Castle Rock

“ The irradiated sky, throwing into silhouette the great masses of rock, has the effect of magnifying and glorifying them. On such summer evenings, the more youthful among the holiday-makers set out from Lynton, and there, on the rugged hillside of the Castle Rock or Ragged Jack, you may see the white frocks of the girls, looking more than a little like the white-robed figures of those Druids, who, according to old Polwhele, used this place of desolation as a temple, and carved the roughly shaped rock-pillars and granite hollows into “rock idols” and “sacrificial basins.” ”

“ A few minutes’ walk along a sandy lane, that winds beneath the trees and across the sun-bright meadows, where cattle are pasturing and haymakers are tossing the fragrant grass, brings us to the foot of the castle rock. The huge mass of sandstone lifting its unwieldy form above the surrounding greenery seems to dominate the entire landscape. ”

“ Beyond Castle Rock the country becomes more broken, the ascent being now begun at what is known as the Divide, a range of hills extending eastward into the plains and rising to an elevation of 7,500 feet. ”

“ Castleton is by no means a handsome town; it has narrow dirty streets, and a deplorably rough pavement. The objects worthy of notice near it are, a celebrated cavern, called Peak’s Hole, and a venerable ruined castle, situated on the rock immediately above it. It was built by William Peveril, to whom the manor of Castleton was granted by William the Conqueror.
On the path leading to the cavern, a streamlet is followed, which issues from that extraordinary wonder of nature; the approach is grand and striking; the perpendicular cliffs above are solemnly majestic—their height is about 250 feet. ”

“ No traces of any wall of masonry are known to exist, but outside it, to the west, and at the foot of the slopes of the castle, is a bank with a ditch, looking very much like a local dyke of the age of that of Offa, but which is reputed to be what remains of the town wall. The curious thing is that this dyke, which, while opposite to the castle is commanded and therefore strengthened by the castle rock, passes southwards along the steep slope of an opposite hill, and is there commanded from the outside, and would be utterly untenable. ”

“ That farther edge of the Castle Hill as it is silhouetted against the west sky—if you walk around on Lothian Street you can see the full face of the Rock—has invited many an adventurer, both from within and without. ”

“ Our sojourn at Hut Point had given us plenty of chance to learn the easier snow roads and the least dangerous, and Scott chose the way close eastward of Castle Rock to a position four miles beyond it, which his first expedition had named Hutton Cliffs. From Castle Rock onward the way took us to the westward of two conical hills which were well-known landmarks—a hitherto untrodden route—but the going was by no means bad. Bitingly cold for faces and finger-tips, still, no weights to impede us. ”

“ There upon a high rock, overhanging the sea, stands an ancient castle, a grim heritage of grey and mysterious antiquity. Long destroyed, long ruined, it blends with the rocks, continuing and delusively ending them by the broken, dented line of its batteries, its shattered roofs, its half-crumbled towers. Now the rocks and the castle are covered with a smoky shroud of twilight. They seem airy, devoid of any weight, and almost as fantastic as those monstrous heaps of structures which are piled up and which are falling so noiselessly in the sky. ”

“ I cannot find any topographical allusion to a Ghimmer-crag in contemporary local writers. Clarke, in his Survey of the Lakes, does not mention it.
The Castle Rock, in the Vale of Legberthwaite, between High Fell and Great How, is the fairy castle of Sir Walter Scott's 'Bridal of Triermain'. "Nathdale Fell" is the ridge between Naddle Vale (Nathdale Vale) and that of St. John, now known as High Rigg. ”

“ I see that very Castle Rock now again, not in imagination, but with my real eyes. It is just the same as ever, though I am so very different. It is my first love, and I am loyal to it. Not being of any country, for I am some Irish, and some Welsh, and some Scotch, and Harry is a pure thorough-bred Englishman, I can quite afford to be in love with Edinburgh Castle. The regiment went to Swansea after it left Edinburgh, and then to Belfast, and we were in dreadful terror of being sent to Canada, where Nurse Richards declared{50} she never would take “the child.” ”

