117 chapters
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117 chapters
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
THE articles comprehended in the present volumes were written at very long intervals of time, some half a century ago, and printed in the Transactions of various Societies in different and distant counties. Many also appeared in the Builder newspaper. Each paper was intended to be complete in itself, and was written with no expectation that they would ever be collected and reprinted as one work. This I mention to account for, and I hope in some degree to excuse, the occasioned iteration of certa
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CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
THE art of construction in Europe from the fall of the Roman empire to the dawn of the Reformation, though of late years much and successfully investigated, has been approached almost exclusively from its ecclesiastical side. This was, for many reasons, to be expected. The service of the altar justified, perhaps required, the highest degree of taste in the design of the temple, and the utmost richness in its ornamentation. Moreover, the greater number of our ecclesiastical buildings are still in
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
IT has usually been assumed that the rapidity of William’s conquest was due to the absence of strong places in England. There is, however, ground for believing that England, in this respect, was exceedingly well provided,—quite as well provided as Normandy; and that, with the possible exception of a very few recently-constructed strongholds, the works in the two countries were very similar in character. The older sites of the castles of the barons in Normandy are nearly all ascertained, and are
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
IT is rather remarkable that castles should not occupy, even incidentally, a more prominent place in the “Domesday Survey,” as they formed a very important feature in the country; were closely, for the most part, attached to landed property; and were of great political importance. No great baron was without a castle upon each of his principal estates, nor was any bishop secure of his personal safety unless so provided. At the death of the Conqueror, it was the possession of Winchester Castle tha
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
HENRY II. was a great builder, and especially of military works. “In muris, in propugnaculis, in munitionibus, in fossatis, ... nullus subtilior, nullus magnificentior, invenitur.” This, however, does not so much refer to new castles, of which he built but few, as to the completion or addition of new keeps to the old ones, such, for example, as Dover. A few days after his arrival in England he received the fealty of the magnates of the realm at Winchester Castle, and was crowned at Westminster,
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
HOWEVER numerous may have been the castles destroyed under the Convention of Wallingford, or during the subsequent reign of Henry II., they seem to have been almost entirely fortresses of recent date, in private hands, and of little importance as regarded the general defence or the orderly administration of the kingdom. Among those that played at all an important part in the internal wars of the sons or grandsons of Henry, there are missing but very few known to have been built or restored by hi
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
THE castles of the shires of Nottingham and Derby, of Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cheshire, complete the tale of the fortresses south of the Tees and Lune. Nottingham, one of the castles ordered and possibly built by the Conqueror, on a rock high above the Trent, contained one of the grandest of the rectangular keeps. It was removed in the seventeenth century, and replaced by a building of about the same dimensions, but of very different character. At the foot of the rock were the two mounds thro
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
THERE remain to be enumerated the castles west of the Severn and the Dee up to the Dyke of Offa. To this tract must be added on the one hand the half of Shropshire, which was on the English side of the Severn; on the other, one or two valleys like those of the upper Severn and the Wye, penetrating into the heart of Wales; and to the north and south a tract of seaboard, reaching in the one case to the Conwy, and in the other to Pembroke and including Aberystwith. Of this border-land, divided betw
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
IN a preceding chapter an attempt was made to describe the appearance and to give an outline of the history of those earthworks in England and Normandy upon which the Norman and Anglo-Norman barons founded their chief strongholds, and which, therefore, are connected with the military architecture of either country. It is now proposed to describe the buildings themselves, whether placed within the ancient earthworks or altogether of original foundation, which constituted the fortresses of England
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
WHILE of the rectangular keep there remain many, and some very perfect, examples both in England and Normandy, the SHELL KEEP , though once the most common of the two, has rarely been preserved, and is seldom, if ever, found in a perfect or unaltered condition. There is a difference of opinion as to the date of the introduction of these keeps, whether a little before or a little after the other type. The shell keep, being invariably connected with early earthworks, might be supposed to be the ol
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CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XI.
THE transition from the Norman to the Early English style, which in ecclesiastical architecture constitutes a period of great interest, is by no means, at least in England, so strongly marked in buildings of the military type. The rectangular and circular or polygonal keeps, with their Norman features, retained their hold upon English castle-builders through the reigns of Stephen and that of Henry II., 1135–1189, or for a century and a quarter from the Conquest, or even later. At Dover, the dog-
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
EVERY castle, if more than a solitary tower or peel, and having more than a single line of defence, has more or less of a concentric character, but in most, even of the largest of the earlier castles, the secondary defences were of small extent and confined to works for the protection of the entrance, as at Richmond and Coningsborough, and such cannot, with any propriety, be called in a general sense concentric. At Richmond, for example, the original castle was an enclosure within a fortified wa
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ALNWICK CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
ALNWICK CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
THE castle of Alnwick stands upon a moderate eminence on the south bank of, and about 150 yards distant from, the river Alne, which was thus its immediate defence against the Scot. It is about five miles from, and about 200 feet above, the sea-level. Towards the east and south the castle is cut off from the town of Alnwick by a deep combe, once the bed of the Bow Burn. This has been trimmed and scarped by art, and its upper part towards the town has been almost obliterated by modern upfilling. T
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THE CASTLE OF ARQUES, NEAR DIEPPE.
THE CASTLE OF ARQUES, NEAR DIEPPE.
ARQUES is one of the earliest examples of a Norman castle, for which reason, though not an English fortress, it has been thought convenient to include an account of it in these pages. This grand castle crowns and occupies the head of a steep and bold cape or promontory, in this case a spur from the great chalk table-land of the “Pays de Caux.” On the west it is flanked by a short but deep combe or dry valley, and on the east by the deeper and far wider valley of the Bethune and Varenne—streams d
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HISTORY.
HISTORY.
The Manor of Arundel, with others in this immediate neighbourhood, was given by Alfred, by will (885), to his brother’s son. It was held by Harold, and afterwards by William, who about or before 1070 granted to Roger de Montgomery the castle and honour of Arundel, with 84½ knights’ fees. Roger, who was of kin to the Conqueror, and commanded the Norman centre at Hastings, became Earl of Arundel and Shrewsbury, and held the Castle about twenty-three years, till his death. Domesday describes the Ca
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THE CASTLE OF BARNARD CASTLE.
THE CASTLE OF BARNARD CASTLE.
BARNARD, or Bernard’s, Castle, so called from its founder, Bernard de Baliol, stands in a commanding position on the left bank of the Tees, here the boundary between Durham and Yorkshire. It is a large castle, and was long a very important one, both from its position on the frontier of the bishopric, and from the power of the great barons who built and maintained it. The castle crowns the summit of a steep and in part precipitous shelf of rock, which rises about 100 feet above the river, and has
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BEAUMARIS CASTLE, IN ANGLESEY.
BEAUMARIS CASTLE, IN ANGLESEY.
