponding vault to the south of this.

The whole area of the castle is high, and much of it has been still higher, the mound having been lowered, the ditch partially filled up, and the bank along which the wall was built having been removed.

To judge from the material evidence afforded by an inspection of the works, it would appear that the castle represents the Saxon or Danish earthwork, probably the earliest strong place, and was composed of a truncated mound, its circular ditch, and a bank of earth encircling an area, of which the mound or a moiety of it made part: the whole forming a burh of the first class.

The Normans, probably in the reign of Henry I., enclosed the castle and town in a rectangular wall, and dug the east and north ditches. Also the castle was enclosed with a wall built in part on arches, and a shell keep placed on the flat summit of the mound. The wall of the castle, and much of the west wall of the town, and the two houses in Blue Anchor-lane, may be attributed to this period.

Then it became necessary to strengthen the town wall, and this was probably done in the reign of King John, who, it appears, remitted to the citizens £200 out of their fee-farm rents for the enclosure of their town and the thickening of the wall, and perhaps the west and spur gates were begun at that time.

Much must have been done to the fortifications during the reign of Henry III. or Edward I. To this date are probably due the older drum towers and much of the wall connected with them, and the recessing of the Bargate and the addition of its flanking towers.

It appears that the town was attacked by pirates and sacked in October, 1338, 12 Edward III., and in consequence it was strengthened in the next year. The south and east gates may have been of this date, and the spur tower and its gallery, unless this latter be, with the completion of the Bargate, the work of Richard II. This king seems to have done much to the castle.

The vault indicated on the plan as on the north side of the water-gate is at present wholly underground, being built against and within the exterior wall, its floor being about the level of the footing of the wall. The vault measures 55 feet 3 inches north and south, by 19 feet 6 inches east and west, and is about 25 feet high. Sir H. Englefield says it has much the air of a chapel. Others call it a guard-room to the water-gate. A chapel would scarcely have stood north and south, and a guard-room, especially so large a one, however necessary for a main gate, would be quite out of place beside a mere postern. The vault was entered a few weeks ago through a long closed-up opening in the west wall, but the writer has been unable to learn what was then observed.

To the south of the water-gate is, or was, a similar vault, indicated by the openings in the wall, one 3 feet and one 1 foot from the ground, both long since built up. Probably these two were the substructures of two buildings which formed a part of the exterior wall, and were used for stores or cellars.

It is difficult to speak too highly of the large scale plan of Southampton executed under Sir H. James, upon which the lines of the old wall, and position of other objects of antiquity, are shown in a manner which leaves nothing to be desired.

TAMWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE.

Tamworth Castle stands at the confluence of the Anker with the Tame, on the right bank of either, between the town and the latter river, and close above St. Mary’s Bridge. It occupies a position near the east end of the south, or river front, of the old town, the outlines of which are still indicated by a bank and ditch, showing it to have been in plan a parallelogram, with one side resting upon the Tame, and the east end defended by the Anker. The low ground about the junction of the rivers, the broad meadows on the left bank of the Tame opposite to, and on both banks below the town, in their natural condition a deep morass, must have rendered the place nearly inaccessible upon its east, south, and west fronts; and, no doubt, led to its conversion into a safe residence at a very early period.

As the ground rises from the river, the town and its grand old church occupy positions rather higher than the castle, and which must always have been dry and airy and, in consequence, salubrious.

The line of the town defence upon the east side is known as the King’s Ditch, in reference, it is supposed, to the Mercian Offa. Though without anything like sharpness of outline, and occupied as a nursery garden, the work is by no means obliterated, and may be traced nearly from the Anker below Bolebridge for about 300 yards northwards. It is composed of a raised bank, which formed a terrace behind the wall or palisade, a ditch more or less filled up, and beyond this a slope representing a glacis, or space outside the works, which it was the custom from a very early period to keep clear of cover. Bank and ditch are about 45 feet broad. The Market-street intersects the line of defence, and, being old, probably was crossed by a gatehouse. There are some slight and uncertain traces of masonry upon its north side. Further north, a modern road affords a good section of the bank.

This side joins the north front at a right angle, within which is a sort of tump, remembered as somewhat larger, and which looks as if it marked the site of a mural tower, or perhaps a cavalier or small mount.

