Chapter 21

warwick: Guy’s tower

Warwick Castle; Cæsar’s tower

There are, however, a few striking exceptions which belong to the later part of the fourteenth century. The two polygonal towers, Guy’s tower (319) and Cæsar’s tower (321), which cover the angles of the eastern curtain at Warwick and flank the gatehouse with its barbican, are cases in point. Few castles show features of the military architecture of all periods to such advantage. The plan is that of an early Norman mount-and-bailey castle,which has in course of time been surrounded with a stone curtain;347while a magnificent residence, in the main a building of the fourteenth century, has grown up on the south side of the bailey next the river.348The most commanding military features, however, are the towers just mentioned, 128 and 147 feet high respectively. The whole character of thesetowers is French rather than English. Their great height may be contrasted with that of the contemporary rectangular towers at Raby, the loftiest of which is only 81 feet high, and depends for its defence almost entirely upon the thickness of its walls. The nearest parallel to the Warwick towers, on the other hand, is such a building as the fifteenth-century Tour Talbot at Falaise, a lofty cylindrical tower built at an angle of the donjon, as is generally stated, during the English occupation of northern France.349The chief characteristics of the towers at Warwick are the bold corbelling out of their parapets, with a row of machicolations, and the provision of a central turret, rising some distance above the level of the rampart-walk—a feature common in France, but most unusual in England.350The vaulting of both towers throughout is also a French feature; and in every respect they bear traces of an influence which, beginning in the cylindrical donjons of Philip Augustus’ castles and of Coucy, survived to a late date in France, and may have affected English military work in that country, but had little result in England itself. While, throughout the fifteenth century, the French castle maintained its character as a stronghold, and even kept that character when Renaissance influence was strong in that country, the military character of the English castle steadily diminished. The wars of the Roses were a succession of battles in open field, in which castles and walled towns played very little part. And while the military character of Warwick continued to be emphasised during the period of transition, the neighbouring castle of Kenilworth, in common with most English castles, was transformed, during the same period, from a stronghold into a palace.

hurstmonceaux: gatehouse

bodiam: north front and gatehouse

The most imposing of our later castles, which may be considered primarily as military buildings, is Bodiam in Sussex (323). On 21st October 1385, Sir Edward Dalyngrugge had licence to crenellate his manor of Bodiam “by the sea,” and “to make a castle thereof in defence of the adjacent country against the king’s enemies.”351The main object of this licence was evidentlyto provide against a French attack upon the ports of Rye and Winchelsea, at the mouth of the Rother: in the following March, Sir Edward was named first upon the commission appointed by letters patent to fortify and wall the town of Rye.352Bodiam stands upon the left bank of the Rother, some miles above Rye, and commands from its site, at some little height above the valley, a long stretch of marsh in the direction of the mouth of the river. The walls of the castle descend sheer into a lake, formed by the damming up of a stream. The castle is simply a rectangular enclosure surrounded by a lofty curtain. Each angle is capped by a cylindrical tower, and in the middle of each face is a rectangular tower: the great gatehouse, however, in the north face, has two rectangular towers, one on each side of the entrance. The tower in the centre of the opposite face is the lesser gatehouse of the castle. The plan bears a striking analogy to that of the castle of Villandraut (Gironde), built about 1250: Nunney in Somerset (1373) and Shirburn in Oxfordshire (1377) are coeval English examples. The interior is surrounded by domestic buildings. Against the south curtain were the hall and kitchen: the screens at the west end of the hall formed a passage to the lesser gateway. The wall dividing the screens from the kitchen still remains, with the three doorways which gave access to the kitchen, pantry, and buttery (326). The private apartments were returned along the east curtain, and at their north end was the chapel, which had the usual arrangement of a western gallery, entered from the chambers on the first floor of this range of building. Servants’ quarters and barracks occupied the west side of the enclosure. All the buildings were plentifully supplied with garde-robes in the towers; and the upper portion of the south-west tower was arranged as a pigeon-house.