BEAUMARIS Castle is built upon a marshy flat, close to the sea-shore, and but little above the level of the sea, from which its ditch was supplied. It is an example of a purely concentric fortress, in which the engineer was left free to design his works without being governed, as in most other cases, by the irregularities of the ground. Its inner ward is a quadrangle about 50 yards square, contained within four curtain-walls about 16 feet thick and 40 to 50 feet high. At the angles are four drum
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BEDFORD CASTLE.
BEDFORD CASTLE.
ON the left bank of the Ouse, about 50 yards from the stream, within, but upon the eastern edge of, the town, is to be found all that remains of the once-celebrated and very strong castle of Bedford. These remains, though scanty and confined, or nearly so, to earthworks, are very marked and of a durable character, and, although the fame of the castle rests upon its adventures as a Norman fortress, there is reason to suppose that it had an earlier history, and that most of its present relics belo
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BERKHAMPSTEAD CASTLE, HERTS.
BERKHAMPSTEAD CASTLE, HERTS.
THE Castle of Berkhampstead stands in the parish of Berkhampstead St. Peter, in the county of Hertford, and, geologically, upon the lower chalk. Its position is in a chalky bottom, on the left bank of the Bulborne rivulet. Between the stream and the castle the ground is naturally low and marshy, but it is now traversed by the Grand Junction Canal and the London and North-Western Railway, which, with the water-course and the turnpike-road, separate the castle from the town. To the east and north-
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BERKELEY CASTLE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
BERKELEY CASTLE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
THE Severn, below Shrewsbury, which on the map seems to mark a natural division between England and the southern part of the Principality of Wales, neither is, nor ever has been, really the dividing line. It is not, in those parts even, a county boundary, Gloucester, Worcester, and Salop being astride upon the stream, with large portions of their area upon its western bank. To go back to the sixth century, when the West Saxons, starting from the coast of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, pressed
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BODIHAM CASTLE, SUSSEX.
BODIHAM CASTLE, SUSSEX.
ABOUT four miles below the ancient Priory of Robertsbridge, and fourteen, by its own sinuous course, above its junction with the sea below the old Cinque Port of Rye, the Rother, a considerable Sussex river, receives from the north an important tributary known as the Kent Ditch, and, time out of mind, the boundary of the two counties. The waters meet obliquely, and between them intervenes a tongue or cape of high land tapering and falling gradually towards the junction, and occupied by the churc
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HISTORY.
HISTORY.
The family of Borthwick, though for centuries the owners of this estate, derive their name from a place on the shore of Borthwickwater, in the shire of Selkirk, whence, at a remote period, they migrated to the lands and castle of Catcune, holding it with Legertwood and Herriot Muir, whence they again removed to Locherwart, to which they gave the name of Borthwick, an inversion common in Ireland, but rare in England and Scotland. Their predecessors at Locherwart were the Hays of Yester. The first
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THE CASTLE OF BÔVES.
THE CASTLE OF BÔVES.
THE Castle of Bôves is here introduced as a good example of a moated mound on the other side of the Channel. The castle and village stand upon the left bank of the valley of the Noye, in the old province of Picardy, above and about a quarter of a mile distant from the stream. The Noye rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Grand, beyond Bretuil, and flows across a district of chalk. Both a little above and immediately below Bôves, it inosculates with the Avre, which rises near to Crêvecœur-le-Petit, and the
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BOWES CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
BOWES CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
THE stronghold known as Bowes Castle consists at this time of a single rectangular tower, unconnected with any other buildings, and bearing no trace whatever of ever having been so connected. This is very remarkable, inasmuch as the tower is in every respect both of plan and detail, a Norman keep, and Norman keeps usually, it may be said invariably, are, as the name imports, connected with or surrounded by other buildings, of which the tower is the strength or citadel. Brough, Brougham and Apple
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THE CASTLE OF BRAMBER, SUSSEX.
THE CASTLE OF BRAMBER, SUSSEX.
OF the shires of England there is none more intensely English than Sussex. Its name, the names of the most central of its two capital towns, of its principal and secondary divisions, of its parishes, and in a very remarkable degree of its inhabitants, are but little changed from those they bore on the eve of the Conquest, and when under the sway of Godwin and Harold. Even the not infrequent marks of Norman occupation, in the form of parish churches, abbeys, and castles of great strength and dura
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BRIDGENORTH, OLDBURY, AND QUATFORD, IN SHROPSHIRE.
BRIDGENORTH, OLDBURY, AND QUATFORD, IN SHROPSHIRE.
THE river Severn, in its course from Shrewsbury to Worcester, passes for several miles down a deep and rugged ravine, within or near to which lie the populous districts of Coalbrook Dale, Iron Bridge, Coal Port, and Broseley, early seats of the iron manufacture, and evidences of the wealth, though scarcely in harmony with the natural beauty, of the country. The ravine commences a little below the ivy-covered ruins of Buildwas Abbey, and terminates twenty to twenty-five miles lower down, about Be
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BRONLLYS TOWER, BRECKNOCKSHIRE.
BRONLLYS TOWER, BRECKNOCKSHIRE.
BRONLLYS TOWER, on the left bank of the Llyfni, a tributary of the Wye, is situate in the parish of the same name, close north of the town of Talgarth, on the regular and ancient way between Hereford and Brecknock. The tower occupies the summit of a mound or knoll of earth, in great part artificial, which crowns the steep bank of the adjacent river; rising, perhaps, 60 feet above the stream, and 30 feet or so above the ground to the west of and behind the building. The mound is placed at the ape
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BROUGH CASTLE.
BROUGH CASTLE.
Brough Castle covers the whole of a steep knoll which rises 60 feet on the left bank of the Swimdale or Helle Beck, and is about 50 yards from the water. The beck receives the Augill from the south-east, just above the castle, and their combined waters, at times of considerable volume and force, fall into the Eden about a mile and a half lower down. The castle itself is 630 feet above the sea-level, and the encircling fells of Westmoreland and Yorkshire rise to elevations of from 1,000 feet to 2
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BROUGHAM CASTLE.
BROUGHAM CASTLE.
This very curious pile stands on the right bank of the river Eamont, just below the point at which it is joined from the south by the Lowther, so that the combined stream covers the fortress on the north, as do the two waters and the marshy ground between them on the west front. The castle is placed but a few yards distant from and but a few feet above the Eamont, and between it and the large rectangular camp which marks the site of the Roman “Brovacum,” whence both castle and township derive th
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THE CASTLE OF BUILTH, IN BRECKNOCKSHIRE.
THE CASTLE OF BUILTH, IN BRECKNOCKSHIRE.
THE name of Builth, borne at this time by a considerable town, and by a Hundred of the county of Brecknock, is very ancient. As, like Brecon, the town is placed in an open valley, accessible without much difficulty to an enemy from the east, it has suffered from invasion from a very early period, and to these and similar attacks are to be attributed various strongholds, both of earth and masonry, of which the remains are abundant upon the marches of England and Wales, and in such tracts of the l
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CAERNARVON CASTLE.
