Fortified house

“ Mary's, where it threatened equal defiance to such as might meditate disturbance either by sea or land. A few hundred paces in the rear of the fort, stood the ample dwelling-house of the Lord Proprietary with its gables, roofs, chimneys and spires, sharply defined against the eastern sky. A massive building of dark brick, two stories in height, and penetrated by narrow windows, looking forth, beyond the fort, upon the river, constituted the chief member or main body of the mansion. ”

“ I creep along the edge of a steep bank, pry round a corner of the building, gaze up at the high Gothic windows, but see nothing like a practicable approach, and turn back, discouraged. We take counsel together, I and my party, and at length condescend to the belief that our best hope of obtaining an entrance lies in a modern farm-house, at the foot of the eminence on which the fortress stands. ”

“ Every house, therefore, is a fortress. Lieutenant Abert remarks upon one of the houses of this pueblo, of which he gives an elevation, that "the upper story is narrower than the one below, so that there is a platform or landing along the whole length of the building. To enter, you ascend to the platform by means of ladders that could easily be removed; and, as there is a parapet wall extending along the platform, these houses could be converted into formidable forts." ”

“ Outside the town looks like a mere fortification—you see nothing but the sweep of the massive walls reflected in the stagnant waters which lie dead around them. Not a house-top appears above the ramparts. It is only by the thin swirlings of the wood-fire smoke that you know that human life exists behind that blank and dreary veil of stone. ”

“ The plan of this castle, throughout its history, like the plan of Warwick, remained that of the original mount-and-bailey fortress. We have noticed already the addition of the stone curtain to the bailey, and the building of a large mansion against its western and southern faces. It is probable that a shell-keep was added to the mount, when the stone curtain was made; for the foundations of the present strong house on the mount are of masonry of an earlier and rougher character than the elaborately dressed stonework of the house itself. ”

“ The new masters did not feel very safe in the midst of a discontented and enraged people; so they built these huge fortresses with strong walls and gates and moats. Indeed before the Conquest the Norman knights, to whom the weak King Edward the Confessor granted many an English estate, brought with them the fashion of building castles, and many a strong square tower began to crown the fortified mounds. ”

“ Naturally enough, a capital so wealthy was rather tempting to men bent on conquest. But Acre had the advantage of being strongly fortified. On the [211] land side it was surrounded by a double wall, with towers and battlements, and a broad and deep ditch, which prevented access to its ramparts, and towards the sea by a fortress at the entrance of the harbour, by the castle of the Templars, and by a stronghold known as 'The King's Tower;' and on the whole, the fortifications were such that no foe, not even such as Bibars Bendocdar, could have calculated on finding the place an easy prey. ”

“ This middle-age castle, with its rough-hewn stone walls unbroken by windows except on the 217 upper floors, must have proved an impregnable fortress in days when war was the chief occupation of the Florentines and a man's house was primarily and emphatically his stronghold. ”

“ It had been built originally in the reign of Stephen, and was a curious specimen of different kinds of architecture, bearing traces of its gradual transformation from the stronghold of the days when it was no metaphor to say that every man's house was his castle, down to the more peaceful dwelling of lawful and orderly times, It had now become little more than a better sort of farm-house. ”

“ The inhabitants and the government are gradually waking up to a sense of this truth; for I heard something said about their abandoning the wall around the Upper Town, and confining the fortifications to the citadel of forty acres. Of course they will finally reduce their intrenchments to the circumference of their own brave hearts.
The most modern fortifications have an air of antiquity about them; they have the aspect of ruins in better or worse repair from the day they are built, because they are not really the work of this age. ”

“ It grew into a large fort, with bastions and ravelins, ditches and pickets, curtains and counter-scarp, covered way, draw-bridge, raking batteries, stone towers, bakery, blacksmith shop, mess-house, barracks, laboratory, magazine, and a chapel with a dial over its door to mark the progress of the hours. ”

“ But the motive was purely utilitarian. The feudal fortress which was built here in the thirteenth century underwent in subsequent ages so many modifications and additions with a view more to the comfort of the dwellers therein than to their protection from enemies, that in course of time little of the mediaeval buildings remained besides the great hall, the basement, and the keep. These became jumbled up with late Gothic and Renaissance work. ”

“ In the square formed by the pickets and ends of the Bourgeois's and men's houses, is a yard for sawing timber, a quantity of which is necessarily required about the fort. A house running from the south bastion to the passage, 193 twenty-four feet square, is used as a reception room for war and trading parties; a door leads from this to the passage formed by the double gates, thereby cutting off all communication with the interior of the fort. In this room all parties are received by the interpreter, who is always ready to smoke and talk with the Indians. ”

“ Heavily built block-houses with guns poking through window slits gave a military air to the trading post. The block-houses were apparently to repel attack from the rear and the face of the fort commanded the river. Stores, halls, warehouses and living apartments for an army of clerks, were banked against the walls, and the main building with its spacious assembly-room stood conspicuous in the centre of the enclosure. As we entered the courtyard, one of the chief traders was perched on a mortar in the gate. The little magnate condescended never a smile of welcome till the Bourgeois came up. ”

“ The feudal chateau of a great baron was not only a fortress to secure him against his enemies; it was also a home for his family and for scores of dependents and retainers, and frequently a hostelry for the entertainment of travellers of high and low degree. The moat, the drawbridge and portcullis, the strong walls pierced with narrow slits to admit scant light and air in time of peace and to deliver arrows in time of war, the battlements, and the lofty tower of strength, all these are familiar in our conceptions of the feudal castle. ”