In spite of the ample space given to the domestic buildings, the defensive nature of the works at Bodiam is very clearly apparent, not only in the strength of the walls, the height of which (40 feet) is equal to the height of the walls at Harlech, but in the provision made for the defence of the approaches. The main gateway was protected by a barbican, which occupied a small island in the lake, some 54 feet in front of the gatehouse. A causeway, which is in part, at any rate, original, connected the gateway with the barbican; but it is probable that this had a bridge at one or both ends. A bridge, spanning a gap of 6 feet, connected the outer end of the barbican with an octagonal island in the middle of the broad moat. The straight causeway by which this island is now reached from the mainland does notrepresent the original approach; but a longer and more tortuous approach was planned from a pier set against the west bank of the moat and joined, probably by a double drawbridge, to the octagonal island, which thus stood at a point where the road, commanded throughout by the curtain and its flanking towers, turned at a right angle towards the north gatehouse of the castle. The approach to the smaller or south gate has now disappeared; but two walls project into the moat on each side of the entrance, and against the south bank of the moat remains the pier on which the outer drawbridge dropped.

Bodiam Castle; Courtyard

The labour and pains which were taken to strengthen this castle are shown by the revetting of the earthwork, not only of the main island, but also of the lesser islands in the moat, and of portions of the causeways of approach. The isolation of the castle in the middle of a lake may have been suggested by the plan adopted, at a much earlier date, at Leeds in Kent. The great barbican of Leeds, however, divided by wet ditches into three separate parts, forms the approach to the main bridge across the moat. It is, in fact, thetête-du-pontof the castle, anddoes not occupy a separate island, as at Bodiam, between the mainland and the gateway.

The gatehouse of Bodiam is an imposing building, and the castle-builders, from the days of Edward I. onwards, paid an attention to their gatehouses almost equal to that which the late Norman builders had given to their tower-keeps.353To the same twenty-five years within which Bodiam was built and the two great towers at Warwick were completed, belongs the greatest of English gatehouses, that of the castle of Lancaster. It is known to have been built as late as about 1405; for the arms of Henry V. as prince of Wales appear on a shield above the gateway. It is therefore one of the latest military works in the castles of the duchy, and the last of the series of gatehouses which owed their origin to lords of the house of Lancaster, and includes the noble structures at Dunstanburgh, Tutbury, and the great tower between the wards at Knaresborough. The castle to which it was added was surrounded by a curtain, largely of twelfth-century date,354and contained a tower-keep and domestic buildings which appear to have been in the main of the thirteenth century. Situated at the head of a very steep hill, and flanked by two huge octagonal towers, this gatehouse is the perfection of the type which is seen, with more slender flanking towers, at Bothal and in the keep of Alnwick. The window openings towards the field are few and small: the battlements are boldly corbelled out, and machicolations of large size are left between them and the wall. In a corner of each of the flanking towers rises a turret, the interior of which apparently served as a magazine for ammunition. The interior of this gatehouse, although the space is ample, is fully in keeping with its sombre exterior. Each of the two upper floors containsthree rooms, one in the central block of the gatehouse, the others in the towers at the sides. These rooms are large and lofty, and their original wooden ceilings still retain traces of colour; but they are gloomy and ill-lighted to the last degree. The apartments on the first floor communicate directly with one another, but those on the second floor are entered from an outer passage, which passes between them and the inner or west wall of the gatehouse. The guard-rooms on the ground-floor are approached in the usual way, by doorways near the inner entrance. The main stair is a vice in the south-west corner of building.