CAERNARVON CASTLE.
OF the three greatest military works executed by Edward I. in Wales, Caernarvon is undoubtedly the chief; nor, indeed, is there any castle in Britain laid out with greater uniformity of design, or in which the resources of the military engineer are more skilfully set forth. Moreover, it has suffered less than any other of equal magnitude from violence, or natural decay, or the rapacity of local builders. Its towers, walls, and gatehouses, stand as firm and free from injury as when they came from
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PRESENT CONDITION.
PRESENT CONDITION.
The castle, in its present condition, assumes a very different appearance from that described as its original state, although enough remains to bear out the description. The eastern, or main front, is in good preservation. The masonry of the three northern buttresses is but little injured, although between them and the curtain are deep fissures, evidently the work of gunpowder, aided by the presence of a long window on either side. The mine was evidently sprung at the gorge of these buttresses,
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CARDIFF CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
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,
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CARLISLE CASTLE.
CARLISLE CASTLE.
THE city of Carlisle appears first early in the ninth century, in the history of Nennius, as Cair-Luadiit, or Luilid, or the Castra Luguballia, one of the “octo et viginti civitates ... cum innumeris castellis ex lapidibus et lateribus fabricatis,” enumerated by that respectable authority. The fame of Carlisle, however, is due neither to this early mention, nor to the subsequent gift of the place by King Ecgfrid to St. Cuthbert, but rather to its name as a centre of the early cycle of Arthurian
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CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN.
CASTELL COCH, GLAMORGAN.
THE river Taff, from its origin under the Brecon Beacons, after a course of about 26 miles through the northern and mountain district of Glamorgan, escapes by a deep and narrow ravine across the last elevation, and rolls its course, unfettered, to the Bristol Channel. The ridge which it thus finally cleaves, and which divides the hill country from the plain, is part of the great southern escarpment of the coal basin of Glamorgan, supported there by the mountain limestone rising from below, and i
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CASTLE RISING, NORFOLK.
CASTLE RISING, NORFOLK.
CASTLE RISING, probably so called from its position on ground that is high or rising compared with the low levels of the district, stands about two miles from the estuary of the Wash upon its eastern or Norfolk shore. Half a mile north of the village a large tract of low land is traversed by the Babingley river, and it is evident that before this part of the country was drained and reclaimed by tillage, the approaches to the village upon at least three sides, the north, west and east, must have
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CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD, ON THE SEINE.
CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD, ON THE SEINE.
CHÂTEAU-GAILLARD, though a French castle, is here introduced as being the work of an English king, and a very remarkable example of the military architecture of the close of the twelfth century. Château-Gaillard, the “Saucy Castle” of Cœur-de-Lion, the work of one year of his brief reign, and the enduring monument of his skill as a military engineer, is in its position and details one of the most remarkable, and in its history one of the most interesting of the castles of Normandy. Although a ru
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THE CASTLE OF CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS.
THE CASTLE OF CHRISTCHURCH, HANTS.
THE town, castle, and priory of Christchurch are placed upon the south-eastern point and edge of a tongue of moderately-high ground, which intervenes between the Stour on the west and the Avon on the east. The two rivers of Dorset and Wilts meander like their prototype, and flow across broad and marshy tracts of land to unite below Christchurch in a spacious inlet of the bay which is formed, and on the south-east protected, by the headland bearing the suggestive name of Hengistbury. The position
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CLIFFORD CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
CLIFFORD CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
CLIFFORD CASTLE is the most westward of the fortresses by which the line of the Wye is protected in its passage across the county of Hereford, and which appear to have been constructed, some long before, some shortly before, and others shortly after, the Norman Conquest, for the defence of that fertile acquisition against the ever-aggressive Welsh of Brecknock and Radnor. As early as the first quarter of the ninth century, the Saxons, under Egbert, had reduced Wales to a nominal subjection. And
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THE KEEP OF CLITHEROE, LANCASHIRE.
THE KEEP OF CLITHEROE, LANCASHIRE.
THE castle of Clitheroe, the chief seat of an ancient and extensive honour, though one of the smallest, is perhaps the strongest, the oldest, and from its position one of the most remarkable, of the fortresses of Lancashire. It is placed upon the left, or eastern, bank of the Ribble, here the boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire, three quarters of a mile from the stream, and about 130 feet above it. It occupies the summit and upper part of a limestone crag, which, precipitous in parts, and
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THE CASTLE AND BARONY OF CLUN, SHROPSHIRE.
THE CASTLE AND BARONY OF CLUN, SHROPSHIRE.
THE church, village, and castle of Clun are situated near the centre of a spacious amphitheatre of lofty but fertile hills, the summits and upper slopes of which are covered with young and luxuriant plantations, while in the lower parts are occasionally single trees, chiefly oak, elm, and beech, of vast size and great age, the reliques of an ancient demesne, and still standing out and to be distinguished amidst the denizens of the hedgerows, which, though often of large size, all belong to the p
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DESCENT.
DESCENT.
Cockermouth was the “caput” of the barony of Allerdale, usually called in the Inquisitions the Honour of Cockermouth. There is no collected list of the lands held of the Honour, but they seem to have been extensive, and are specified in divers inquisitions from time to time, with the names of their holders. The original grantee seems to have been William, brother of the well-known Ranulph de Meschines, Earl of Chester. He received, either from the Conqueror or from Henry I., the territory of Cop
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DESCRIPTION.
DESCRIPTION.
The keep, the only remaining portion of the castle, is a peculiar and, in many respects, a very remarkable structure; remarkable for the unusually large area which it covers; for its want, even in its original state, of a proportionate height; for the arrangement and design of its parts and details; for the materials of which it is composed; and for the workmanship by which they are put together. Not only is its origin disputed, but the purpose for which it was constructed is still the subject o
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CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.
CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.
CONISBOROUGH, or, as it was anciently and more correctly called, Coningsborough or Coningsburh Castle, is one of the most remarkable of the strongholds in the North of England, standing high above the bank of “the gentle Don,” about half-a-mile below its reception of the Dearne, in the midst of a grand sylvan amphitheatre. Its name declares it to have been a seat, and its position to have been a fitting seat, of Saxon royalty; and the mighty earthworks which constitute its most ancient defences,
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CONWAY CASTLE.
CONWAY CASTLE.
THE castle and town of Conway form together the most complete and the best preserved example of mediæval military architecture in Britain. The works are all of one date and design, apparently by one engineer, at the command of a monarch specially skilled in the art of war, and whose intention here was to command a very formidable pass, and to put a curb upon the boldest, most persistent, and most dangerous of the foes who strove to resist the consolidation of his kingdom. At Conway are displayed
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CORFE CASTLE, DORSET.
CORFE CASTLE, DORSET.
