George Thomas Clark

“ Portcullises, stockades, doors, with the roof of the hall, and every particle of timber in the place, have long been removed. Every staircase, gallery, and chamber is pervious to the rain, and exposed to the pernicious force of the frost, yet such and so durable are the materials, and so firm the mortar with which the whole is cemented, that time and weather alone have produced but trifling injuries upon the pile, compared with the wilful destruction of the hand of man. ”

“ Rising from a base of hard ground high above the stream, it forms a grand feature upon the shore of the Medway, here 1,000 feet in breadth, and which almost vies with the Thames in the volume of its waters. From the turrets of the keep is seen outspread a view of great extent and exceeding variety, including the steep and verdant slopes of the chalk, and the broad and fertile meads across which the great river flows in graceful folds, concealed and betrayed by the inequalities of the hills and the scattered masses of forest trees. ”

“ It is true that the vision thus beheld from the guarded mount of Lincoln is not equal to that far wider and more noble outlook from a more exalted pinnacle, upon the description of which Milton has poured forth in one glittering roll the full stream of his learning, illuminated by the fire of his genius, but it is nevertheless one in which the student of the past may well take delight. ”

“ In rectangular and shell keeps England has some fine remains, but in France Philip Augustus carried the new style of building much further, and even now there remain keep towers of that time which have defied time and the madness of the Revolution, and still remain tolerably perfect. The greatest triumph of the period, in this case early in the thirteenth century, is the tower of Coucy, probably the finest military tower in Europe. It is the keep of a castle which is itself the citadel of a town, also strongly fortified. ”

“ What remains of the castle occupies the summit of a knoll of sandstone rock, rising about 70 feet, on the north side abruptly, and elsewhere more or less steeply, from a marshy meadow, which on the north, east, and west is encircled by the folds of the Wansbeck, and on the south by a sweep of a tributary stream, which joins the river just below the castle. Each watercourse flows beneath a steep and high concave bank, thickly wooded, and the result is a sylvan amphitheatre of great seclusion and much beauty. ”

“ The Keep is the glory of Conisborough, and though inferior in size to Cæsar’s or Beauchamp’s Tower at Warwick, is more than their equal in its masonry, and more complete, inasmuch as it is a keep, and those are subsidiary towers. It stands nearly at the north-east extremity, and at the highest part of the inner ward, actually upon the line of the curtain, of which two of its buttresses and the intermediate wall form a part. It is constantly described as standing upon an artificial mound, which is certainly not the case. Indeed, no artificial mound could bear so concentrated a weight. ”

“ No such thing is known to exist as an original design or a working drawing of a Norman or even an Edwardian castle. In ecclesiastical researches, from the known uniformity of the arrangements, this want is scarcely felt, but the plan and details of a castle vary with the disposition of the ground or the caprice of the builder, and although a hall, a kitchen, a chapel, a well, and a barrack are indispensable features in a castle, these parts have nothing of the regularity of position of a nave or choir, a cloister, a chapter-house, or a refectory. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From the castled hill of Belvoir, to the rocks of Newark and Nottingham, and the crowned promontory of Lincoln, the land bristles with the works of man. The constructive taste and skill of many generations, and their deep religious feeling, are represented by a rich variety of ecclesiastical architecture, from the rude and primitive tower of Barton to the lordly spires of Louth and Newark, and the glorious lanthorn of Boston ”

“ Every part of England, much of Scotland, and the accessible parts of the Welsh border, were covered with strong places, which were, no doubt, defended, and well defended, with palisades, as more suitable to made ground than work in masonry such as was more or less in use for ecclesiastical purposes. If, at the Conquest, no English stronghold held out, it was not that such places were less capable of defence than those in Normandy, but that England was broken up into parties. ”

“ In the north curtain is a half-round mural tower with four loops, and of one story, open at the gorge. The water-table of a double-gable roof is seen within, and the central gutter projects as a spout outside. Further on is a blocked-up arch, probably an early postern, and, still further, the seat and drain of a large garderobe, beneath an arch in the wall, 8 feet broad. Above is a plain corbel, hollowed to receive the wall-plate of a roof, and no doubt one of a series. The country people call it the gallows. ”

“ The forebuilding which covers it is the finest in England. It is in fair preservation, all but its roofs and part of its east wall, which are modern. As at Rochester, it is of masonry inferior to the keep, at least outside, and there is no cordon at the base of its pilasters, but it contains within more ornamental work than the keep, with which it is so intimately connected that it cannot be an addition. In the north-east and south-west angles of the keep are well-staircases remarkably commodious and well lighted. ”

“ Even if the place were surprised and entered, each of the three towers, and the platform of the hall, admitted of being defended for a few hours, until aid had been signalled for, and sent from Cardiff. No doubt, before brave men, all defences fail; and the Welsh, who certainly were not wanting in courage, did, according to tradition, more than once take this castle, probably by surprise and escalade; nevertheless, it was a very strong fortress, both by nature and art, and must have been a sore thorn in the side of the mountaineers of Glamorgan. ”