The defences of the north front skirt the Lichfield and Polesworth road, and are traceable nearly to the cross-road from Seckington. Beyond this, the line, now built over or enclosed in walled gardens, was traced by Dugdale along a front altogether of 400 paces, to a mount marking the north-west corner, from which the line passed at right angles southwards to the river. This would give a space of about 300 yards by 400 yards as the enclosure of the town. Outside the west front the ground sinks rapidly into the meadows, among which, on the river bank, and just outside the town, is the Moat House, an old seat of the Comberfords, still standing in all its dampness, although the moat has been filled up.

The principal bridge, that across the Tame, close below the castle, known as St. Mary’s or Lady Bridge, is of modern construction. It succeeded a mediæval structure, shown in Shaw’s plate of 1780, the precursor of which was probably a bridge, or perhaps a ford, of Saxon times. In Leland’s day, a stone upon it bore the arms of Lord Basset, of Drayton.

Bow, or Bolebridge, crosses the Anker, and leads to the hamlet of Bolehill and to Nuneaton.

The church is a large structure of considerable merit, containing some Norman work, apparently once connected with a central tower, and in which may be seen traces of herring-bone masonry. East of it are some ruins, known as the Deanery, part of which seems also to be Norman. The Market-place, though much altered, represents an early space set aside for trading purposes.

Tamworth has no historical pretensions to either British or Roman origin. The Britons would have designated it from the smaller stream. The earliest mention of it is in the records of the people in whose tongue it is named. Offa, King of Mercia, in a charter of A.D. 781, announces himself as “Ego Offa rex, sedens in regali palatio in Tamoworthige,” an evidence of its distinction at that time, and one which renders it probable that it had an earlier history. Cenwulf dates a charter of A.D. 816, “In vico celeberrimo qui vocatur Tomoworthig,” and other royal charters are dated from it in 841 and 854. So that in the eighth and ninth centuries it was already a royal residence and a place of celebrity.

The Danes ravaged it in common with much of Mercia early in the tenth century, and in A.D. 913–14 it was restored by Æthelflaed,

Elfleda potens! O terror virgo virorum!

daughter of Alfred, sister of Edward the Elder, and the foundress of Tutbury, Warwick, and many other well-known Saxon places of strength. She is reputed to have cast up the mound, and to have placed her residence on the summit. She died here A.D. 918–22.

The castle and half the town are in the shire of Warwick; the other half and the church in Stafford. There is no mention of the castle in Domesday.

At the Conquest, Tamworth became the property of Robert Marmion, who seems to have fortified it, as such earthworks were fortified in Normandy, and to have made it strong enough to be obnoxious, some time later, to King John, who, in 1215–16, ordered it to be razed. Under Henry III. another Robert was its lord, and Philip Marmion died seized of it in 1291–92. From Marmion it descended to Frevile, thence to Ferrers, thence with Ann Ferrers, at the end of the seventeenth century, it came in marriage to the house of Shirley, from whom, through Compton, it passed to the Townshends, whose representative, Marquis Townshend, is sixteenth Baron Ferrers by writ of 1299, and owner of Tamworth Castle, while Earl Ferrers, the male heir of the Shirleys, is Viscount Tamworth, by creation in 1711.

From the Norman Conquest to 20 Edward I., the castle descended through five generations of Marmions; from thence to 7 Henry V., through six of the house of Frevile, and from thence to 1680 through eleven descents of the name of Ferrers; being twenty-two lords from the Conquest to 1680. King James and Prince Charles lodged here in 1619.

The castle is composed of a mound, a platform, buildings upon the mound, a curtain-wall ascending it, and the remains of a gatehouse.

The mound is wholly artificial, about 50 feet high, circular, and about 100 feet diameter at its flat summit. Its sides stand at the natural slope of mixed dry earth and gravel, the _débris_ of the new red sandstone of the district; and its base may be about 12 feet above the river.

South-east of the mound is a triangular platform, also more or less artificial, and raised about 15 feet above the river. One side is straight, and fronts the water. That to the east is at present a hollow curve, and has evidently been retained by a wall against which it formed a terrace. This side extends northwards to the ruined gatehouse, indications upon which seem to show that part of the platform has been removed, and that it originally extended a few yards eastwards into the present brewery; so that this front was, no doubt, straight, and not, as now, concave.

