CHAPTER II.The Keep Described.

The great keep at Castle Hedingham is a fine specimen of the work of the twelfth century. Its exact date has not been ascertained, but its arrangement and its architectural detail point to the same date as Rochester Castle (about 1130), and good authorities go so far as to suggest that the same designer was employed on both. It has all the characteristics of an early keep; a vast, plain mass of masonry, slightly broken by the long vertical lines of shallow buttresses and angle turrets, and pierced at each floor with small windows—smallest near the ground where most accessible (Fig. 2). The entrance, as at Peak Castle, and all early keeps, is some feet above the ground, and in this case is approached by a flight of steps; it leads into the first floor, below which at the ground level, or thereabouts, is the cellar or store-room, approached only from the room above it. The plan is quite simple (Fig. 3), consisting of a large room (38 by 31 ft.) on each floor, enclosed by thick walls which are honeycombed with mural chambers and recesses. Some of these chambers aregarde-robes, others were no doubt used as sleeping places by the family and principal guests. Over the entrance floor were two others; first the hall, a room with two tiers of windows, the upper of which gave on to a gallery or triforium which made the circuit of the building in the thickness of the wall: above the hall another room very similar to that on the entrance floor.

Then came the roof, round which was a rampart walk protected by the battlements, and leading to the four angle turrets which rose above the general mass of the building. Access to these various floors was given by a commodious circular staircase more than 11 ft. in diameter. There were thus four main rooms; the basement, the entrance floor, the hall of two storeys, and the room over it. All these, except the basement, were warmed by a large fireplace, and lighted—if lighted it can be called—by eight small windows. The hall had in addition eight two-light windows in the triforium.There is no room which can be identified as the kitchen; there is no indication that the windows were glazed.

2. Castle Hedingham, Essex. The Keep (cir.1130).The head of the entrance door is visible on the left: the opening on the right is modern.

2. Castle Hedingham, Essex. The Keep (cir.1130).

The head of the entrance door is visible on the left: the opening on the right is modern.

3. Castle Hedingham, Essex.Plans of the Keep.1. Ground Floor, or Basement.2. First, or Entrance Floor.3. The Great Hall.4. Upper part of Hall, with Gallery.5. Room over Hall.

3. Castle Hedingham, Essex.

Plans of the Keep.

1. Ground Floor, or Basement.2. First, or Entrance Floor.3. The Great Hall.4. Upper part of Hall, with Gallery.5. Room over Hall.

4. Castle Hedingham, Essex.A window of the gallery in the hall.

4. Castle Hedingham, Essex.

A window of the gallery in the hall.

Against the means of attack which were then available this place was impregnable, but the safety thus assured must have been both gloomy and draughty. In its way, however, it was a lordly residence; the main rooms were spacious, the smaller rooms were considerable in number, the staircase was of ample width. The gallery must have afforded a certain amount of quasi-privacy to those who were not privileged to occupy the mural chambers. The architectural detail of the doorways, windows, arches, and fireplaces is good (Figs. 4, 5, 6). Across the middle of the entrance floor and of the hall is thrown a fine bold semicircular arch, of nearly 30 ft. span, to carry the floor of the room over (see section, Fig. 5); the whole treatment is simple, sturdy, and splendid, as befitted the chief stronghold ofthe race for whom it was built, the De Veres, Earls of Oxford.

5. Castle Hedingham, Essex.Section of the Keep.

5. Castle Hedingham, Essex.

Section of the Keep.

6. Castle Hedingham, Essex.A Fireplace. Showing the short flue leading to a vertical vent in the face of the wall.

6. Castle Hedingham, Essex.

A Fireplace. Showing the short flue leading to a vertical vent in the face of the wall.

The fireplaces had not a flue such as we understand it, that is a long shaft running up the whole height of the building and crowned by a chimney; instead of this they had a short funnel contrived in the wall, and leading almost directly to small vertical openings in the face of the wall, cleverly concealed in the angle of a buttress (Fig. 6). The fireplaces, moreover, were mere recesses in the wall surmounted by round arches; there was no attempt at a projecting hood or any such ornamental feature as we are accustomed to think of as a chimney-piece. These things were to come later. They were, however, of generous size, as indeed theymight well be, for it must be remembered that the windows were not glazed, and although they were too small to make the place cheerful, they were quite large enough to make it cold, and as each side of the room had an outside wall, the wind, from whatever quarter it blew, would find its way in. It is true that there were wooden shutters to the windows, which could be shut at night, but in spite of this there was every inducement to maintain a large fire; the volume of the flame may have overcome the disadvantage of the short flue, but the smoke must have had difficulty in escaping through the small vents, and doubtless much of it eventually found its way out through the open windows.

The sleeping accommodation was very meagre. The lord, and perhaps some of his family, had separate retiring places; they could not be called rooms, for they were only such chambers as could be contrived in the thickness of the walls; and in point of size, although not at all in point of luxury, were comparable to a sleeping compartment on a moderntrain de luxe. The household, men and women, old and young, slept in the great hall, a custom which conduced neither to comfort nor the observance of the proprieties. In the same room the whole establishment had its meals. During the greater part of the day the men, at any rate, were occupied with outdoor pursuits.