“ HEREFORD CASTLE. THE borderers of England, whether on the north or on the west, were bold, hardy, and aggressive races of men, having for their patrimony the moor and the morass, the wild bleak upland which occurs on the Scottish frontier, or the steep crags and rugged defiles which gave strength and, in ordinary cases, impunity to the Welsh. The Scots, indeed, came of the same stock with the English, and had recently formed a part of the same kingdom, under the same lords; nor was the land immediately south of the Tyne or the Tweed materially richer than that to its immediate north. ”

“ The possessor of a strong castle was ever ready for rebellion, and was not uncommonly a tyrant even to his own people, of whom this made him independent: hence, castles properly so called,—buildings in masonry,—were hated by both king and people. The old-fashioned residence, half mansion, half fortress, formed of earth and timber or at best of a rude kind of masonry, such as Scott more by intuition than inquiry attributes to the Saxon Cedric, was strong when held by brave men in sufficient numbers for a short time ”

“ The claims of Scarborough to rank and fame are of a different though scarcely inferior character. Its position above the Northern Ocean is wild and grand in the extreme. Its area, defined and protected by Nature, is calculated to contain, not a garrison, but an army; and its keep, in itself equal to Richmond or most other Norman structures, is here not a citadel but the mere gateway and key to what is really the fortress, and which rises from the seashore above and behind it. ”

“ The flues appeared above the roof, and three large and highly-crocketed pinnacles were placed astride on the crest of the wall. The stone vault of the upper chamber was covered with lead, with occasional gutter openings outwards.
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Nothing can be grander than the conception of this tower, nothing more complete than the execution of its details. All is gigantesque, as though for a race above the ordinary stature of man, and the walls within were overlaid with a fine cement, and painted with care. The design of the sculpture is bold and masculine, as becomes a military building ”

“ The rubble is poor, imperfectly coursed, and held together by the excellence of the mortar, or rather of the lime, for the mortar is carelessly mixed and is full of sea shells, which have been brought with the sand and left uncrushed. It is clear from appearances, both inside and outside the building, that the south-east angle has, at some period soon after its construction, fallen down, and been rebuilt soon afterwards clumsily and in haste. No mere battering by a ram, no strokes from the missiles of a catapult, however ponderous, would have brought down both turret and wall. ”

“ The outer and eastern moat, now of no great depth, is still marshy. At its northern end the sides are cultivated; towards the southern, cottages are built in it. Between these two portions, north of the pier, is the modern entrance, passing through the water gate, now a battered hole 11 feet wide: near it a door has been opened into a sort of cavity below the lower story of the gatehouse, used as a cart hovel. The foundations of the southern curtain, being in the moat, are tolerably perfect. Those of the northern, elevated upon a bank of earth, are much battered. ”

“ The castle stands upon the southern extremity of the high ground. A few yards to its north is the parish church with its detached tower, and again a little to the north is the town, which has grown up under the protection of its lordly neighbour. A deep and wholly artificial ditch intervenes between the churchyard and the castle, crossing the high ground, and cutting off and isolating the latter, of which it protects the northern and western faces. These, to the south and east, are made secure by the natural declivity, scarped and rendered steeper by art. ”

“ Lincoln itself is thickly strewed with the footsteps of the past. The Briton, the Roman, the Saxon, the Dane, the Englishman, and the Norman, have successively been lords of the soil, and each has left his mark, either in material traces or in a nomenclature still less liable to decay. A great historian, our chief authority also in matters of topography, has pronounced the earthworks to the north of the city to be of British origin. ”

“ But the castle of stone was held by a stranger whose language, arms, and armour were strange to the people, and by them feared and hated. The Norman castle was a purely military building. It was not only strong when well garrisoned, but its passive strength was also great; and when the bridge was up and the gates closed it was at all times safe against an enemy unprovided with military engines. Fire, the ordinary and ready weapon of the populace, against such a wall, for example, as Cardiff (40 feet high and 11 feet thick) , or against such a Tower as London, could do nothing. ”

“ Whose beauty gives the simple soyle some grace.
Unlike the elevated and rock-founded castles of Chepstow and Ludlow, the strength of Skenfrith was in the low and marshy character of its position. The Munnow flows within a few feet of its walls, and overflowed into its ample ditches, and a few yards below the castle is the bridge mentioned by Leland. Skenfrith marks the uniting point of several valleys, and even now, with the advantage of modern roads, is by no means easy of approach. ”

“ This chapel is now destroyed to its foundations. It opened from the great hall.
The keep, or great tower, is the boast of Coucy, and deservedly so, being one of the finest towers in the world, and no doubt the largest and most complete single military building.
It is a plain tower, perfectly cylindrical, of excellent ashlar workmanship, 100 feet diameter at base and summit, and 200 feet high. It rises out of a paved moat, the base being about 12 feet below the level of the terre-plein, and is entered by a drawbridge from the level, all below being solid. ”