ABOUT four miles below the ancient Priory of Robertsbridge, and fourteen, by its own sinuous course, above its junction with the sea below the old Cinque Port of Rye, the Rother, a considerable Sussex river, receives from the north an important tributary known as the Kent Ditch, and, time out of mind, the boundary of the two counties. The waters meet obliquely, and between them intervenes a tongue or cape of high land tapering and falling gradually towards the junction, and occupied by the church, village, and castle of Bodiham.

Who was Bodi, or Bode, whose home was here established, is unknown. He was evidently a Saxon, and from the position of his estate, probably an early one, giving name it may be to a tract won in arms from the Britons. Ham is here a very common termination to the proper names of places, varied with Hurst and Den and Ley, and other less frequent but equally Saxon denominations.

The church stands on the high ground, a little north of the centre of the cape, the castle about 600 yards to the south of it, and about half the distance from the Rother, at some thirty feet or so above its level. The Rother, here and lower down, traverses broad patches of lowland, now fertile meadow, but in former days evidently inaccessible morass. The position, therefore, between the two streams with their marshy banks was defended by nature towards the south and east, the quarter from which, after the complete expulsion of the Britons and during the early Saxon period, danger was mainly to be apprehended.

The earlier lords, both Saxon and Norman, who gave name to, and derived their names from, Bodiham, pitched their homestead on the north side of the high ground, some way from the church, and upon the right bank of the Kent Ditch, where the site is still indicated by some earthworks and a moat. Nearer to, but south of the church, on the brow of the hill, above the present castle, are the remains of another earthwork, rectangular and oblong in form, the site probably either of an early residence or a still earlier encampment.

Below this brow, on the southern verge of and just within the slope, it pleased a Lord of Bodiham, having become so by marriage with its heiress, to establish a new residence. Sir Edward Dalingruge, a successful soldier in the rough school of the Black Prince and his captains, of whom his immediate chief, Sir William Knollys, was one of the roughest, having held offices of trust under Richard II., decided here to build a castle suitable to his rank, wealth, and military fame; and having, in the 9th of Richard, 1385–6, obtained the royal licence, he constructed at a vast cost, both in earthwork and masonry, the castle here described.

Bodiham is a building of very high interest. It is a complete and typical castle of the end of the fourteenth century, laid out entirely upon a new site, and constructed after one design, and at one period. It but seldom happens that a great fortress is wholly original, of one, and that a known, date, and so completely free from alterations or additions. It has, moreover, fallen into good hands. Enough, and not too much, has been done to arrest the effects of time and weather. The repairs have been well executed, and in Wadhurst stone, the proper material; and, though well watched, it is open to all who care to visit it.

In plan and details Bodiham belongs to the early Perpendicular style, and occupies a mean position between Caerphilly, a work late in the thirteenth century, and Wressil, only a few years later than Bodiham in time, but much later in style and arrangements. Like these castles, it has no keep, and its domestic buildings are constructed within and against the walls of a court, but while Caerphilly, like Harlech and Ledes, is concentric, and has a narrow outer ward, Bodiham and Wressil, like Bolton, have but one ward, one line of defences, and are only rectangular enclosures, with strong and lofty curtains, flanked by still more lofty mural towers. Pennard in Gower, though of the reign of Henry III. or his son, is, on a small scale, of the same general type as Bodiham.

Save the adjacent river and the marsh, the immediate site of Bodiham possesses no natural advantages. A sort of platform was selected upon the sloping ground, about 30 feet above the river’s level, and in it was excavated a rectangular basin, 180 yards north and south, by 117 yards east and west, and about 7 deep. To the east, the containing bank was wholly artificial, formed of the excavated material, as was also the case with the contiguous parts to the north and south. The remaining part of the south bank was also slightly raised.

On the west side, near the north end, a small natural combe descended towards the excavation, of which, being wet, it was regarded as the future feeder. A strong dam was thrown across the lower part of this combe, between it and the excavation, of which it thus formed the bank. No doubt the pool so penned in was intended as a store pond when the moat was low.

