Hawarden Castle

“ That Sir William Brereton left 140 good able men in Hawarden Castle. (’Tis the better for Sir Michael Earnley, who hath taken the Castle.) That the Queen hath a great deafnesse. (Thou hast a great blister on thy tongue.) That the Cavaliers burned all the suburbs of Chester, that Sir William Brereton might find no shelter to besiedge it. (There was no hayrick, and Sir William cares for no other shelter.) [333] The Scottish Dove says (there are Doves in Scotland!) that Hawarden Castle had but forty men in it when the Cavaliers took it. ”

“ The names of Pusey, Keble, Manning, and Newman were household words at Hawarden Castle. Catherine’s brothers were then at Christ Church, Oxford; and, in the midst of it all, intimate with the leaders of the movement, amongst whom were young Gladstone and many other brilliant young men, destined to be friends through life of those two bright and beautiful young girls at Hawarden.
THE OLD AND NEW CASTLE OF HAWARDEN.
Thus a happy childhood matured into womanhood, under revolutionary influences. ”

“ Hawarden Park is one of the most picturesque and beautiful domains in the principality. Its lofty trees and velvet grass, its swelling knolls and solitary glens, cannot fail to awaken the most pleasing emotions in the breast of the tourist, while the ivy-clad ruins of the ancient castle give a solemnity and grandeur to the scene indescribably interesting. In the year 1280 a general insurrection took place among the Welsh, under their prince, Llewelyn, and his brother David, for the recovery of their liberties and ancient form of government. ”

“ Gladstone, deserves attention. It stands a few yards from the iron railing near the moat of the old Castle, and measures 17ft. 11 in. round. The sycamores at Hawarden are particularly fine. Nor should the visitor omit seeing the noble grove of beeches at the Ladies’ Fall.
The road which descends the steep hill under the Old Castle and crosses the brook, leads up through the Park to the Bilberry Wood. Twenty minutes’ walk through the wood brings one to the “Top Lodge” (13⁄4 miles from the Castle) . ”

“ The Welsh view is inconsiderable, being cut off by the higher ground.
It is laid to the charge of Sir John Glynne, that he made free with the materials of the castle, and so provided an ample field for antiquarian speculation. Even, however, though this be so, it must be admitted that his descendant has done his best to atone for the spoliation. No ruin in the kingdom is more carefully preserved, or situated to more advantage ”

“ On the suppression of de Montfort’s rebellion the Castle reverted to the Crown, and Llewelyn was called upon by the Papal Legate, Ottoboni, to surrender it. This he at first declined, but being deserted by the Earl, who at the same time, in order to put an end to the conflict, offered to him his daughter Eleanor in marriage agreed afterwards to a treaty by which the Castle was to be destroyed, and Robert de Montalt to be reinstated in the possession of his lands in Hawarden, but to be restrained from restoring the fortification for thirty years. ”

“ Against the west wall is a stone bench, and above it a rude squint through which any person in the adjacent window recess could see the altar.
The entrance to the keep is by a gateway 5 ft wide and 6 ft. 6 in. high, having a drop arch rising about 3 ft. more. The jambs have a single, and the arch a double chamber. Two feet within is the portcullis groove, 4 in. square, and next is the rebate for the door, with its bar holes. Beyond is the vaulted passage, 6 ft. broad, leading to the ground-floor, with a door opening so as to be barred against that chamber ”

“ All around us the former scenes of rapine and violence are changed to fertility and peace. The Old Castle serves well to illustrate the contrast. Its hugely solid walls, reared 600 years ago with so much pains and skill to repel the invader and to overawe the lawless, have played their part, and are themselves abandoned to solitude and decay. ”

“ The battlements have been replaced by a modern wall, but the junction, at the rampart walk, may be readily detected.
The entrance is at the ground level on the north-east side, from the main ward. It is marked by a broad flat buttress, rather Norman in character, which rises vertically from the common base so as to stand out about 18 in. where it dies into the wall about 5 ft. below the battlements. In its centre is the gateway, and above, the window of the portculis chamber. It is extended laterally in two wings, rising about half its height, and also dying into the wall above. ”

“ On the north-east side, or that towards the house, the descent is about 30 ft. at which level is a platform occupied by the main ward of the fortress, and beyond it, near the foot of a further but gentle slope, a broad and deep ditch, dry and wholly artificial, which sweeps round this the weakest side, and cuts it off from the area already mentioned. ”

“ The main ward (B in the plan) is divided into two parts; the one a level platform, in which stood the hall and other buildings, round a court about 12.5 ft. by 92 ft., and into which was the main entrance, and the other, and much smaller part, is the steep slope of the mound, about 50 ft. broad, and which was probably left rugged and useless as we now see it. At the foot of this slope are the remains of four rooms, about 18 ft. deep from the face, probably for stores, each with a doorway to the Court; in the wall of one is a sort of rude drain as from a sink or trough. ”

“ Though the unusual thickness of the walls of the Keep might be thought more in keeping with the Norman period, p. 18the general details, as already stated, the polygonal mural gallery and interior, and the entrance, evidently parts of the original work, are very decidedly Edwardian.
Of the subsequent history of the Castle, we have unfortunately nothing to record until we come to the Civil War between Charles the First and the Parliament. ”

“ The land is mainly arable; but little cheese being now made.
About one mile and a half from Hawarden on the road to Northop, lie ensconced in a wood the scant remains of the old Castle of Ewloe—the scene of a battle between the English and Welsh in 1157, in which the former were defeated by David and Conan, sons of Owen Gwynedd.
The district is rich in beds of coal and clay. The former have been worked from an early period when the coal was mostly sent to Chester ”