“ I did not see any attempt at fortifications; but, as all the villages are built quite as much with a view to defence as convenience, these are hardly necessary. Every house is surrounded by a court-yard, in most cases loopholed. ”

“ In times of siege, attacks by foreign enemies, or during internal struggles, these houses form temporary fortresses, admitting of formidable defence; and being solidly built and furnished with strong gates and doors, while the windows of the lower and ground-floors are protected by strong iron bars, it is no easy matter to take a town, or even a house, built in this way, as has been sufficiently proved on the occasion in question. ”

“ The mansion-house was a strong substantial building, and there, with a judgment that would have been creditable to the most eminent general who ever conquered on a field of battle, he removed his head-quarters, and proceeded to lay in such stores of food, arms, and ammunition as would enable him to meet the danger in a manner worthy of the stake he was playing for. ”

“ In a building spoken of as a fortress there is a covered way with rooms at its sides, all covered with sandstone blocks about twelve feet long. The walls are six feet thick, and in the interior is the opening to a subterranean passage which is said to lead under the river to another building. In the gallery human bones and some relics were found. The modern town is built mostly over the ruins of an ancient aqueduct, and a bridge over the stream is built of three immense stones, each over twenty feet long, taken from the fort. ”

“ We found there a small square fort with round towers at the angles, the whole built of sun-dried brick. Though it is in complete ruin, I believe it to be modern, probably a Turkish ḳishlâ, but I saw some fragments of stone and mortar building which are, at any rate, older than the mud fort, and the site is so magnificent that it can scarcely have been neglected in ancient times. The hill on which the ruins stand is all but converted into an island by an abrupt turn of the river, which washes the precipitous rock on three sides. ”

“ The gardens of the once stately mansion are gone to decay, or else, being overgrown with grass, are fed upon by cattle; the windows were broken by the fierceness of the flames when it was set on fire; and though strong walls, still standing, tell of what has been, not a trace remains of the great oriel window, and the roof has long been gone. He who wishes to trace the former extent of the building may just discover the foundations in some parts; but in others, not even a few scattered stones, sunk deep in the untrodden grass, would reveal that a mansion had stood there. ”

“ The fort, evidently fifteenth or sixteenth century, is a very picturesque and massive building, having spacious chambers with the roofs going up in a dome shape—more egg shape though, than dome—made of solid masonry, four or five feet thick. ”

“ During the last twenty years of the twelfth century, lessons learned by the Crusaders from the traditional methods of fortification employed in the Eastern empire exercised a profound influence upon the military architecture of France and England; and the application of these lessons during the thirteenth century entirely altered the defensive scheme of the castle, until the plan of masterpieces of fortification like Caerphilly and Harlech presented an entire contrast to the plan of defensive strongholds like Norham and Scarborough. ”

“ The abundance of stone in the neighbourhood, the excellence of the cement, harder to be broken than the stones themselves, have preserved these prodigious ruins from being embezzled and lessened."
In the age of Edward III. the castles differed from those of previous periods. The confined plan of the close fortress expanded into a mixture of the castle and the mansion; comprising spacious and magnificent apartments, the hall, the banqueting-room, the chapel, with galleries of communication, and sleeping chambers. The keep was entirely detached, and independent of these buildings. ”

“ Subject to the question of time, a very high degree of strength can be given to them, if the military situation makes it worth while to expend sufficient labour. A century or more ago, the dividing line between permanent and field fortification was very rigidly drawn, since in those days a high masonry escarp surmounted by a rampart was essential to a permanent fortress, and these could naturally not be extemporized. ”

“ The third type, the gambrel-roofed house, was at the height of its popularity about the time of the Revolutionary War, and continued in favor until the tide of commercial prosperity sweeping through the land brought in its wake the desire for more pretentious dwellings. Then came into fashion the large, square, wooden mansion, later followed by that of stately brick, excellent examples of both types being still extant. ”

“ Those times have left plentiful traces, still plain to see, in the old domestic architecture of mansion and farmstead. Castles we have here, as elsewhere, but this borderland is the country of the peel-tower. In ages when the south of England lived in security, and men no longer built homes that were half fortresses, these oft-raided northern counties still lived in constant and well-founded apprehensions, and every one who had anything to lose had his own stronghold, in the little peel-tower that was, according to circumstances, his entire home, or a considerable part of it. ”

“ The excavators have not as yet devoted much attention to the city-wall, and, until more extensive digging has been carried out, it will not be possible to form a very detailed idea of the system of fortification. But enough has already been done to prove that the outer wall was a very massive structure, and consisted of two separate walls with the intermediate space filled in with rubble. The outer wall, or face, which bore the [Pg 25] brunt of any attack and rose high above the moat encircling the city, was of burnt brick set in bitumen. ”

“ Nine-tenths of it was built for strength—the small remainder for comfort; there is not a single large hall in all the great fortress, and the courtyard within the main gate is a gloomy, ill-shaped little paved space, barely big enough to give fifty men standing room. ”

“ I entered by a gate which looks toward the town, and over which is sculptured a rude effigy of the royal builder, deeply scarred by time. Within, the huge walls appear as an empty shell; they rise, like those of the great Roman amphitheatre, around an area of desolation. Here and there, indeed, are the remains of state apartments, and of royal chambers, still marked by delicate architectural tracery and handsome enrichment; but you tread on hillocks and grassy verdure, which swell above their buried splendours, and everywhere the ruin appears absolute and complete. ”