IN a preceding chapter an attempt was made to describe the appearance and to give an outline of the history of those earthworks in England and Normandy upon which the Norman and Anglo-Norman barons founded their chief strongholds, and which, therefore, are connected with the military architecture of either country. It is now proposed to describe the buildings themselves, whether placed within the ancient earthworks or altogether of original foundation, which constituted the fortresses of England in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, through the periods known in ecclesiastical architecture as the Norman and Transition, and which, in military architecture, include the Norman form of castle. What is known as the Norman style of architecture prevailed in England from the Conquest to the close of the reign of Stephen,—that is, from 1066 to 1154; but this latter is necessarily an arbitrary date, since it was by degrees only that one style of architecture passed into another, and the Norman features, though found in all buildings, and especially in castles, down to the end of the reign of Henry II., or 1189, became more and more mixed up with those of the succeeding style.

The castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, whether in Normandy or in England, were of two distinct types,—those with the rectangular and those with the shell keep. The former type was almost always employed when the site selected was a new one, the latter where the site was old, and where there existed a “motte” or mound. There are exceptions to this; that is to say, the rectangular keep is occasionally found on an old site, but the shell keep is never found on a new one. The distinction was mainly due to the fact that the massive heavy tower could only be safely founded upon solid ground, whereas the lighter and more widely-distributed weight of the shell keep was better suited to that which was artificial. The shell keep was the most numerous of the two; but the tower type, being of a more solid and more durable character, has lasted longest, and is at this time so much the most common that it has been designated by writers of authority as the type, instead of as but one of the two types of a Norman keep. The rectangular and the shell keep never occur in the same castle; and, as a rule, where there is a mound there is no rectangular keep. The only known exceptions to this rule are at Christchurch, Guildford, Clun, Saffron Walden, Mileham, Bungay, and Bramber. At Christchurch and Mileham the mound is low, and the keep walls seem to be carried through it to the solid ground. At Guildford, as at Clun, where the mound is large, the keep is built on its slope, so that the lower end and one-third of the contiguous sides are seen to rest on the solid ground, and thus effectually counteract the tendency of the upper part to slide down. Walden has not been carefully examined, nor is it known whether the foundations at Bungay are carried down to the solid earth. At Bramber there is an oblong natural hill, surrounded by a very deep ditch, in part artificial, while at one end of the hill is a square keep, and near the other a small mound. At Llwchwr, in South Wales, a small square tower stands upon a low and small mound, mixed up with the bank of a Roman camp. The tower, indeed, is not actually Norman, though no doubt early, and it most probably descends to the natural ground. The large rectangular tower at Oxford is not the keep, but a mural tower, though of unusual bulk. The keep there was a shell, and crowned the mound. At Kenilworth there seems to have been a small mound, which has been included within the keep, the walls of which rest upon the natural rock. The mound in this way fills up the basement of the keep, the ground-floor of which is thus raised 12 feet to 15 feet above the exterior level, as in the shell keep of Berkeley and in some degree at Pontefract.

The rectangular keep is, of all military structures, the simplest in form, the grandest in outline and dimensions, the sternest in passive strength, the most durable in design and workmanship, and in most cases by some years the earliest in date. Of the five great fortresses which covered the road from Dover to London, Dover itself, Canterbury, Rochester, and London have square keeps; the fifth, Tonbridge, having an earlier mound, has a shell keep. Farnham and Berkhampstead, Windsor, Wallingford, and Oxford,—fortresses guarding London from the west,—having mounds, have not square keeps. Hedingham and Colchester to the east, having square keeps, are without the mound, though Hedingham, like Corfe and Bramber, stands on a natural hill. Northwards, Warwick and Kenilworth confirm the rule, one having had a mound and no square keep; the other a square keep which has absorbed the mound, if mound there was. At Belvoir, the mound, a natural hill, is capped by a shell, as were the artificial mounds of Bedford, Cambridge, Clare, Eye, and Ongar, while rectangular keeps are, or were, found at Chepstow, Ludlow, Bristol and Wattlesborough, Lancaster and Newcastle, and on the moundless sites of Bamburgh, Carlisle, Corfe, Norham, Norwich, Nottingham, Porchester, Scarborough, Knaresborough, Helmsley, and Richmond, and in the less distinguished lordships, some of Norman foundation, of Appleby, Brough, Brougham, Bowes, Castle Rising, Clitheroe, Castleton, Goderich, and Prudhoe. Where there is a rectangular keep it rises high over every part of the fortress, and gives, as at Bamburgh, unity and grandeur to the architectural composition. It is usually, as at Rochester, Dover, Richmond, and Scarborough, placed upon the highest ground within the enclosure, and very rarely indeed in or near the centre, although, as in London, it may have been rendered central by the removal of its original enceinte and the substitution of new and extended lines. At Malling, perhaps the earliest in England of these keeps, and at Helmsley, probably the latest,—for that of Knaresborough, though square, is of Decorated date,—the keep stands on one side of, and forms a part of the enceinte. At Bamburgh, Bramber, Canterbury, Carlisle, Clitheroe, and Rochester, the keep stands clear of, but very near to, the outer wall, of which, at Porchester, it forms one angle. At Kenilworth and Bridgenorth the keep forms an angle of the inner wall; at Norham one face ranges with the outer and one with the inner wall; and at Ludlow the keep is placed on the inner wall, close to the main gateway. At Ogmore it occupies an angle, having one face on the outer and one on the cross or inner wall. Dover stands detached in the middle of what appears to be its original enclosure, and so, probably, did Hedingham and Castle Rising. At Mitford, near Morpeth, is a singular example of a rectangular keep, of which three angles are right-angled, and the fourth face is broken into two planes meeting at a low salient. It is probably late in the period.