“ The party was pretty exhausted and very wet with perspiration. Approaching Castle Rock the weather and light improved. Camped on Barrier Slope north of Castle Rock about 9 p.m. Night cold but calm, −38° during night; slept pretty well.
Tuesday, April 18.—Hut Point. Good moonlight at 7 a.m.—had breakfast. Broke camp very quickly—Lashly splendid at camp work as of old—very heavy pull up to Castle Rock, sweated much. This sweating in cold temperature is a serious drawback. Reached Hut Point 1 p.m. ”

“ Ailsa and the Bass are of course more wonderful; and, I suppose, in the West Highlands there are masses of crag more wild and fantastic; but people only go to see these once or twice in their lives, while the Castle rock has a daily influence in forming the taste, or kindling the imagination, of every promising youth in Edinburgh. Even irrespectively of its position, it is a mass of singular importance among the rocks of Scotland. It is not easy to find among your mountains a “craig” of so definite a form, and on so magnificent a scale. ”

“ The site is now covered by [p. 53] heather. There was probably no building of any kind, the fortification being composed entirely of mounds of earth. At Runcorn, according to the chronicler Higden, a castle was founded in 915 by Ethelfleda, but of this no remains are preserved. The rock on which it stood was called the Castle Rock, and had evidently been used for purposes of defence. A description derived from a resident was given in Hanshall’s Cheshire, with a sketch of the Castle Rock and the supposed plan of the castle. Its position at what is called Runcorn Gap was evidently a strong one. ”

“ 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 castle of my fathers is strangely incrusted into an excavation in a wall of basalt 500 feet high. The base of this wall, with that face to face with it, identically the same rock, forms a narrow and sinuous valley, through which winds and leaps an inoffensive torrent in impetuous cascades. The Château de la Roche is a nest of troglodytes, inasmuch as the whole flank of the rock we occupy is riddled with holes and irregular chambers which tradition points out as the residence of ancient savages, and which antiquaries do not hesitate to attribute to a prehistoric people. ”

“ The rock on which the Castle is erected, is a very great curiosity: how such a prodigious mass of solid rock, and of great circumference and height, should rear its lofty rough head, and be insular on a perfect flat, without the least rising ground for a mile on any side of it, is very astonishing. To this rock from the town is about three quarters of a mile, to the south; it rises on a peninsula of sand, washed by the Clyde, and the river Leven from Loch Lomond, which empties itself into the Clyde at the base of the rock ”

“ All the strength of this Towne is first the hard and dangerous entrance into the Haven; and secondly, a rock which lyeth before the Town lesse then a Musket shot off; upon which is built a Castle, and in the Castle a slight Garrison of Souldiers. In the Town there is neither Fort, nor Castle, nor scarce any people of warlike mindes. The Rocke and Castle are as a Wall, defence, and inclosure to the Haven, which otherwise lyeth wide open to the Ocean, and to the Northern Winds. ”

“ True, there is the Castle ruin, grimly clinging to the edge of the cliff; else there is little but aggressive modernity. Such haven as there is now gives cause rather for ridicule than pride. Few, standing at the Albert Memorial, could ever conceive that here in this Priory valley was at one time the great Port, protected on the east by the Castle hill, on the west by the White Rock, and flushed from the north by the Old Roar River. Well might our old Sussex poet, James Howell, sing:
"Thou old sea-town, crouching beneath the rocks
Like a strong lion waiting for his prey! ”

“ To the south of the Logan Rock is a high peak of granite, towering above the other rocks; this is known as the Castle Peak.
No one can say for how long a period, but most certainly for ages, this peak has been the midnight rendezvous for witches. Many a man, and woman too, now sleeping quietly in the churchyard of St Levan, would, had they the power, attest to having seen the witches flying into the Castle Peak on moonlight nights, mounted on the stems of the ragwort, (Senécio Jacobæa Linn,) and bringing with them the things necessary to make their charms potent and strong. ”

