Blair Castle

“ A visit to Arundel a little later was signalized by great festivities in honour of the birth of the Duke's little daughter. The four thousand guests who, as the fancy took them, danced in the tilting-yard (converted into a great open-air ballroom) , listened to martial music from military bands, roamed through the beautiful state-rooms, or gazed admiringly at the myriad fairy lamps which glowed many-coloured on castle walls, battlements, and towers, were literally of every class. ”

“ If it was in his power to blow it up, he had only to acquaint the Governor when the mine was ready, and let him send one of his officers to view it; the Governor would certainly have prevented the effecting it and saved the Castle."
"About the same time that the siege of Blair was abandoned, that of Fort William was also raised. It was found, indeed, difficult to make the Highlanders perform the regular duties of a siege; extremely brave in an attack, when allowed to fight in their own way, they were not possessed of that steady valour which is necessary to maintain a post ”

“ Going on to Cardiff from Staffordshire, I found Lady Bute entertaining the Cymnodorion and other mysterious Welsh societies in the castle grounds. I was lodged in the lofty clock-tower, in one of Burges's wonderful painted chambers, and said mass for the family and large house-party on Sunday in the richly-decorated but tiny domestic chapel—so tiny (it has been the dressing-room of Bute's grandfather, who died there) that most of my congregation were outside in the passage, and the scene recalled my mass in the Grotto of the Nativity at Bethlehem eight years before. ”

“ It was a curiously impressive function in that old-world English town: the long cortège of clergy and choristers and people, with the tall Venetian lanterns, scarlet and gold, waving above their heads as they passed slowly, to the sounds of sacred psalmody, under the grey walls of the castle and back into the great church of {262} St. Philip. I went on from Arundel to Oxford, to stay with Father Maturin, the acting Catholic chaplain there (his undergraduate flock now numbered nearly a hundred) , and was delighted to see the good work he was doing. One was always sure of a good story from him ”

“ I was amused afterwards, talking to the nurse of the Duchess's small nephews and nieces, to hear her opinion of the castle and its glories. {224} "A dreadful place for children, I call it, with all these towers and battlements and dungeons and hiding-holes—one never knows where they'll get to next. A London house for me, where there's children to look after!" The services were jubilant, and the great church beautifully adorned on Easter Sunday, and the choir warbled what poor Angus [13] used to call the "sensuous harmonies" of Gounod in their best style. ”

“ The restoration and partial rebuilding of Cardiff Castle was the earliest work of the kind undertaken by Bute. The lofty tower conspicuous on the southwest of the castle enclosure, the restoration of the great southern curtain wall, with its covered way, and the erection of the noble staircase were among the most important of his building operations at Cardiff, which included also the discovery and partial restoration of the old Roman walls and gateway, the re-excavation of the moat, and the clearing and re-marking the sites of the mediæval friaries of the Dominicans and Franciscans. ”

“ The destruction of his birthplace was, of course, far from leaving Bute in any sense homeless; for Cardiff Castle as well as Dumfries House, the fine old seat of the Crichtons, were still at his disposition, and to these he added in course of time two other country-places in Scotland, besides leasing for a term of years first the Duke of Devonshire's cedar-shaded villa at Chiswick, and later the beautiful domain of St. John's Lodge, in Regent's Park, which was almost as much a rus in urbe as Holland House itself. ”

“ This settled, I went south to visit the Loudouns at Loudoun Castle, cheerfully repainted and decorated in honour of the arrival of the family pictures, an accession to Loudoun since his brother Paulyn Hastings' death. At Woodburn, whither I went from Loudoun, I found Philip Kerr at home from Johannesburg (where he was, I think, Secretary to the High Commissioner) —looking as young as ever, the cynosure of his adoring family and of a circle of admiring friends, one or two of whom (I think old schoolfellows at Edgbaston) were staying at Woodburn. ”

“ Holy Week and Easter found me again at Arundel, where there was a holiday gathering of many young people at the castle, the youngest member of the party being the Duke's baby daughter, who was christened Katherine the day after my arrival. "Absit omen!" whispered (not very tactfully, I thought) the good vicar of Arundel, as we drank tea and nibbled the christening cake after the ceremony—looking up, as he spoke, at a portrait of the baby's luckless ancestress Queen Katherine Howard. "Il n'y a pas de danger," I whispered back ”

“ Lord Bute's upbringing as a child was, by the force of circumstances, under entirely feminine influences and surroundings; and to this fact was probably to some extent due the strain of shyness and sensitive diffidence which were among his life-long characteristics. He seems to have been inclined sometimes to resent, even in his early boyhood, the strictness of the surveillance under which he lived. His mother once took him from Dumfries House to call at Blairquhan Castle, driving thither in a carriage and four, as her custom was. ”

“ The great entrance, a survival of the old barbican, is beneath or rather between two tall and formidable towers; the ancient drawbridge having been replaced by a stone bridge crossing the moat, and leading from the avenue of elms to the courtyard. But although both drawbridge and portcullis are gone, the grooves in which the latter was lowered still remain, as do the ancient oaken doors scarred by the weather of centuries, and perhaps by evidences of attack. The Castle itself lies in one of the most beautiful districts of England, almost midway between Birmingham and Coventry. ”

“ Ever since the historic period, and doubtless long before the era of recorded things began, there existed a castle, or a fortified post, on this lofty cliff-top, where the shattered ruins of Hastings Castle still stand, few and almost formless—the long superannuated warden of the town that has grown so great and has now absolutely no defences against the foreign foe. ”

“ Another blast from the bugle and all the torches on the castle itself disappeared, although the fire on the bailey wall remained intact, and the reason for this soon became apparent. From machicolated tower, keep, peel and curtain, the nimble Highlanders, torchless, scrambled down, cheering as they came. It seemed incredible that they could have attained such speed, picking their precarious way by grasping protruding branch or stump or limb, or by thrusting hand between the interstices of the timber, without slipping, falling and breaking their necks. ”