CORFE Castle is one of the most noteworthy remains in Britain. The natural position is very striking, and not less so the manner in which it has been fortified by art. It is of high antiquity, associated from the times of the West Saxon princes to those of the Commonwealth with marked historical events; was the palace and the prison of kings and great nobles, and has been commanded by a long succession of powerful Castellans. The castle crowns an isolated hill, a part of the steep chalk ridge wh
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THE CASTLE OF COUCY, NEAR LAON.
THE CASTLE OF COUCY, NEAR LAON.
COUCY-LE-CHÂTEAU, town and castle, are built upon and completely occupy the somewhat irregularly-shaped but level summit of a promontory of chalk, the eastern part or root of which is connected with the high land of the upper forest of Coucy, while towards the north and west the termination of the platform stands out boldly and abruptly, from 150 feet to 200 feet above the fertile valleys on either hand, whence spring the tributary waters of the Lette, a stream which flows down from the ancient
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COYTY CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
COYTY CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
THE lordship of Coyty is regarded by the Welsh as an Honour of high antiquity, the estate and seat of a royal lineage, and the inheritance of one of the sons of Jestyn, the last native lord of Morganwg. It is divided into the lesser lordships of Coyty Anglia and Wallia, and it formed one of the “members” of the county under the Norman lords. Being a member, and not in the body of the shire, it is not included in the thirty-six and three-fifths knights’ fees which paid military service to Cardiff
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DOLFORWYN CASTLE, MONTGOMERY.
DOLFORWYN CASTLE, MONTGOMERY.
DOLFORWYN, or “The Maiden’s Meadow,” is a name evidently transposed from the meads of the adjacent Severn to the ridge occupied by the castle, which rises 500 feet or 600 feet above, and half a mile west of, the river, from which it is separated by an intervening hill. The approach is by a steep road, which becomes still more so near the top of the ridge, and finally skirts along, and is commanded by, the works of the castle. These works are very simple in plan, and of rude construction. A platf
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DESCRIPTION.
DESCRIPTION.
Dover Castle is called by Matthew Paris “the very front door of England,” and described by William of Poitou as “ Situm est id castellum in rupe mari contigua quæ naturaliter acuta undique ad hoc ferramentis elaborate incisa, in speciem muri directissima altitudine, quantum sagittæ jactus permetiri potest consurgit, quo in latere unda marina alluitur .” It presents a good combination of the defences of several architectural periods, the general result being a concentric fortress, the growth of m
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DUNSTER CASTLE, SOMERSET.
DUNSTER CASTLE, SOMERSET.
THE Castle of Dunster is of high antiquity, and for many centuries was a place of great military consideration in the western counties. It was the caput of an extensive Honour, and the chief seat of a line of very powerful barons. The hill upon which it stands is the north-eastern, or seaward extremity of a considerable ridge, from which it is cut off by a natural depression, and thus forms what is known in West-Saxon nomenclature as a tor. The tor covers above ten acres of ground, and is about
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THE KEEP OF DURHAM.
THE KEEP OF DURHAM.
THE Castle of Durham is now given over to the use of the Northern University, and is in great part occupied by the students. Parts of it only are open to visitors, and any description of its details, under the present restrictions, would be of little value. In a recent volume of the publications of the Surtees Society, Mr. James Raine, the worthy son of a distinguished sire, has given to the archæological world a very curious poem, now first printed, entitled “ Dialogi Laurentii Dunelmensis Mona
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EATON-SOCON CASTLE, BEDFORDSHIRE.
EATON-SOCON CASTLE, BEDFORDSHIRE.
THE Ouse, rising in the shires of Northampton and Bucks, and finally falling at King’s Lynn into the head of the Wash, flows deep and sluggish past Bedford, St. Neots, and Huntingdon, intersecting broad tracts of low and level land, now fertile meadow, but formerly almost impassable swamp, opposing great difficulties to the march of an invading force, especially if advancing from the eastern coast. At Eaton-Socon, between Bedford and Huntingdon, and a little above the town of St. Neots, the Ouse
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THE CASTLE OF EWIAS HAROLD, HEREFORDSHIRE.
THE CASTLE OF EWIAS HAROLD, HEREFORDSHIRE.
THE “ Castellaria Aluredi Ewias ” of Domesday was a tract, the particulars of which are not known, but which no doubt lay among those lines of hill and valley which converge like the fingers of a hand upon the Worm and the Monnow, between the Golden Valley and the Black Mountain, and form the south-western portion of the county of Hereford. The actual castle, “ Castellum Ewias ,” stands about six miles within the border, and about three miles outside or west of the presumed line of Offa’s Dyke a
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THE CASTLE OF EXETER.
THE CASTLE OF EXETER.
THE Castle of Exeter is not only a fortress of high antiquity, but is in many respects peculiar. It occupies the northern angle of the city, forming a part of its enceinte , and it crowns the summit of a natural knoll formed by an upburst of Plutonic rock, of a red colour, whence it derived its Norman appellation of Rougemont. The knoll rises steeply on the north-east and north-west from a deep valley, but on the other two sides the slope, though still considerable, is more gradual. The sides of
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FILLONGLEY CASTLE, CO. WARWICK.
FILLONGLEY CASTLE, CO. WARWICK.
THE scanty remains of this, the seat of the family of Hastings before they rose to their earldom of Pembroke, and now known as Castle Yard, are placed about a quarter of a mile south of Fillongley Church upon a small triangle of land formed by the beds and junction of two brooks which flow down from the south and the south-east to meet and form the point of the triangle to the north. In the space thus protected towards the north, west, and east, was constructed a rudely oval shell of masonry abo
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FONMON CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
FONMON CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
FONMON Castle was, no doubt, built by Sir John de St. John soon after the conquest of Glamorgan; and part of the present building is original. The castle rises from the western edge of a narrow and deep ravine, which conveys a streamlet from Fonmon village into the Kenson. On its north front, but at some little distance from the castle, a similar steep bank slopes down direct to the Kenson, which there traverses a meadow, in earlier days probably an impassable morass. On its west and south sides
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FOTHERINGAY CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
FOTHERINGAY CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
THE masonry of this castle has been entirely removed, but the original moated mound and earth-banks remain, and the lines of the masonry may be traced by the trenches dug when the foundations were grubbed up. The mound stands on the left bank of the river Nene, and of the buildings the principal, disposed nearly east and west, was very evidently the great hall in which Mary of Scotland was tried and executed. There is in “Ellis’s Letters” (First Series, Vol. II. ) a draught plan, in Burghley’s h
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GROSMONT CASTLE, MONMOUTHSHIRE.
GROSMONT CASTLE, MONMOUTHSHIRE.
GROSMONT is one of five strong places disposed along the right or south-west bank of the Munnow river, the others being, below it, Skenfrith, and above it Oldcastle, Longtown, and the fortified house of Perthir; Monmouth Castle, and the town beneath its protection, occupied the junction of the Munnow with the Wye. These are some of the fortified buildings scattered broadcast over the Welsh marshes, and especially abundant in the county of Monmouth, and the remains of which, always picturesque, a
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GUILDFORD CASTLE, SURREY.