In the centre, or nearly so, of the excavation, was left a rectangular island of rather above half an acre in area, raised artificially about four feet, and to be occupied by the future castle, of which the ground plan would thus be a plot of about 50 yards by 46 yards, surrounded by a wet moat from 35 to 65 yards broad. At present a sluice is provided for the occasional emptying of the moat, and probably something of the sort was originally constructed, though it would, of course, be concealed. The fact is, however, that a few vigorous workmen could at any time have cut through the bank in a few hours, and thus have deprived the castle of one of its defences. The mud, however, until dry, would be even a better protector than the water.

Bodiham Castle, then, is a rectangular enclosure 152 feet north and south, by 138 feet east and west, contained within four curtain walls. At each angle is a drum tower, 29 feet diameter, and of three quarters projection, flanking the several faces. In the centre of the north face is the great, and of the south face the lesser, gatehouse, and in the centre of each of the other faces is a square tower. There are thus eight mural towers, four cylindrical, and four rectangular, giving an agreeable variety to the outline. Besides these there is a projection from the east face of 8 feet, containing part of the chapel and the sacristy. The walls and towers all rise direct from the water. The curtain is 40 feet 6 inches high from the water to the crest of the parapet, and the towers are one-third higher, or 54 feet. The outer walls generally are 6 feet 6 inches thick, which is also the height of the parapets. The stair turrets rise 14 feet higher than their towers, and the chimneys about 9 feet. Both are octagonal, and are crested with miniature battlements in the late Perpendicular manner. There is no water gate or postern, such as those at Ledes and Caerphilly.

The great gatehouse is a very imposing structure. It is in plan a T, the horizontal limb forming the front of 30 feet breadth, and the vertical limb extending backwards as far, and containing the entrance passage. The front is composed of two towers, rectangular, but having the angles largely recessed, so as to throw forward the central part of each tower as a bold buttress, 15 feet broad by 6 feet deep. The whole projects from the curtain about 15 feet, and between the towers, deeply sunk, is the gateway.

The gateway has a slightly four-centred arch, very plain, and set in the usual square-headed shallow recess, intended apparently to receive the platform of the bridge when lifted. There are traces of the chain holes in the spandrels. The whole is placed in a deeper and plain recess, terminating above in a four-centred arch, which carries the parapet, and has behind it three machicolations which protect the entrance. Over the door is the usual portcullis chamber window, and right and left other windows, all small and lancet, some trefoil-headed, and some plain. Two pairs of loops command the approach, one pair has oylet holes at each end of the slit. The other pair have holes, rather larger, at the lower end only. It is the style of loop that marks the introduction of fire-arms. In the jambs of the portal is a half-round portcullis groove, and a little within a pair of folding doors. The entrance passage, 12 feet broad and 30 feet long, is unusually lofty. It is divided by a cross arch into two chambers, both vaulted. The first, 18 feet long, has on the right and left small lancet doors, leading by a narrow vaulted and ribbed mural passage into the lodges, 11 feet by 10 feet. On the left is a second door opening on a circular well-stair, 8 feet diameter, and unusually steep, leading to the upper chambers and roof, and terminating in a turret at the angle of the gatehouse. The vaulting has fallen in, but it is clear that it resembled that of the second chamber. Beneath the cross archway is a second portcullis, and beyond it the second part of the passage. This is 12 feet square, without lateral doorways, and vaulted. The vault is of four cells, three ribs and two half or wall-ribs springing from each corner corbel, and meeting in one central, four lateral, and four half bosses, placed upon two cross or ridge ribs. They are pierced as in the inner ward gate of the Tower of London, and possibly each contained a flower. The openings are, of the central boss 6 inches, and of the others, 4 inches diameter. These apertures can scarcely have been meant for defence; they are too small, and do not command the four corners of the passage. No doubt a long pike might be thrust down some of them, but scarcely, to be of use, down the half holes next the walls. As to pouring down melted lead, pitch, or oil, such articles were always too expensive to form a part of the regular munitions against a siege, nor is there here, nor in portcullis chambers generally, any furnace for heating such materials in any quantity.