“ On the western edge of the downs there are the scanty ruins of Charles’s Castle, which is probably the one described by Leland as “a lytle pyle or fortres.”
As we stand by the ruins and look down we can see below us, on a ledge of rocks jutting out into the sea, our old friend Cromwell’s Castle—a strong little tower, with walls twelve feet thick. The flooring and other woodwork of the interior has mostly disappeared, and what remains is green with damp; but the outer walls are just as strong as ever. The flat bomb-proof roof, once armed with a battery, is now overgrown with grass and brambles. ”

“ On the highest point of the ruin is an iron machine like a kibble, which serves as a beacon. A large tar-barrel is placed in it and set on fire. It burns like a flaming torch the night through. The Castle stands on a projecting rock, which rises to the height of a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet perpendicular from the sea. Around the Castle its summit is like a bowling-green. ”

“ The reed-grown moat gives the house a neglected and sombre look. The group of buildings, with curious little church with its crocketed bell turret on one side and a great barn on the other, is altogether remarkable. How it got the name of "Blue Beard's Castle" we could not learn. Recently a "priest's hole" has been discovered up against the ceiling in a corner of his chamber ”

“ It is no longer a single ruined wall, but the imposing front of a vast structure, well placed for defence, once strong in war but now beautiful in peace.
Barnard Baliol, whose father was one of the followers of William the Conqueror, founded the castle in the beginning of the twelfth century. He was the grandfather of John Baliol, who contested with Robert Bruce the claim to the Scottish crown. The original castle or fortress covered an extensive area of over six acres, most of which is now given over to sheep-raising or to the cultivation of fruit trees. ”

“ The wooden donjon on the mount took the form of a square tower surrounded, at the edge of the mount, by a palisade, and approached, as has been described already, by a steep wooden bridge, which crossed the ditch into the bailey. But it is obvious that the existence of a castle in any given place as a permanent centre of royal influence must lead to the abandonment of wooden defences in favour of defences of more lasting material. ”

“ The reporter, Sir George Bowes, points out the weakness of the place, and then, at great length, how an old castle was to made defensible in modern warfare. He especially dwells on the absence of flanking works. The outer ward wall, on the east, west, and south, is old, thin, and weak, and its small ward towers badly placed as flankers. The north wall was a low parapet, and the outer ward gates so hung that they could be lifted from the outside. He advises filling hall and kitchen with earth to support the river ward wall, and constructing a hall in the ruins of the keep. ”

“ It formed the back of the stage, the permanent scene, and its enormous face was coated with marble. It contains three doors, the middle one being the highest and having above it, far aloft, a deep niche apparently intended for an imperial statue. A few of the benches remain on the hillside, which, however, is mainly a confusion of fragments. There is part of a corridor built into the hill, high up, and on the crest are the remnants of the demolished castle. The whole place is a kind of wilderness of ruin; there are scarcely any details; the great feature is the overtopping wall. ”

“ About 9 yards intervene between its scarp and the foot of the curtain wall; and beyond, crowning the counterscarp, is rather a high bank, advantageously placed for those who intended to attack the wall with the weapons and engines of the Middle Ages. On the north front is a considerable platform, about358 half the area of the castle, and on the same level. This is defended towards the town by a natural slope, made somewhat steeper by art, but the ditch is continued in the rear of this, round the north-east angle, just west of which is a roadway indicating the approach to the place. ”

“ Over it went a narrow drawbridge and then one was confronted with a high palisade of logs set in the ground. This extended entirely around the castle. The castle itself was built on the model of another, earlier age; being more for strength than beauty. Built of stone brought from a great distance; years of labor and a thousand negroes toiling beneath the lash had reared its walls, and now, completed, it offered an almost impregnable appearance. Such was the intention of its builders, for Barbary pirates ranged the coasts, and the horror of a native uprising lurked ever near. ”

“ Upon the opposite, or south face, is the postern leading to the moat and defended by a massive square tower, being one of nine in all surrounding the enclosure. The interior is now simply an empty shell, all the domestic buildings having been destroyed by Sir William Waller in 1643, after the siege of Arundel, although the Chapel and the chief apartments are capable of being located. We have therefore simply the outer walls remaining of a particularly fine castle of the Perpendicular period. ”

“ Gostling (A Walk about Canterbury, 1825) says there were two, which is perhaps explained by a passage in Brayley’s Kent (1808) , in which he describes the external fortification as “a lesser mount, now divided into two parts, with a ditch and embankment.” P. 893. Stukeley’s description (circa 1700) is as follows: “Within the walls is a very high mount, called Dungeon Hill; a ditch and high bank enclose the area before it; it seems to have been part of the old castle. Opposite to it without the walls is a hill, seeming to have been raised by the Danes when they besieged the city. ”

“ Outside the walled area the ground falls slightly, and there are traces at about 30 yards’ distance, towards the south, of a ditch and internal bank protecting this, by nature, the weakest side. The valley towards the east is occupied by one of the brooks which flows a few feet only from and below the wall. There is no trace of any second or outer circle of masonry, so that probably the castle was composed of a single ring wall, possibly set with turrets, but if so, of no great size. ”

“ This slope is probably formed by the ruins of the gateway and tower being pitched into the ditch.
The Castle was then very small, and did not command the country except towards the south. The next work therefore would be to throw out an embankment to the south, with a ditch outside. The great gap whence Hursley House is seen, did not then exist, but there was an unbroken semicircle of rampart and ditch, which would protect a large number of men. In case of an enemy forcing this place, the defenders could retreat into the Castle by the drawbridge. ”