GUILDFORD CASTLE, SURREY.
GUILDFORD Castle, of which the keep was always the most prominent, and is now the chief remaining, feature, is in position, age, structure, and dimensions, a very remarkable fortress. It is true, indeed, that though of great age, neither the town nor the castle have played any great part in English history. The town was never walled; the castle never stood a siege. No considerable battle was ever witnessed from its towers; no parliament or great council was ever held within its hall. Though alwa
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HARLECH CASTLE, MERIONETH.
HARLECH CASTLE, MERIONETH.
THE Castle of Harlech occupies a bold and rugged headland of rock which juts forward upon the coast-line of Merioneth over the broad alluvial plain known as Morfa Harlech, near to its southern and narrower extremity. Six centuries back, when the Traeth was an estuary, and the waves may have washed the foot of the rock, Harlech, as now Criccaieth, was probably accessible by water,—a circumstance likely to have governed its founder in his selection of the site. Although scarcely 200 feet above the
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HASTINGS CASTLE, SUSSEX.
HASTINGS CASTLE, SUSSEX.
THE Rape of Hastings is the most eastern of the six divisions of the county of Sussex which are supposed to derive their somewhat peculiar name from the early occupation of the district by emigrants from Jutland. The Rape of Hastings, probably, is so called from its principal town, which was also the seat of its lords both before and after the Norman Conquest. Like the other rapes, it had its river and its forest, its castle and its castelry, often designated as an Honour. The river, the Rother,
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HAWARDEN CASTLE, FLINTSHIRE.
HAWARDEN CASTLE, FLINTSHIRE.
THE Hundred of Atiscross, in which Hawarden is an important parish, is, in Domesday, included in the county of Chester; and in that Hundred, as in very many parts of the Welsh border, the Saxons, as is well known from history and still evident from the prevailing names of places, early and in strength established themselves. But although the power of the Earls of Chester and the perfectly Saxonised condition of the peninsula of West Chester gave the invaders a secure hold over the open country o
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HELMSLEY CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
HELMSLEY CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
HELMSLEY, the Elmeslae of Domesday and the Hamlake of genealogists, is the name of an extensive tract of wild moorland which lies on the southern slope of the Cleveland Hills, in the north-east corner of the North Riding of Yorkshire. The hills rise to 1,400 feet above the sea, but Helmsley Moor hardly reaches 1,100 feet, and the town of Helmsley, placed where the uplands pass into the plain, scarcely stands at 200 feet. The real river of Helmsley, descending from the moors, is the Seph; but aft
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DESCRIPTION OF THE DEFENCES.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DEFENCES.
The castle of Hereford was one of the strongest, most advanced, and most important fortresses upon the Welsh March, and one which, being posted in a very fertile and open district, was peculiarly offensive to, and very liable to the attacks of, the Welsh people. The present remains are not inconsiderable, but, as is often the case with fortresses of pre-Norman date, they are confined chiefly to earthworks, and include but slight traces of the later defences of masonry. The castle was placed upon
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HERTFORD CASTLE.
HERTFORD CASTLE.
THE Castle of Hertford not only is of high antiquity, but the date of its foundation is on record. The Saxon Chronicle relates that in the year 913, Edward the Elder, son of Alfred, threw up two Burhs at Hertford, one at Martinmas, on the north bank of the river, and, later on, one on the south bank, between three of the rivers which here unite. The former of these works has long been laid low, and no trace of it is visible, but the latter has been preserved by its incorporation into the later c
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HOPTON CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE.
HOPTON CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE.
ABOUT five miles south-east of Clun, upon a tributary of the Teme, is placed the parish and castle of Hopton, the Opetune of Domesday, when it was, like Clun, held by Picot as the successor of Edric. It was a fief of Clun. In 1165 it was held by Walter de Opton as two knights’ fees under Geoffrey de Vere, one of the three husbands of Isabel de Say; and Peter de Opton held it in 1201. William de Hopton may have followed, but Mr. Eyton is not clear whether he may not have been of Monk-Hopton in th
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HUNTINGDON CASTLE.
HUNTINGDON CASTLE.
IT has generally been supposed that the town of Godmanchester, upon the right bank of the Ouse, represents the Roman station of Durolipons. It is traversed by the Ermine Street, which here receives the Via Devana from Cambridge, and another Roman road from the station at Salenæ, or Sandy. The Roman town, however, seems, as was often the case, to have been destroyed in the centuries of war that followed on the departure of the Roman armies, and its memory is chiefly preserved in the termination o
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HUNTINGTON CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
HUNTINGTON CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
THIS is one of the moated mounds with appended courts of which there are so many in the counties of Hereford and Salop, and here as usual the earthworks were employed to support and defend the masonry of a Norman castle. There remains but little of these additions; but the earthworks are remarkably perfect and show in great completeness the mound, the inner ward, and its proper ditch, and the outer ward, also with its ditch. The annexed plan is taken from the pages of the “Archæologia Cambrensis
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THE CASTLE OF KENILWORTH, WARWICKSHIRE.
THE CASTLE OF KENILWORTH, WARWICKSHIRE.
THE three midland counties of England, happily for those who dwelt in them, were not rich in castles, and such as remain are rarely of a very striking character. The position of Belvoir, indeed, is very noble, and Warwick stands without a rival; but these are brilliant exceptions, and the early castle-builders of the shires of Leicester, Warwick, and Northampton, in the absence of those wilder features of nature to which many of the Welsh and Scottish fortresses owe much of their celebrity, had
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HISTORY.
HISTORY.
The name of Kydwelly, or Cydwelhi, is Welsh. Leland, whose etymologies are not infallible, derives the name from “Cathwelli,” or “Cattalectus,” because Cattas used to make his bed in an oak there. Others explain “Cyd” to mean an “Aber,” or junction of waters. The Catgueli were a Celtic tribe. The town is no doubt of Welsh origin, and of high antiquity. This does not apply to the castle, which, in its present form at least, is of later date, and the site of which, though naturally strong, was not
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KILPECK CASTLE.
KILPECK CASTLE.
THE parish of Kilpeck, in the county of Hereford, occupies a tract of rolling broken ground which intervenes between the Mynde, Orcop, and Garway ridge of hills and the river Worm, a stream which receives the drainage of a considerable valley, and finally falls into the Monnow, near Kentchurch. The railway from Abergavenny towards Hereford passes up this valley, which affords an excellent example both of the fertility and the picturesque beauty of the old red sandstone country of Herefordshire.
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KNARESBOROUGH CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
KNARESBOROUGH CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
AMONG the various windings by which, still bearing its original British appellation, the river Nidd finds its way from its sources in Nidderdale and on the flanks of Whernside to its union with the Ouse a few miles above York, none are more remarkable than those by which it traverses the ancient forest of Knaresborough, where it lies within a deep ravine, celebrated, even in Yorkshire, for its happy combination of wood, and rock, and water. Near the middle of this part of its course a bold promo
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LEEDS, OR LEDES, CASTLE, KENT.