The Peak Castle, at Castleton in Derbyshire (Fig. 10, p. 19), is an extremely interesting example of an early dwelling. Its situation may be described as highly romantic, although that adjective of course expresses a sentiment which is of comparatively modern origin. Up to about the middle of the eighteenth century, travellers regarded such desolate places as Old Sarum, or ruins so difficult of access as the Peak Castle, with feelings approaching to horror. It was only towards the end ofthat century, or in the early years of the nineteenth, that the romantic aspect was appreciated. It is tolerably certain that romance had no part in the selection of this site for a dwelling, but rather the assurance of security which it offered. An extremely steep spur of the rocky hill which forms one side of a precipitous dale—one of the dales for which Derbyshire is famous—is deeply bitten into by a gorge which almost severs it from its parent ridge (Fig. 7). An irregular triangle of rocky ground is thus formed rising steeply from its longest side up to the opposite angle, and bounded on one side by the precipitous slope of the dale, and on the other by the sheer descent of the gorge. No site could be better protected by nature. The side next the gorge is absolutely inaccessible. The side next the dale offers interesting hazards to good climbers. The remaining side is a grass slope steeper than most modern roofs, and traversed by a zigzag path up which the breathless visitor toils painfully. The town lies at the foot of the slope; the castle, of no great extent, is placed at itssummit. The keep is built in the extreme angle, where the gorge desists from finally biting its way through the side of the dale and leaves a narrow rugged strip of rock to connect the almost detached triangle from its parent hillside. A stone flung from one side of the keep would fall sheer down the gorge; flung from the opposite side would drop some 40 or 50 ft. on to the steep slope of the dale, and thence descend with huge and rapid bounds to the bottom.

7. Peak Castle, Derbyshire.Plan of the Site.

7. Peak Castle, Derbyshire.

Plan of the Site.

The summit of the triangle was enclosed by a wall running from the gorge to the dale, thus forming a good-sized courtyard. It was of course on the slope, and to make it rather more level, the lower part was raised, partly it would seem on vaulted chambers, partly by filling up earth against the wall. These chambers have never been explored, but workmen who have repaired the wall bear testimony to their existence, and if the description they give of some of the articles found in them has been rightly interpreted, it would seem that the Romans had made use of them. This is still a matter for conjecture, and so is the exact arrangement of such buildings as were adjacent to the wall.

There were apparently two entrances to the courtyard. The chief of these was adjacent to the dale, and from the remains of the arch stones would appear to have been some 5 or 6 ft. wide. Here is said to have been the porter’s rooms, and if this were the main entrance, custom would place the porter there. At the other end of the wall, against the gorge, are the remains of what has been called the sally-port; but the work has been so much defaced as to render its purpose obscure. Between these two features there is a rectangular buttressed projection which may have contained rooms, while overlooking the gorge is a recess in the wall which seems to have been a window. It is said—butthe statement has not been properly verified—that there are remains of the foundations of a structure which carried a drawbridge across the narrow upper end of the gorge; and it is almost certain that an ancient track leads along the hill on the further side of the gorge in the direction of the castle. All these points are of interest, and are worthy of further investigation; but that part of the ruins which most readily repays a visit is the keep. This has been described as merely a prison or a watch-tower; but from the carefully selected position of the castle, from what is known of its history, from the fact that the little town of Castleton clusters at its foot, and from a comparison with other castles, it would seem that the tower is the small keep of a small castle, and was its most secure dwelling-place. References in the great Roll of the Pipe show that a considerable number of soldiers were accommodated here; it is also recorded that in 1157 Malcolm of Scotland made his personal submission to Henry II. here, and that that king was again here in 1163, when the castle must have had even more restricted accommodation.

8. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176.)Plans of the Keep.

8. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176.)

Plans of the Keep.

9. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire

The keep itself, which was built in 1176, is very similar in arrangement to the peel-towers of the Scottish border and to the towers which elsewhere formed the nucleus of many fortified houses. It probably represents the first step in domestic planning, and may be regarded as one of the earliest ancestors of the great houses of later centuries.

It consisted of two main floors (Figs. 8, 9); beneath the lower was perhaps a store-room, although this is not certain. The debris with which the lower part of the building is filled has not been investigated; excavation might determine whether there ever was a cellar, and also whether there was any internal communicationwith a natural cave or passage which undoubtedly passes through the rock beneath it, and from which a tortuous and difficult descent can be made to the great Peak Cavern which is approached along the gorge so frequently mentioned. Above the upper chamber was the roof, originally of steep pitch (see section, Fig. 9), but which may have been raised and flattened so as at once to form a third chamber and to give more convenience for the purposes of watching and defence.