“ The keep, as at Tamworth, Durham, Berkhamstead, Warwick, and Cardiff, stands in the enceinte line of the main ward, and forms part of it, about two-thirds of its circumference being outside, and one-third, including the doorway, inside the curtain. This curtain was about 460 ft. in length, and encircles the main ward, abutting against the keep at two points; one 24 ft. south, and one 18 ft. north of the entrance. On each side it is carried down the slope,
and meeting below, thus encloses a somewhat fan-shaped area, about 170 ft. north-east and south-west, by 142 ft. ”

“ There is neither fire-place, seat, nor recess. The floor has been removed. There is no subterranean chamber.
The upper chamber within is an octagon, inscribed about the cylinder below, with walls from 13 ft. to 14 ft. thick, and from side to side 31 ft. It is about 15 ft. high to the corbels that carried its flat roof, and a row of larger corbels along one of the remaining faces seems to have supported struts necessary to make the roof a safe platform for military engines and stone ammunition. ”

“ Hastings is now a famous watering and sea-bathing place, and seems to be well sheltered from the winds, though open to the sea, which here stretches off towards France. We climbed a high and steep hill, terraced round its base with streets of modern lodging-houses, and crowned on its summit with the ruins of a castle, the foundation of which was anterior to the Conquest. This castle has no wall towards the sea, the precipice being too high and sheer to admit of attack on that side. ”

“ They do not grow so high, but have more breadth and a wider sweep of branches; on the whole they are well worthy of a place in song.
I know in my childhood I often used to wish that I could live in a ruined castle; and this Hawthornden would be the very beau ideal of one as a romantic dwelling-place. It is an old castellated house, perched on the airy verge of a precipice, directly over the beautiful River Esk, looking down one of the most romantic glens in Scotland. Part of it is in ruins, and, hung with wreaths of ivy, it seems to stand just to look picturesque. ”

“ These tokens indicate a famous spot; and casting our eyes along the smooth gleam and shadow of the quiet stream, through a vista of willows that droop on either side into the water, we behold the gray magnificence of Warwick Castle, uplifting itself among stately trees, and rearing its turrets high above their loftiest branches. We can scarcely think the scene real, so completely do those machicolated towers, the long line of battlements, the massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out our indistinct ideas of the antique time. ”

“ The great arched gateway and battlemented walls, the machicolated octagonal towers, the moat and drawbridge, the loopholes for cross-bows, the oeillets for the matchlock guns,—all witness to the one purpose; while the size and number of the windows in the dwelling-rooms quite well testify to the other.
In these days the ruined castle is a place of great beauty. Time has dealt less hardly with it than with some. The colour of the huge red-brick front has been softened down by wind and rain to a restful mellow tint in full harmony with the sombre green of the overhanging masses of ivy ”

“ A private individual, it seems, has burrowed in this old warlike den, and turned the keep, and any other available apartment, into a modern dwelling, and laid out his pleasure-grounds within the precincts of the castle wall, which allows verge enough for the purpose. The ruins have been considerably repaired. This castle was built at various times, the keep by Edward I., and other portions at an earlier period, and it stands on the isthmus left by the Severn in its wandering course about the town. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From Redcar, Hawthorne went to Leamington, where he finished his romance about the first of December, and remained until some time in March, living quietly and making occasional pedestrian tours to neighboring towns. He was particularly fond of the walk to Warwick Castle, and of standing on the bridge which crosses the Avon, and gazing at the walls of the Castle, as they rise above the trees—“as fine a piece of English scenery as exists anywhere; the gray towers and long line of windows of the lordly castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; ancient strength, a little softened by decay.” ”

“ Whatever other portion may still exist, has been built into a modern castellated mansion, which has risen within the wide circuit of the fortress,—a handsome and spacious edifice of red freestone, with a high tower, on which a flag was flying. The grounds were well laid out in walks, and really I think the site of the castle could not have been turned to better account. I am getting tired of antiquity. It is certainly less interesting in the long run than novelty ”

“ But we would gladly have stayed months longer and listened for the moonlight talk between that lofty Norman castle, "builte in such a brave plot that it could have espyed a byrd flying in every strete," and those fine old houses of the Salop black-and-white whose "curious sculptures and carvings and quirks of architecture" gave such pleasure to Hawthorne. Surely here, in this city of many memories, "a stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it." ”

“ We did not linger at Haverfordwest on the following morning, though perhaps the castle and the priory church might well have detained us. The castle, which crowns the terribly steep hill to which the town seems to cling somewhat precariously, has been reduced to a county jail—or gaol, as the English have it—and thus robbed of much of its romance. Still, it is an impressive old fortress, dominating the town with its huge bulk, and it has figured much in the annals of Pembrokeshire. ”

“ Not so was it with Haddon Hall! The most prosaic summer tourist could hardly fail to be moved by admiration of its delights. It is still a real home, and seems alive with memories of the fair Dorothy Vernon and her family. The old castle has scarcely changed at all since the sixteenth century, and one feels as though the great lords and ladies of Queen Elizabeth’s time had thoughtfully stepped out on the terrace, in order that we might wander through their noble old dwelling. ”

“ It stands rather more than midway adown the declivity of one of the ridges that form the valley to the left, as you go southward, and its site would have been a good one for a fortress, intended to defend the lower entrance of this mountain defile. At a proper distance, it looks not unlike the gray dilapidation of a Gothic castle, which has been crumbling and crumbling away for ages, until Time might be supposed to have imperceptibly stolen its massive pile from man, and given it back to Nature ”