LEEDS, OR LEDES, CASTLE, KENT.
LEEDS Castle is a very peculiar structure. It stands upon three rocky knolls, of which two are islands in a lake of 15 acres, and the third occupies the central part of the artificial bank by which, as at Kenilworth and Caerphilly, and in some degree at Framlingham and Ragland, the waters are or were retained. The central and larger island is girt by a revetment wall, having half-round bastions, and rising about 15 feet out of the water. This was the wall of the outer ward. About 40 feet within,
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LEICESTER CASTLE.
LEICESTER CASTLE.
THE town of Leicester stands upon moderately high ground, and on its western side is divided by a narrow valley from the opposite elevations of Glenfield and Braunstone. This valley gives passage to the Soar, the river of the county, which, flowing northwards, meanders through the meadows of the Abbey of St. Mary de Pratis, and thus, before agriculture had drained these lands, securely covered the western and northern, and, to a certain extent, the southern fronts of this very ancient and once w
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LEYBOURNE CASTLE, KENT.
LEYBOURNE CASTLE, KENT.
THIS castle, the lords of which played a considerable part in the earlier troubles of the thirteenth century, when two of the name were summoned as barons, stands by the road-side near its parish church of the same name, between Snodland and West Malling, in Kent, and at no great distance from the ancient Neville seat of Birling. The building, judging from its present remains, is scarcely in keeping with the wealth of its late lords, nor does it appear ever to have been more extensive. Part of t
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LINCOLN CASTLE.
LINCOLN CASTLE.
WHEN “the devil looked over Lincoln” he is said to have smiled at man’s costly devotion. But if the smile of the arch-enemy of mankind was, as must be supposed, in derision of man’s attempts at progress, the occasion of it was singularly ill-chosen, for in the whole of Britain it would be difficult to find a tract for the well-being of which man has exerted himself so much and so successfully. Two thousand years ago, that broad but not unbroken plain which extends from the Wash to the Humber, fr
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THE TOWER OF LLANQUIAN, GLAMORGAN.
THE TOWER OF LLANQUIAN, GLAMORGAN.
ABOUT two miles east of Cowbridge, and half a mile or so north of the old Roman way from that town to Cardiff, a brooklet from St. Hilary Down crosses the road, and descends a deep and narrow ravine, to fall into the broad Aberthin valley, about two miles above its junction with the Cowbridge Taw, near the village of Aberthin. The ground on either bank of the ravine is very strong, and has been occupied for the purposes of defence from an early period. On the right bank is a large and irregular,
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DETAILED DESCRIPTION.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION.
The White , or Cæsar’s Tower , is the keep of the fortress. It stands a little to the south-east of the centre of the inner ward, upon ground which, on the north, is 40 feet, and on the south 15 feet above the ordnance mean water-mark, so that the basement is at the ground level on one side, and above it on the other. It is quadrangular, 107 feet north and south by 118 feet east and west. Its two western angles are square. That on the north-east is capped by a round stair-turret, 22 feet diamete
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HISTORY.
HISTORY.
Having decided to build an “ Arx Palatina ,” and having some years’ experience of the value of the proposed site as a temporary camp, the Conqueror at length determined to erect a regular castle, and entrusted the work to Gundulf, a monk of Bec, who, in 1077, soon after his arrival in England, was consecrated Bishop of Rochester. Gundulf brought with him from Normandy some reputation as an architect, which vocation he pursued in this country. Rochester Keep, that strong but graceful tower, place
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HISTORY.
HISTORY.
Ludlow is apparently a purely Norman fortress. Its earthworks, such as they are, or were, have nothing in common, either in position or character, with the hill forts of British origin, so common in that district; neither do they at all resemble the later and English works attributed to Æthelflæd and her countrymen in the ninth or tenth centuries, and of which Wigmore, Richard’s castle, and Shrewsbury are adjacent types. In plan, indeed, Ludlow is not unlike those works by which headlands and pr
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ST. LEONARD’S TOWER, WEST MALLING.
ST. LEONARD’S TOWER, WEST MALLING.
THIS tower, apparently the earliest built and the last part remaining of the residence of Bishop Gundulf, is probably one of the first Norman keeps, perhaps one of the earliest military towers in masons’ work, after the departure of the Romans, constructed in England. With these pretensions, it deserves more attention than it has hitherto met with. It stands about a quarter of a mile south-west of the parish church of Town, or West Malling, in Kent, the plain heavy tower of which is also attribu
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THE KEEP OF MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
THE KEEP OF MIDDLEHAM CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
ALTHOUGH the size and extent of Middleham Castle are but moderate for the figure it has made in local story, and the rank and power of the succession of great barons who built, augmented, and have inhabited it, it is in itself a remarkable building, and presents much of antiquarian interest. It is placed on the southern edge of the town of Middleham, and a little above it. Its immediate position presents no great natural advantages, but for the general defence of Wensley Dale, it is not ill chos
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MITFORD CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
MITFORD CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND.
THIS is one of the most remarkable of the Northumbrian castles. It is situated about two miles above and west of Morpeth, on the right bank of the Wansbeck, which here makes two very sharp bends, the larger and higher of which includes the castle, the church of St. Andrew, the new Hall, and the ruins of the old one. The church, the nave of which was long roofless, has been repaired, and is now in good order. It is the burial-place of the ancient barons and modern lords of Mitford. The chancel is
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MONTGOMERY CASTLE.
MONTGOMERY CASTLE.
IT is by a singular chance that a rude and artificial mound of earth, in an obscure part of a foreign province, should have given its name to a British county and to the town that forms its capital. The proper names of places in Britain are usually either British or English. Once given in the latter tongue, they have but seldom been changed. New creations, as Battle and Jervaulx, and some other ecclesiastical houses, bear, indeed, new names; but these do not appear to have displaced any already
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MORLAIS CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
MORLAIS CASTLE, GLAMORGAN.
UPON the northern limits of the county of Glamorgan, and above the eastern and lesser of the two sources of the Taff, stand the ruins of the castle of Morlais, so called from a small brook which rises a little to its north-east, and which, after receiving the Dowlais, flows into the Taff, within the adjacent town of Merthyr. The castle is placed upon the edge of a considerable platform of mountain limestone rock, quarried extensively during the present century for the neighbouring ironworks, and
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NORHAM CASTLE, DURHAM.
NORHAM CASTLE, DURHAM.
THE castle of Norham-upon-Tweed, “Old Norham,” the Queen of Border fortresses, and the most important stronghold between Carlisle and Berwick, was long the “Castle Dangerous” of that contested territory, and the strongest place on the Marches. It is a lasting monument of episcopal magnificence, founded, restored, and maintained by Flambard, Pudsey, and Beke, three of the most powerful prelates who sat in the chair of St. Cuthbert, and as an example of a great Norman keep is not unworthy to be na
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NOTTINGHAM CASTLE.