“ A spur of the hill is crowned by a small keep, with a round tower attached to a square mass within its compass. But in the days of the Red King, the Guy’s Cliff of the Vexin, now the site of a castle so preeminently visible, was specially known as the site of the stronghold that was invisible. The castle bored in the rock. The lords of the rock had, like the Kenite of old, literally made their nest in the rock itself. The chalk is to this day habitually bored to make houses, churches, [458] any kind of excavation that may be needed. ”

“ Meantime the enlargement of Rock Castle was a matter of pressing necessity. When the Unicorn returned this dwelling would be too small. If only Colonel Montrose and Jenny, Fritz and Frank, James Wolston and his sister, wife, and child, were reckoned, they could not live there together unless some parts of the great cave were specially adapted to their use. If any fresh colonists came with them new houses would have to be built. There would be plenty of room for these along the right bank of Jackal River, the shore towards Flamingo Bay, or the shady road between Rock Castle and Falconhurst. ”

“ But the pieces of rock must undoubtedly adhere much more firmly to the great mass than they seem to do, for I heard of no mischief ever being done by them; though sometimes pieces do fall, as numerous fragments lie scattered by the road's side, at the base of the rock, on the edge of the river, and also choking its bed. I should fear, in time, part of the castle itself may slip down and take a watery bed in the Forth. ”

“ The Castle is at one of the extremities of the city, on a rock, and surrounded with deep moats, cut in the rock, which is an escarpment on the bank of a river that flows at its base, and from which they lift, by means of a very convenient machine, all the munitions which are necessary. ”

“ The elevated rock on which the castle is built stands wholly insulated, forming a site which, without much trouble or expense, might soon be converted into a stronghold. In support of the theory as to its Saxon origin, it may be mentioned that, since the demolition of the castle, it has been found that the great round tower stood upon a raised hill of stiff hard clay, of which material the Saxons usually made their foundations. ”

“ After its surrender to Cromwell, the Castle was partially dismantled and reduced to ruins. What remained of it was, like the Bass Rock, used as a State prison for the Covenanters during the persecutions under Charles II. and the Duke of York. One hundred and sixty-seven men and women were imprisoned at one time in its ‘Whig’s Vault,’ or Black Hole, and nine of them speedily died of suffocation. Driven to despair, some twenty-five of them one night crept out of a window and along the face of the cliff, in the hope of effecting their escape. ”

“ A narrow ledge of rock, of which you can scarcely make out whether it is natural or artificial, connects the castle with the mainland, and here through an arch in the wall you look down into a second bay, where the precipices, crested by a huge red fragment of tower, descend direct upon the water. High up in one of the turrets lives the keeper, a girl, who said that she was so used to climbing, that she could go anywhere where there was the least rest for the sole of her foot ”

“ In much the same condition is another cliff castle in the rocks of the valley of the Alzou, between Grammat and Rocamadour, a little above the cascade of the mill Du Saut.
I have elsewhere [Footnote: "A Book of the Cevennes," Lond., J. Long.] given an account of the curious castle of La Roche Lambert at Borne in Haute Loire, built in a basaltic cleft through which roars the river. It is the theatre of George Sand's novel, Jean de la Roche. "I may say without exaggeration that I was reared in a rock. ”

“ The bright verdure of these—in tufted groves and shrubbery and in gleaming turf—as they rise abruptly here and there, from one to two hundred feet above the red-tiled penthouse roofs of the dwellings and the sombre turret and towers of church and convent, adds greatly to the beauty of the city, whether seen from shipboard, or in vistas at the end of the streets, on shore. One of the most conspicuous and lofty is Castle hill, so called from being surmounted at one of its angles, by the ramparts and dismantled batteries of a small fort, erected by the first colonists. ”