The third side, or hypothenuse, of the platform lies towards and partly encircles the mound, and is therefore concave; and between the two is a ditch. Excepting this “valley of elevation,” there is no present trace of a ditch at the foot of the mound.

Below the south front, between it and the Tame, and close above St. Mary’s Bridge, is the castle mill, rebuilt in modern times. It is worked by the Anker, which, sweeping round the south-east front of the castle, serves as a mill leat. Above the mill, and between the leat and the line of wall, is a narrow strip of land, now a garden, and probably once a pasture beneath the castle wall.

North of the platform a curtain wall runs from the gatehouse up the mound, with the summit of which its top is level. This wall in plan is angular, or slightly convex, towards the exterior or town side. It is 10 feet thick, and has a rampart wall of 7 feet, a parapet of 2 feet, and a rere wall of 1 foot. The rampart walk or allure was probably the only way from the gatehouse to the top of the mound. It rises gently, but has no steps. It is about 20 feet high at the central part, ending and commencing at nothing. It is of herring bone masonry, of flat stones laid obliquely on edge, each course being separated by a horizontal bed, sometimes single, sometimes double, of small stones, resembling flat pebbles. At the deepest there are twenty-one courses. Here and there the surface has been patched, but on the whole the wall is in its original state, very rough, but perfect. The joints are very open. The exterior face is less perfect, and is, besides, concealed by clumsy buttresses, perhaps of Tudor or earlier date. The herring-bone structure is not seen in the rere wall, which is probably a restoration, but it appears in the front parapet for a foot or two above the rampart walk. This is a very remarkable wall, and should be photographed in detail.

The continuation of the wall to the upper lodge or gatehouse from the town is in part old, but of later date than the curtain. The gatehouse itself is chiefly modern, but part is old; and connected with it are the remains of an arch jamb and portcullis groove, probably traces of the main entrance to the castle. This gate leads by a short lane into the market-place. The lower lodge, or entrance from the bridge side, was built in 1810, and with its adjacent wall is wholly of that date.

The mound is crested by a many-sided shell of wall, about 9 feet thick, and from 30 feet to 40 feet high. This wall is in part very old. The base has been supported by a modern facing, which batters considerably, and is about 2 feet high; but above this, for 6 feet or 8 feet, the workmanship is open-jointed rubble, with stones of large but irregular size and shape. The quoins are, however, of ashlar, rude but sound. Above this to the rampart height, the wall seems to have been rebuilt in early times in a better manner, but as though the old work had been left where sound, so that the two run much into one another.

The upper 10 feet of the wall, all parapet, seems of still later date. It is crenellated, and occasionally looped at the rampart level. At the south-west quarter is a loop about 6 feet from the ground, and two others higher up, all which are apparently of the age of the wall, and being near the well probably lighted the offices. This wall is much obscured by ivy. It has been materially altered at two points; on the south side entirely rebuilt for several yards to form the outer wall of the southern private apartments; and on the opposite side by the insertion at the same time of several large late Tudor windows, to light the northern apartments. Under these latter are three heavy masses of stone-work to support balconies. One is of somewhat earlier date and of better design than the others.

In the circuit of the wall, to the south, and commanding the way up the curtain, is a tower 24 feet square, and having 5 feet projection from the wall. Its angles within are plain, but those without are flanked by two narrow pilaster strips, leaving a free angle between them. These strips rise about 20 feet, and clumsily pass into a sort of octagon, which at the top of the tower becomes a cylinder, and is so seen on the battlements. These, however, may be an alteration. The tower is about 40 feet high, and the walls are 7 feet thick. It somewhat batters. On its exterior face are two Tudor windows; and about half-way up a string-course, stopped by the pilasters, which in the centre rises as a half-round drip, probably once heading a Norman window. This tower is of rubble, of the date of the wall, with ashlar pilasters. In its outer wall is a very serious crack, which seems to be getting worse.

A few feet south of the tower, and therefore close to the curtain ascent, is the doorway into the keep. This is of small size, with an equilateral arch, plain square jambs continued up through the arch moulding, which is very plain, the angle only being rounded off. The drip, if one there was, has mouldered away. This doorway traverses the wall rather obliquely. The inner front has a ribbed head, and two faces carved upon it near the springing. There is neither portcullis groove nor large bar hole. The defence was a single door.