NOTTINGHAM CASTLE.
THE annexed drawing, taken from the Illustrated London News , represents admirably, in Nottingham in the sixteenth century, the appearance of a very perfect castle of the first class. The Norman keep is seen on the curtain between two wards. The smaller or inner ward is original and Norman. It was enclosed in a lofty and strong curtain, following the outline of the rock on which it stood, and strengthened at its three most exposed angles by rectangular towers of no exterior projection. On two si
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ODIHAM CASTLE, HANTS.
ODIHAM CASTLE, HANTS.
ABOUT a mile north-west of the town of Odiham, in the tything of North Warnborough, stands what remains of this ancient castle. It is placed on the left bank of the Whitewater, a rather copious stream, which rises about two miles south, and flows northwards to fall into the Loddon at Swallowfield. About the castle the ground is low and flat, and, in consequence, very wet. The Basingstoke canal has been carried across the marsh, and being now abandoned and choked with weeds, adds to the drearines
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OSWALDESTRE.
OSWALDESTRE.
THE hundred of Oswestry, though but of moderate extent, represents a tract of country which was for centuries a field of contest between the Britons and the men of Mercia, the Welsh and the English; for it was placed within the old Welsh district of Powys-Fadog, in the centre of the English march, and itself a marcher lordship. Its changes of name have been numerous, adopted as either language prevailed, or as any event occurred which seemed to the party in possession worthy to be commemorated.
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THE CASTLE.
THE CASTLE.
The visible remains of this ancient fortress, so celebrated in border story, are very scanty, and are confined to the central mound, and to some fragments of the rude but substantial keep which was placed upon it. The castle stood on ground rather higher than, and on the north-western edge of, the town, completely commanding it; and it is only of late years that its site has been nearly surrounded by buildings. The church is about half a mile distant to the south, the town intervening between th
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PENMARK CASTLE.
PENMARK CASTLE.
PENMARK CASTLE is about a mile east of Fonmon, and two, three, and four miles from the castles of East Orchard, Barry, and Wenvoe. It was originally built by Sir Gilbert de Umfreville, soon after the conquest of Glamorgan, but the present ruins are scarcely older than the thirteenth century. It is probably of the reign of Henry III. or Edward I. , with some trifling additions of later date; but it exhibits no traces either of a Norman keep or of any of the usual Perpendicular or Tudor additions.
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THE CASTLE OF PENRICE, IN GOWER.
THE CASTLE OF PENRICE, IN GOWER.
THE castle of Penrice, or, as it was anciently called, Penrees, in West Gower, in the county of Glamorgan, is inferior only to Caerphilly, Cardiff, and Coyty, in the area contained within its walls, and is second to none in its strong, commanding, and picturesque position. Penrice stands at the bottom of Oxwich Bay, a mile within the shore, and about 150 feet above the sea. It occupies the rocky crest of a steep slope of greensward, at the base of which is a small lake, and beyond this a sort of
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PENRITH CASTLE, CUMBERLAND.
PENRITH CASTLE, CUMBERLAND.
PENRITH CASTLE stands upon a slight elevation of old red sandstone gravel, about a furlong from, and from 50 feet to 70 feet above, the church and the old town of Penrith, and a few yards east of the modern railway station. Originally and always a simple structure of no particular military strength or architectural merit, its remains are now scanty, and chiefly remarkable for the excellence of their material and workmanship, and well known from their position in full view of one of the great hig
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DESCRIPTION.
DESCRIPTION.
The Roman fortress is in plan a rounded oblong, 220 yards north-east and south-west by 115 yards, and contains from 8½ acres to 9 acres. It is included within a wall strengthened by towers, and here, as at Lyme, the outline of the plan was evidently governed by that of the ground on which the castle stands, and which rises 8 feet to 10 feet above the sea level and that of the surrounding marsh or meadow. The wall is from 10 feet to 11 feet thick throughout, and at this time from 20 feet to 30 fe
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PICKERING CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
PICKERING CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
THE castle and town of Pickering stand upon the southern edge of the moors of north-eastern Yorkshire, where the upland subsides into a broad tract of meadow, which, under the names of Carr, Ing, Marisch, and Bottom, extends southwards nearly to Malton, and east and west from near Scarborough to a little short of Helmsley. This is the district known as the Lythe or Vale of Pickering, of which the castle was the chief seat. One of the principal passes into the Lythe from the north is that now occ
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DESCRIPTION.
DESCRIPTION.
The position and dimensions of the castle were worthy of the great barons by whom it was constructed, and far too noble for the events with which its name is associated. North-east of, and one-third of a mile from, the market-cross of Pontefract, there is seen a very remarkable table of rock, oval in form, the sides of which are in part a steep slope and in part a cliff of from 30 feet to 40 feet high, rising out of a talus, which, on the north, south, and eastern faces, descends into two deep n
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PORCHESTER CASTLE, HANTS.
PORCHESTER CASTLE, HANTS.
ALTHOUGH England is rich in Roman remains, and full of material traces of the all-pervading energy of that race of conquerors and colonists, such remains are chiefly roads, encampments, foundations of domestic buildings, and less frequently of fortresses or military works in masonry. Of these latter the chief are Burgh, Caerleon, Caerwent, Caistor, Pevensey, Richborough, and Silchester; parts of Colchester, Lincoln, Wroxeter, and York, and a few traces at Chester and Leicester. But of these, not
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RICHARD’S CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
RICHARD’S CASTLE, HEREFORDSHIRE.
THE site of Richard’s Castle, a well-known and very ancient fortress in the county of Hereford, but near to Ludlow and the borders of Shropshire, is distinguished by one of those remarkable works in earth which have hitherto, in topographical books, passed undescribed, or described only in such general terms as afford no aid to any sound inference as to the people or the period by whom or at which they were thrown up. And yet, if there were correct plans and precise descriptions of the earthwork
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ROCHESTER CASTLE.
ROCHESTER CASTLE.
ROCHESTER—Fortress, Cathedral, and City—is a very remarkable place—in some respects the most remarkable place in the South of England. In each of its triple capacities it claims a high antiquity. Its ecclesiastical history commences with Augustin and Æthelbyrht, the founders of its see, over which Justus, the friend of Augustin, was the first to preside, and to the endowments of which a long succession of Kentish and Mercian princes contributed. Its secular history, though often obscure, ascends
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ROCKINGHAM CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
ROCKINGHAM CASTLE, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.
WITHIN the north-eastern border of Northamptonshire, abutted upon by the shires of Leicester, Rutland, and Lincoln to the north and east, and by that of Huntingdon to the south, is a large tract of rather elevated land, known as the Forest of Rockingham. Its natural limits are the valleys of the Nen and the Welland, whose general parallelism is continued in their course across the Holland fen to their common termination in the Wash. Towards the west this platform is further cut off by the Ise, w
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OLD SARUM, WILTSHIRE.
OLD SARUM, WILTSHIRE.