At its best, at any rate, the keep can only have contained four rooms, and it is quite possible that it only had two. The upper and better of these was that into which the entrance door opened (at D, Fig. 8), a door some 6 or 8 ft. from the ground, and doubtless approached by a wood ladder. Near this door a circular staircase of about 5 ft. in diameter led up to the roof and down to the lower room (Fig. 9), which was dimly lighted by two small windows, but otherwise was devoid of any feature whatever. The floors were of wood. The upper room, about 22 by 19 ft. in size, was also lighted by two small windows; in one wall was agarde-robe(G) with a shoot corbelled out from the wall; in another was a small mural chamber (M) occupying one corner of the building and lighted by a very small window on two of its sides. So far, this keep is just like many others, although on a small scale; but here there is no sign of a fireplace or flue. Some means of warming the place, and, on occasion, of cooking, there must have been; and the probability is that a fire was contrived on the floor, and that the smoke was carried away by a flue of wood and plaster. It would not have been beyond the ingenuity of the time to provide a hearth to carry the fire.

10. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176).South-west Face.

10. The Peak Castle, Derbyshire (1176).

South-west Face.

The exterior of the keep has suffered so much that hardly any detail is left, nearly all the facing stonehaving disappeared. The most perfect side is that towards the gorge, difficult of access (Fig. 10). From it, however, we learn that the building consisted of a plain mass of ashlar work broken at the angles andthe middle of each side by a shallow projecting pier. Each corner of the building has a small circular shaft with cap and base of the ordinary Norman type. The window openings must have been narrow, as was usually the case, and probably of very simple detail, matching that of the doorway and the shoot of thegarde-robe. At the parapet level there were probably four turrets rising from the angle buttresses, but all traces of them have gone. Indeed all that can be gathered of the external appearance is that it was of the usual severe type and that the detail was of the simplest.

While castles and their keeps were still in full occupation, but towards the later years of their existence, there were built a number of fortified manor houses of stone. It is quite probable that these buildings embodied in permanent materials a type of plan that had long prevailed in a less durable form. The keep was contrived so as to be as economical of space as possible; the rooms were piled one on the top of the other. But where defensive precautions were not so imperative, and space was not so valuable, the rooms were placed alongside of each other on the ground. The manor house, therefore, followed a type of plan somewhat different from that of the keep, but in both cases the hall was the principal apartment; it was the sleeping, eating, and living room of the household. As years went by the keep type of plan fell into disuse; its singular lack of comfort may easily account for this. The manor house type, on the contrary, survived, and it is this type which has been developed, through century after century, into the house of modern times. It is, however, curious to find a few late survivals of the keep, some of them built long after the necessity for castles had disappeared; others, owing to their geographical position, being the natural expression of the wants of the district. Amongthe former is Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, built by Lord Treasurer Cromwell in the fifteenth century, the same who built the great manor house of South Wingfield in Derbyshire. Both of these houses will be more fully mentioned in their chronological order. Among the latter are many of the peel-towers of Northumberland, which continued to be built with the ancient restricted arrangements until the accession of James I. Cocklaw Tower, near Hexham, is a fairly late example (Figs. 11, 12); it was built in the sixteenth century and contained hardly more accommodation than the Peak Castle. At the ground level was a cellar entered from the outside by a doorway protected by machicolations. Above the cellar was the hall, entered by an external door several feet above the ground, and above this was another room of the same size. Each of these rooms had a fireplace, and a few small windows, unglazed. A small chamber also led from each of them; that on the principal floor retains traces of painted decoration. In its floor is a square hole which afforded the only access to a blind chamber or vault beneath, which may have been a dungeon or may have been merely agarde-robepit. A circular staircase led from the cellar to the upper floors and thence to the battlements. The fact that so small and uncomfortable a house was built at a time when further south there were already large and commodious mansions, is an eloquentcommentary on the disturbed state of the Border. This is further illustrated by the fact that almost immediately after the two kingdoms were united under one sovereign, many of the old peels were enlarged by the addition of a Jacobean wing of considerably greater capacity than the original house. Chipchase Castle is one of the most striking instances, as the new work took the form of a fair-sized manor house to which the peel became a mere antiquated adjunct. Other instances, some of rather later date, are to be seen at Belsay Castle, Halton Castle, and Bitchfield Tower.

11. Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland (16th cent.).Plan of Principal Floor.D, Door, several feet above the level of the ground;H, Hole in floor;F P, Fireplace.

11. Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland (16th cent.).

Plan of Principal Floor.

D, Door, several feet above the level of the ground;H, Hole in floor;F P, Fireplace.

12. Cocklaw Tower, Northumberland (16th cent.).

Another notable example of the survival of the keep is that at Warkworth Castle in the same county (Fig. 45, p. 82). This is of peculiar interest inasmuch as it was built about the year 1440, and exhibits a great amount of skill in packing into a small compass the various rooms which, by that period, had become necessary to the comfort of the more wealthy. But in spite of the ingenious planning, this keep was deserted within thirty years of its erection in favour of a new hall built on the ground floor with contiguous kitchens in the usual fashion. These places are mentioned here before taking leave of the keep, to show how its influence survived long after it had been generally abandoned.

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