The portal leading from this passage into the inner court has a second pair of doors, and beyond them a second portcullis. This chamber is not a part of the regular gatehouse. It forms a sort of porch projecting from it into the court, and has no upper story. A well-stair on the left opened from the court, and led up to the embattled platform which rested on the vault. This subsidiary prolongation of the length and defences of the entrance passage is believed to be peculiar to Bodiham.

Over the outer part of the passage is the portcullis chamber. It has at each end a low four-centred arch, which concealed the head of the grate, when lifted, and above this, at each end, is the customary small window. The lobby between the well-stair and this chamber is groined and ribbed, and in the centre is a large boss carved in foliage. The gatehouse lodges have a pit or sub-basement, perhaps a cellar, perhaps merely a cavity to keep the floors dry. If cellars, they were entered by traps in the floor above. There are also, above the basement, two upper floors.

The lesser gatehouse is placed opposite to the main gate, in the centre of the southern face of the castle, and though equally lofty, is much smaller. It is a plain tower 22 feet square, projecting 15 feet in advance of the curtain, but with no internal projection. The outer gate is in the centre of the tower, and had a portcullis, and behind it were folding doors. The entrance passage is 11 feet square, vaulted as the great gateway, but not so lofty. Right and left are loops raking the curtain. A door in the west wall opens into the usual well-stair, contained within the north-west angle. There is no lodge. The inner portal was closed by doors only. It opened into a passage at the lower end of the great hall.

In front of, and outside this gatehouse, there project 9 feet into the moat two walls about 3 feet thick. They seem to have contained between them a bridge pit, over which a bridge dropped from the gateway, upon a cross wall which remains. The pit is filled up. Opposite, the counterscarp of the moat, 62 yards distant, is revetted, and from it projects a half-hexagonal pier. How this intervening space was traversed is not now seen. Scarcely by a boat, for the pier is evidently intended to support a timber bridge, and a boat could not conveniently be reached from it. Probably there was a footway upon tressels or wooden piers.

Thus much of the two gatehouses, the only towers which are machicolated. Each leads into the court of the castle, an open space 86 feet south and north, by 76 feet east and west; round which are placed, against the curtains, the domestic buildings, 22 to 30 feet in depth, some of one floor, some of two, but all of nearly equal height, and so placed as to conceal the curtain and the lower parts of the towers from the inner court.

Right and left of the great gatehouse the buildings had a ground and first floor. Those on the left, or to the east, were rather more ornate, as being nearer to the state apartments. The north-east and north-west towers communicated on each side with these rooms. They have sub-basement pits, with loops, a ground and two upper floors. They differ somewhat in details, but each has a well-stair in its gorge wall, and mural closets and fireplaces at the several levels. The pits are circular, the chambers above hexagonal.

Along the west side are offices, and probably servants’ apartments, and rooms for the garrison. In the centre a large and handsome doorway, with a window on each side and traces of a porch, opens into a small kitchen, a room 21 feet by 16 feet, having on each side a fireplace, with a converging tunnel, and an arched head of 12 feet span and 2 feet rise. There is no hood or projection. The roof was open, and at the battlement level. A gallery seems to have run across above the door, entered from the room to the south, and beneath it in the wall is also a door.

The enclosure next south seems to have been of two floors. The lower room, 38 feet by 22 feet, was probably for stores or for the servants; the upper was the lesser hall. The lower room had two windows to the court and a small door, and perhaps between the windows a shallow fireplace with a bold hood. Above was a noble room of the same size. The lower room opened into the west tower. This, like the east tower, is 25 feet broad, by 21 feet deep, and of 15 feet projection from the curtain. The sub-basement here was evidently a cellar. It has three loops a little above the water-level. A well-stair in the south-east angle leads upwards from the ground-level.