In the important additions made to the castle of Warkworth about 1400, the compromise attained between the requirements of defence and comfort is very striking. 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. This house (221), which combines the features of keep and private residence in a most unusual way, appears to have been built by the first earl of Northumberland, who died in 1407.355The shape is that of a square with chamfered angles; but from the centre of each face projects a bold half-octagon, so that the ground-plan is a Greek cross with short arms and a large central block. The elevation consists of a basement and three floors. The basement contains tanks and a vault with a corbelled roof, which was certainly a prison, and bears a strong likeness to a similar vault in the inner gatehouse at Alnwick. There is no basement stair, communication with the vaults being through trap-doors in the floor above. On this floor are a number of dark vaulted store-rooms, one of which was the wine-cellar, and has its own stair to the daïs end of the hall on the floor above. The two upper floors are comparatively cheerful and well lighted: a shaft in the centre of the building gave light to the inner passage between the hall and kitchen. The main stair is in the south half-octagon, the chief doorway being in the west face of this projection, on the first floor. Fromthe lobby on the second floor, at the head of the stair, two doorways open. That on the right leads into the hall, which occupies the south-east angle of the central block, and is of the full height of the two upper floors. That on the left leads to the servants’ quarters and the kitchens, which occupied the western part of the second floor, and communicated by separate doorways with the hall and chapel. The great kitchen filled the north-west angle of the central block, and, like the hall, was two stories in height. The north half-octagon and the north-east angle of the main block adjacent to it, were divided into two floors. The lower room in the half-octagon was probably the private room of the master of the house, communicating with the lower room in the main block, which was probably the common room of his immediate retinue. Similarly, upon the upper floor were a ladies’ bower and a separate room for the countess of Northumberland’s own use. Between the private apartments and the hall, occupying the centre of the east side of the main block and the half-octagon beyond, was the chapel. The chancel, in the half-octagon, was the height of both floors; but the western part of the chapel was in two floors, the upper forming a gallery, with a doorway from the ladies’ bower. From the south-east corner of this gallery, another doorway opened upon a narrow stone gallery, formed by the internal thickening of the lower part of the east wall of the hall: this may have served the purpose of a minstrels’ gallery, or may have been used by the ladies of the house, when they wished to watch the festivities below. The wall beneath this gallery is pierced by a long vestry or priest’s chamber, opening out of the south wall of the chapel, and built with a rising floor, in order to give head-way to the stair from the wine-cellar below. The ground-floor of the chapel also communicated with the hall and the men’s apartments. In addition to the rooms already mentioned, there were third-floor rooms in the south-west angle of the main block and in the western half-octagon, which communicated with the gallery of the chapel. The area covered is not large, but the ingenuity of the plan is remarkable; and the disposition of the various apartments must have required an amount of thought and skill, which no other medieval dwelling-house shows in so high a degree.

raglan castle

thornton abbey: gatehouse and barbican

While the lower portions of the walls of the strong house at Warkworth are of great solidity and strength, the upper floors are lighted by large traceried window-openings, and the tall oblong windows of the hall, and those of the chancel of the chapel, convey no idea of the military purpose of the building. It is a curious fact that, in spite of the pains which were evidentlyexpended upon this tower-house, the period of its employment as a residence seems to have been unusually short. The various lords of Warkworth were never satisfied with one residence for any length of time; and there is evidence that when John, duke of Bedford, was sent by his father, Henry IV., to pacify the north after Northumberland’s rebellion, he took up his quarters at Warkworth in the gatehouse. Later in the fifteenth century, the old mansion, already described, in the bailey, was restored and altered: a porch-tower was made at the north-east end of the hall, and a stair-turret intruded in the south-east angle. The dwelling-house, which had been built within the castle about 1200, was converted, in fact, into a stately mansion; and the house on the mount was practically abandoned. No better instance could be found of the gradual weakening of the military ideal in favour of domestic comfort. All the castles of the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are examples of this in some degree. At Warwick the domestic buildings are at least of equal importance with the defences. The dwelling-house at Ludlow gradually increased in size and splendour, while nothing was added to its military defences. Even the outer walls of Bolton, a strong and well-guarded castle, are pierced with windows which admit a considerable amount of light. Bodiam and Raglan (331), relying on the great breadth of their moats, have large outward window openings. In all these instances, however, the dwelling-house, even at Raglan, is still regarded as a house within a castle. In the planning of the tower house at Warkworth the military and domestic ideals were both present to the minds of the builders. Neither can be said to prevail: the building was equally useful as house and castle. The hall at Warkworth, on the other hand, when it was rebuilt, was treated with an architectural splendour quite apart from any idea of its position within the walls of a place of defence. Those walls had become obsolete, and the house was the one object present to the aims of the restorers. A step further was taken at Hurstmonceaux (323), where the great brick house has the semblance of a castle, but little of its reality. At Carew in Pembrokeshire, three stages in the development of the domestic ideal as applied to military architecture can be studied in close proximity. On the east side of the ward are the earlier domestic apartments, somewhat cramped and gloomy, with outer windows which, wherever they occur, as in the chapel (248) and adjacent rooms, admit daylight very faintly. On the west side is the great hall built in the fifteenth century by Rhys ap Thomas, with its imposing porch-tower and entrance stair, a large and amply lighted room. On the north are the additions made in the sixteenth century bySir John Perrott. The eastern rooms are those of a house within a castle: the western hall is that of a house which, although military considerations have had no part in its planning, is still confined within an earlier curtain. On the north side, however, the curtain has been broken through, and a series of apartments has been built out beyond its limits, proclaiming, with their long mullioned windows piercing the walls from floor to roof, that the day of castles is over, and that the dwelling-house has the field to itself.

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