THE Castle of Berkhampstead stands in the parish of Berkhampstead St. Peter, in the county of Hertford, and, geologically, upon the lower chalk. Its position is in a chalky bottom, on the left bank of the Bulborne rivulet. Between the stream and the castle the ground is naturally low and marshy, but it is now traversed by the Grand Junction Canal and the London and North-Western Railway, which, with the water-course and the turnpike-road, separate the castle from the town.

To the east and north-east of the castle the ground rises steeply towards Whitehill and Berkhampstead Common. To the west and north-west it rises more gradually towards Berkhampstead-place. Between the two, towards the north, is a combe or nearly dry valley, occupied by the old park, called the Berkhampstead estate, and in this valley stands the castle, about 400 yards from its termination in the river.

The constituent parts of the castle are a mound; an inner enceinte or ward; an inner ditch; a second enceinte; a second ditch; a third enceinte, enveloping the northern half only; a ravelin upon the west face; and a third or exterior ditch, also confined to the northern half of the work.

The mound is wholly artificial. It is conical, about 60 feet high and 40 feet diameter at the top, having steep sides and a wet ditch round three-fourths of its circumference. Its top was crowned with a circular shell of wall, about 8 feet thick, of which the foundations only remain. Up its southern side is a curtain-wall, much ruined, and about 8 feet thick. This commences at the ground level at the top of the mound, and runs into a fragment of the enceinte wall of the inner ward. It evidently connected this wall with the keep, and was probably, as at Tamworth, parapeted on either face of its rampart walk. It was not continued down the further side of the mound, which was not a part of the enceinte, but a citadel placed outside it, and connected with it only by a single wall.

Probably the ditch of the mound was originally continued all round it, and simply traversed by the wall. Much of the ditch between the mound and the inner ward is filled up, probably very recently, as the process is now in progress, the object being to connect the level sward of the enceinte with the mound for pleasure purposes.

The inner ward is an oval space, about 500 feet north and south by 300 feet east and west. It is encircled by a wall, about 7 feet thick, and now about 20 feet high, and which may have been 4 feet to 5 feet higher. Traces of the crenellations are visible. This wall is broken down in parts, but nearly three-fourths of it remain. The northern, or end opposite to the mound, is concave, the ditch of the mound having been run into it. There is a fragment of a mural tower on the west face, much mutilated and apparently rectangular. In the east face are two openings, one of which may have been a postern. In the north-east quarter a cross-wall seems to have belonged to a domestic building. The gap for the main gateway is at the south end. There are no traces of towers there, and there do not appear, judging from the wall, ever to have been any. The interior terre-plein, or platform, is level, no terrace against the wall, and no trace of a bank against which the wall could have been built. Outside the wall is a space of about 5 feet broad, beyond which the ground falls sharply towards the wet ditch.

The inner ditch is carried quite round both mound and inner ward wall, being in plan an unbroken oval. It is deep and everywhere wet, and in parts it opens out into a pool. This is the case where it gave off the ditch embracing the mound, now in part filled up, and in the south-eastern quarter, where its overflow escapes into the river.

Outside, and forming the counterscarp of this ditch, is the second or middle enceinte. This is a steep and narrow bank, carrying a walk of about 8 feet broad, having about an equal slope inwards towards the inner ditch, and outwards towards the outer. For about its northern two-thirds this bank is very uniform, but at the south-west quarter it swells into a small mound or cavalier, about 22 feet in diameter at top, and about 20 feet high, close to which the land has been cut away to effect a modern entry. Opposite to this, on the south-east quarter, is another rather larger mound, about 30 feet across and 25 feet high; and at this point the bank makes a loop outwards, which somewhat destroys the symmetry of its plan. These two mounds are evidently intended to flank the extremities of the outer bank.

This middle bank is perforated by a modern culvert at its southern part, by which the waters of the inner ditch escape; and a few yards east of this the bank is crossed by two parallel walls, 12 feet apart, and which evidently belonged to the outside of the main entrance.

The second or middle ditch, also deep and wet, envelopes the middle bank very regularly. At present it is wanting on the south side, for a short distance, having been filled up and converted into a road when the railway was constructed.

Outside this ditch is the third or outer enceinte, a steep bank, which forms the counterscarp of the middle ditch, and envelopes rather more than the northern half of the castle. It is about 10 feet broad above, and is strengthened outside by eight bastions, also of earth, placed at distances of from 60 feet to 150 feet, and each, at top, about 30 feet broad by 40 feet projection, and rounded. The five best marked of these, being steep and about 20 feet high, lie to the north-west. A small streamlet coming in from the north then cuts the line, and to the east of this, covering the north-east and east faces, the bank is continued for about 580 feet, strengthened by three bastions, which, however, are low, and have nothing of the sharpness of the others. These latter three have scarcely any ditch, but the other five have at their feet a ditch, which, even now, is boggy, and no doubt was once a formidable defence. West of this outer bank, and ranging with it so as to cover part of the west face of the castle, is an earthwork of very doubtful character. Its lines are rectangular, it has a ditch, and it much resembles the early ravelins which were common in the fifteenth century, and not unknown in the fourteenth and thirteenth.