Along the south side were placed the great kitchen, buttery, and great hall. The kitchen, 33 feet by 24 feet, occupies the south-west angle, and communicates with the adjacent angle tower. It has two large fireplaces, of 12 feet span, in the north and south walls. The former has an oven in its west jamb, an afterthought, as it projects into the adjacent room. The other had a large stone hood, of which one springing stone remains, and is buttressed by a corbel, placed in the hollow angle to receive its thrust, as at St. Briavels. The kitchen had an open, lofty roof. Next is the buttery, of two floors, with traces of a cellar below. It is 18 feet by 24 feet, and opened into the hall by three equilaterally arched doorways side by side, each towards the hall, having a deep hollow early Perpendicular moulding. These opened into a passage under the music-gallery.

The hall was about 50 feet long by 26 feet broad, with an open roof. It had, at the dais end of the south wall, a window of two lights, with a transom; the lower pair square-headed, the upper pair pointed. The whole is in a recess, with a flat segmental arch. There are said to have been two windows in the north wall, looking into the court, and here probably was the fireplace, for fireplaces and not central hearths seem to have been in fashion here. The hall door remains. It is a handsome archway with a double ogee moulding. It opened below the music-gallery, and at the other end of this passage was the entrance to the lesser gatehouse, so that there was access from the court to the gate, through a passage screened off from the occupied part of the hall. Of course, the lesser gateway was used for foot-passengers only. A passage somewhat similar crosses the lower end, not of the hall itself, but of the vaults below the hall, at Kenilworth.

The state apartments and chapel occupied the east side, and the former seem mostly to have been of two floors.

Behind the end of the hall was a large room, called the armoury, from which opened the south-east tower. Here the sub-basement is hexagonal, and was vaulted and groined. The vaulting has fallen away, but the corbels remain, and the six gables and wall-ribs. Probably this was a private store or cellar, for it has no fire or garderobe, and though the vaulting was elegant, the chamber, being at or a trifle below the water-level, must always have been damp. The upper floors were of timber.

Probably the term armoury is modern, and here were the withdrawing-rooms, to which a passage led from the north end of the dais, outside the hall. There remains a platform of masonry, which seems to have been laid to carry such a passage.

North of these rooms are traces of others, which communicated with the east tower and chapel, and were probably private apartments, with windows to the court. Under the whole was a range of cellars, below the court level, but with doors and loops ascending to it.

Next comes the chapel, 29 feet by 19 feet, having a large pointed window of three lights at the east end. The floor, of timber, covered a cellar, having a loop, rising to the court, and a door in the south wall. The eastern end has a solid raised platform for the altar, and near it a small north window. To the south is a small plain-pointed piscina, and near it a lancet door, opening by steps into a vaulted and groined mural chamber, 11 feet by 6 feet, intended as a sacristy, having two lockers, and a small window to the moat. The chapel door was in the south wall, leading from the lower private apartments. Above the sacristy is a rather larger room, having a door from the upper apartments, and a square-headed window, of two trefoiled lights, looking into the chapel; evidently the lord’s private seat, whence, unseen, he could be present at mass. There was no west door, or direct entrance from the court. The chapel seems to have had an open timber roof.

The masonry throughout the castle is excellent ashlar, the material a fine-grained, soft, but durable sandstone. There is but little ornament. There were seven main well-staircases, each terminating in an octagonal turret, serving as a head. The stairs did not ascend to the top of the turret, which was domed over, and inaccessible. The rooms are almost all furnished with fireplaces, and very many with mural garderobes which seem to have been closed with curtains, or not at all, since there are no marks of doors. Their shafts descend within the walls, and discharge into the moat below the surface. The windows generally are small, that of the chapel and of the hall are the only ones even of tolerable size, towards the moat.