THE Wiltshire Avon, which shares that well-known name with her Somersetshire sister, and rises in part from the same ground,—that “Eastern Avon,” which is one of the coldest and clearest streams in the south. Whether its source be taken from the high land of the Devizes, or from the skirts of Savernake, it runs about fifty miles to the sea at Christchurch, and, in that distance, itself, or by its immediate tributaries, traverses a tract very rich in sylvan beauty, and crowded with material trace
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THE CASTLE.
THE CASTLE.
The platform, to which the keep forms the key of the approach, is in plan a rhomboid, in length from north to south 600 yards, and from east to west 300 yards, covering about 19 acres, and its table summit ranges from 300 feet to 336 feet above the sea level. The two eastern or seaward faces, measuring together about 700 yards in length, rise abruptly from the sea beach, and are absolutely impregnable. The north-western face, 300 yards in length, and looking towards the north bay and sands, is l
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SKENFRITH CASTLE.
SKENFRITH CASTLE.
AMONG the numerous strong places in Monmouthshire, which, from their character and position, seem to have been thrown up during the occupation of that border territory by the Mercians and the English during the eighth and following centuries, Skenfrith holds a conspicuous place. Its fortune, moreover, was, to be adopted, like Caerleon and Grosmount, by the Norman invaders, who placed a keep upon its ancient, though inconsiderable, mound, and girdled its elevated platform with walls and towers of
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THE CASTLE.
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 encein
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TAMWORTH CASTLE, WARWICKSHIRE.
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, th
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TAUNTON CASTLE.
TAUNTON CASTLE.
TAUNTON CASTLE possesses an interest in the eyes of archæologists which its present appearance and its Norman history may not seem to justify, but which depends upon the fact that it is of English and not Norman foundation, that it dates from a period nearly two centuries earlier than any other fortress mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle, and not only is the date of its construction approximatively known, but its existing earthworks, though mutilated, are beyond question original. The castle stand
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THURNHAM CASTLE, KENT.
THURNHAM CASTLE, KENT.
THURNHAM, called also, from the hill on which it stands, “Godard’s,” Castle, near Maidstone, is a curious example of a Norman castle placed upon what is evidently a British camp. The camp crowned the high point of a very steep spur, which juts out between a depression on the one side and a small deep combe on the other, in the great escarpment of the lower chalk, about four miles east-north-east of Maidstone. The earthworks were formed by scarping the central knoll, and perhaps raising it a very
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TICKHILL CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
TICKHILL CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
TICKHILL is a place of high antiquity, and both before and for some centuries after the Norman Conquest its importance as a strong place and the head of an extensive lordship was very considerable. Mr. Hunter, the accurate and accomplished historian of the district, suggests “The-Wickhill,” in allusion to the village mount, as a probable etymology for the name, and cites “Thunder-cliffe,” or “Th’ Under Cliffe,” as an analogous case. It seems that near Sheffield Castle was a small green called “T
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CRICKHOWEL CASTLE.
CRICKHOWEL CASTLE.
This castle stands in the suburb of the town of Crickhowel, between it and the Usk, on the left bank of that river, and about a furlong from the parish church. Its principal and most interesting feature is a large conical mound, wholly artificial, about 50 feet high, and on its table top 60 feet diameter north and south, and 50 feet east and west. This mound has been surrounded by a ditch, traces of which remain on the east, south, and west sides. Towards the north it is encroached upon by a pon
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TUTBURY CASTLE, STAFFORDSHIRE.
TUTBURY CASTLE, STAFFORDSHIRE.
THE high broken ground of Needwood Forest, contained between the Trent and the Dove, is brought to a termination eastward by the union of those streams upon the confines of the three shires of Derby, Stafford, and Leicester. About five miles above this confluence, upon the right or Staffordshire bank of the Dove, stand the town and castle of Tutbury, once, according to Leland, a residence of the Saxon lords of Mercia, and named, it is said, from the god Thoth, who presides over Tuesday, and is t
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URQUHART CASTLE, INVERNESS-SHIRE.
URQUHART CASTLE, INVERNESS-SHIRE.
ABOUT half-way between the two extremities of Loch Ness, the loch is suddenly reduced by about one-third of its ordinary breadth by the projection from its western shore of a bold headland, under cover of which the glens of Urquhart and Moriston open upon the loch, and contribute to it, across a marshy deposit of gravel and peat, their respective waters. The headland which is thus partially isolated between these waters and the loch is moderately lofty, and slopes down steeply towards its extrem
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WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.
WAREHAM, DORSETSHIRE.
WAREHAM and Corfe are the keys of Purbeck, or rather Corfe is the fortress and Wareham the bridge-head of that bold projection of the chalk of Dorset, the southern headland of which bears the name of the protomartyr of England, and of which the triple spurs of Durlston, Peverell, and Studland form the eastern points, each with its own bay, and the whole protecting from the prevalent west wind the great indentation of the coast between Purbeck and the Needles, in the bight of which opens the harb
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WHITE CASTLE, MONMOUTHSHIRE.
WHITE CASTLE, MONMOUTHSHIRE.
WHITE CASTLE, called also from the parish in which it stands, Llanteilo Cresseny, and in the records “ Album Castrum ,” stands upon very high ground about five miles east of Abergavenny, and commands an extensive and completely panoramic view over a country eminently characteristic of the old red sandstone. Within the wide circumference are mountains and hills green to their summits, deep valleys, oaks and elms of great size and in great profusion, and pastures of unusual richness. It is not to
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WHITTINGTON, SHROPSHIRE.
WHITTINGTON, SHROPSHIRE.
AMONG the baronial families which rose upon the ruins of the house of Montgomery, and wielded the fragments of that power, which, united in the hands of Earl Roger and Robert de Belesme, had proved so formidable, the lords of Clun, Oswaldestre, and Whittington, De Say, Fitz-Alan, and Fitz-Warine occupied, in the northern parts of the great earldom, and upon the borders of Wales, by much the chief place. De Say indeed, speedily, by an heiress, became absorbed in Fitz-Alan, and probably in the sam
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THE CASTLE.
THE CASTLE.
The tract of high and wooded land which lies towards the Radnorshire border, between the waters of the Teme and the Lugg, converges and descends towards the east until it forms a long spit or spur of rock which terminates in the knoll now occupied by the parish church of Wigmore. This ridge—straight, steep, and well defined—is bounded on the south by a narrow valley, down which descends a brook from the high ground of Wigmore Rolls, to fall, just below the church, into the Allcox brook. To the n
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THE DEFENCES OF YORK.
THE DEFENCES OF YORK.
NO man of English race, at all acquainted with the history of his country, can enter the city of York without feeling something of that respect for a glorious past of which all men are more or less conscious, and which in the higher and nobler sort acts as an incentive to greatness both in thought and deed. It may, indeed, be that those who dwell within the city, or have been familiar with it from childhood, are less conscious of this feeling than those who visit it as strangers, and to whom the
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