Connected with its ditch is a pond, which appears to have been a mill-pond and fish-stew. No doubt all these extensive ditches were turned to account, and fed the mill which is known to have been attached to the castle.

Berkhampstead is altogether a very striking and a very peculiar fortification. The mound was no doubt an English burh, and, as was not uncommon, had its own defences. The inner enceinte, though not, as is usual, encircled by a bank, was encircled by a steep slope and ditch, which, with a palisade, would have been a very sufficient defence. These probably were the whole of the original works, and within them may well have been held the famous Council of Berkhampstead in 697. The two outer works seem to be later. The outer certainly, from its bastions, must be later than the Conquest, and the middle bank is far too slight in its construction and too sharply preserved to be of remote antiquity. But it is remarkable that there is no trace of any other than the inner enceinte wall, and it is pretty evident that there was never any other. The earthworks, except the mound, would not have carried a wall, and had such been built it would have been liable to be mined and overthrown with very little trouble. Evidently these banks were crested with palisades, and probably careful cutting into them would show traces of the stakes.

Further, it is singular that, though there is a second and a third line of defence, there is no middle or outer ward. These lines of defence include ditches only, and not the space which, however narrow, was always left between the walls of castles for the assembling their defenders. Here the garrison of the two outer lines must have been ranged in line close in rear of the stockade, with but room to pass between it and the ditch in their rear.

It should be mentioned that an earthwork, composed of bank and ditch, and known locally as Grimsdyke, traverses the high road above the town, and there are several barrows in the immediate neighbourhood. The Berkhampstead earthworks are quite peculiar, but the neighbourhood is rather rich in military earthworks of a circular character, among which, to the south and west, may be mentioned Bushwood, Hawridge, Cholesbury, and, at a greater distance, Kimble.

The masonry that remains is all of chalk flint rubble, bathed in a pure white mortar, and probably faced with coarse flints, picked, if not squared. Here and there parts of the face remain. This work may be Norman, or it may be later, though probably not much. The absence of towers is remarkable. There is no ashlar at all. This, no doubt, was removed when Berkhampstead Place was built, but there could not have been very much of it.

Berkhampstead was a seat of the Kings of Mercia, and the place of meeting of a council of magnates summoned, in 697, by Wightred, king of Kent; and, at the time of the Confessor, it belonged to Edmar, a thane of Earl Harold. It was evidently a strong place, for when the Conqueror gave it to his brother Robert, Earl of Mortaigne, amongst the vassals there was a certain “Fossarius,” whose duty must have been to clean the castle ditches. Robert is said to have fortified it with a double ditch and rampart, and he held it at Domesday. Moreover, under the Conqueror, it was expanded into a very extensive Honour, of which it was the caput. The manor is named, but not the castle, in Domesday.

The castle seems to have been held by King Stephen and by John, with the earldom of Cornwall. It had suffered in Stephen’s wars, and John gave it, 1206, to Geoffrey Fitzpiers, Earl of Essex, who rebuilt or restored it, and may have erected the present walls. Prince Louis laid siege to, and took it, in 1226. The attack was from the north side, and the castle held out for a considerable time.

Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, brother to Henry III., held it. He wrote to his brother from hence in 1261, and died here in 1271–2, as did his wife Isabel Mareschal in 1239. His son Edmund had the castle, town, and halimote. In 1299 the castle was returned as yielding no rental; but the millpool and the castle ditches let for the fishing at 20s. per annum. There was then a water-mill and a park with deer. It was a part of the dower of Margaret of France, the second wife of Edward I., who died 1317. Edward II. gave it, with the earldom of Cornwall, to Gaveston; and to the Black Prince, as Duke of Cornwall, came from his father the castle, manor, vill, park, and honour of Berkhampstead, the lands of which extended into Herts, Bucks, and Northamptonshire. It was put in order for the residence of John of France, and the Black Prince was here not long before his death. It was also used by the favourite of Richard II., Robert de Vere, Marquis of Dublin, who had licence to inhabit it. Here, also, died Cicely Nevill, the mother of Edward IV.

Queen Elizabeth leased it to Sir Edward Carey, whose grandson employed its material to build Berkhampstead Place, since which it has been leased to various persons, and was finally sold to the Egertons, whose descendant in the female line, Earl Brownlow, is the owner also of the adjacent park of Ashridge.