The drum towers look older than their real date, their gorge-walls, general proportions and arrangement, well-staircases, and lancet and often trefoiled windows, savouring of the Edwardian period. Their hexagonal interiors, however, and the bold and simple moulding that crowns their parapets, belong to the Perpendicular style. The chimneys throughout are octagonal, well-proportioned, but plain, save the embattled moulding above. They may be later than the castle.

The three armorial shields over the great gateway represent Bodiham or Bodeham, Dalingruge, and Wardeux. The central, being that of the founder, is placed angle-wise beneath his helmet and crest. There were also three shields above the lesser gateway. One was, no doubt, Dalingruge, as before, another was Knollys, out of compliment to that commander.

The battlements generally have a plain ? coping, with a beaded ridge towards the field. The merlons are much broader than the embrasures, but are not pierced. The coping is not repeated in the embrasures. No well has been discovered, nor any lead piping, as at Ledes, where the castle was supplied with pure water from a spring at some little distance. On the whole, the castle, for its period, is unusually severe in its arrangements, there being scarcely any traces of luxury. It was a castle, not a manor house, nor palace.

There remains to be described a very singular feature in this castle, the approach to the great gateway. At present, a causeway of earth, about 6 feet broad, springs from the north bank of the moat, and proceeds direct, about 62 feet, towards the opposite gateway. It then stops abruptly, and its head is revetted in masonry, which, however, is modern. Opposite, 11 feet distant, the water flowing between, is an octagon of 16 feet on each face, or 40 feet diameter, rising as an island out of the moat, and revetted all round. There was evidently a shifting bridge of some kind between this octagon and the causeway. Whether this octagon carried any superstructure is uncertain, probably it had only the parapet, of which traces remain.

Crossing the octagon in the same straight line, there is reached a second gap, of 6 feet, and beyond this is a rectangular island about 21 feet north and south, by 20 feet broad, also revetted all round, and on which revetment stood the walls of the barbican. This was, therefore, a rectangular building, traversed by the entrance passage, and having a doorway at either end, the outer guarded by a portcullis, and the inner by doors. The passage was vaulted and apparently groined. It seems to have been of one stage only, the platform resting on the vault and battlements. In the north-west corner was a well-stair, opening from the passage, and ascending to the roof. Grose’s drawing shows this as though it was a side or foot entrance, which does not appear to have been the case. The work is excellent ashlar, but only the west side remains.

The barbican is about 54 feet from the great gate, and at present is connected with it by a causeway. As this causeway is here and there seen to be revetted, it may be original, in which case it was possibly broken at either end, and the connection carried on by bridges falling from the barbican and from the great gate. This, however, is conjecture only.

Some doubt has arisen as to how the octagon was originally approached from the main land. This doubt is caused by the presence of a demi-pier of masonry projecting from the west bank a few yards from its north end, and therefore opposite to the octagon. It is therefore supposed that the causeway from the north bank is an addition, and that another causeway, or some kind of communication, was laid from the west bank to the octagon, a much greater distance, nearly thrice as far. No doubt a similar half-pier on the south bank indicates a communication thence with the lesser gateway, but here there seems no reason whatever for the suggested lengthening and bend in the approach. On the whole, for whatever purpose the western pier may have been intended, the evidence is in favour of the approach having always been along the present line. Neither the north nor the west bank is commanded seriously by higher ground. That to the north rises, no doubt, but scarcely so as to give any great advantage to archers posted to annoy those entering the castle, and certainly no greater advantage than could be gained from the rising ground to the west. Possibly the pier was intended for the mooring and protection of the boats employed on that side of the moat. A road, still traceable, led up to this demi-pier.

This double outwork in the moat is peculiar, it is supposed, to Bodiham. At Ledes, indeed, there are two barbicans, but they are not exactly in the moat, but upon the bank, and are deeply intrenched, so as to carry the water round them. At Caerphilly, there is a single large isolated pier in the centre of the moat, now dry, which pier was connected by drawbridges with the great gate and the counterscarp, and may be likened to the octagon in the present instance.