These keeps vary in dimensions from 25 feet to 80 feet and even 100 feet in the side, and they are usually from one and a half to two diameters in height to the base of the parapet. Many, perhaps most, have been raised a stage, as Porchester, Bridgenorth, Richmond, Brough, Brougham, Kenilworth, and Norham. In most of these cases the addition was made within the Norman period, and possibly contemporaneous with the substitution of a covering of lead for one of shingles or stone tiles.

Usually the flat exterior faces are relieved by broad pilaster strips of slight projection from 5 feet to 10 feet wide, by 6 inches in depth, one at the end of and flanking each face, and in the larger keeps one, or even two, between them. The flanking pilasters are commonly placed so as to cover the angle, the two meeting; sometimes, however, they do not quite meet, and the solid angle is replaced by a hollow nook, occasionally, in late keeps, as at Castle Rising and Scarborough, occupied by a bold bead or engaged shaft. In all but the very small keeps these flanking pilasters are continued 8 feet to 10 feet clear above the parapet as the outer faces of square turrets, now usually ruined. At Hedingham one, partly perfect, remains. Those on the White Tower and at Rochester are in part original, and certainly represent, very closely, original structures. At Bowes there seems to have been but one turret, covering the stairhead. The intermediate pilasters usually stop either just below the base of the parapet or below an upper window. At Dover they are carried into the parapet and support slight internal recesses there, but this is very rare. The pilasters usually are divided by strings into stages, marking the levels of the different floors, and all rise from a common plinth, sometimes slight, but sometimes, as at Malling, Kenilworth, Guildford, Scarborough, and Norham, where one side rises from lower ground, the plinth is on that side 8 feet to 10 feet high, and has at Kenilworth and Norham a very bold base. The set-off and string-course are sometimes carried along both wall and pilasters. At Colchester and at the White Tower a projecting half-round forms the apse of the chapel, and the pilasters appear upon it; at Rochester a rounded corner is solid, save at one story, but this is probably due to a reconstruction. The pilasters are one of the most marked features of the Norman style, and their presence at once distinguishes a keep of that period from the fine fourteenth-century towers, as Borthwick and Lochleven, found in Scotland, as well as from towers of Early English date, where the pilasters are bolder and narrower, and often, as at Exeter Castle, chamfered at the angles.

The keep wall is from 7 feet to 14 feet thick, and at the base of the foundation sometimes 20 feet. That of Colchester is reputed to be 30 feet. That of the Tower of London is said to have taken six weeks to pierce, with all modern tools and appliances. The lower 14 feet of the keep of Newcastle is thought to be solid. The wall usually diminishes in thickness as it rises, sometimes by external sets-off of 6 inches, more commonly by an internal step of 1 foot at each floor level. Occasionally the exterior face slopes inward or batters, but this is unusual. The summit at the level of the allure or battlement walk is seldom less than 6 feet, and often 7 feet or 8 feet thick. Within, the larger keeps are divided by a cross wall, usually ascending to the summit, and pierced in each floor. Sometimes this wall is confined to the basement and first floor. Kenilworth, a large keep, had no cross wall; Norwich and Canterbury had two, and some have chambers walled off at the ends by secondary cross walls, as Castle Rising, Wolvesey, Colchester, and the White Tower. At Bowes two walls divided the basement into three chambers. Usually these dividing-walls were pierced by doorways, but the openings in the main floor were larger. At Scarborough was, and at Hedingham still is, a single large arch; at Rochester and at Middleham are several arches. At Porchester are only small doorways. Where there is no cross wall its place was, no doubt, supplied by posts of timber. The smaller keeps have a basement and a first floor; the larger, a second and third floor,—the latter being often an early addition.

The basement chamber is almost always at the exterior ground level, and never much below it; it is commonly from 12 feet to 15 feet high, aired, rather than lighted, by one or more narrow loops in each face, splayed and stepped up to within: Richmond has not even these. The basement was evidently always a storeroom. Now and then, as at Scarborough, but not often, its walls contain chambers; more commonly they are solid. In small keeps, as Ludlow and Carlisle, the first was the main floor, or room of state; in the larger, as Rochester, it seems to have been a barrack. The apertures were rather larger than those below, but not much. In the walls were commonly chambers. In the large keeps the main floor, usually the second, was from 25 feet to 30 feet high, generally with windows 2 feet or so broad, and often coupled under a single arch outside. Inside, the recess was splayed, and sometimes descended to the floor level, while in the jambs were door-openings into mural chambers. Some of these castle halls must have been noble rooms. Where there was a cross wall, as at Rochester, Norham, and Middleham, there were two rooms; at Kenilworth the large open space was probably subdivided by a brattice. Usually, in the larger castles, the wall of the main floor is pierced, high up, by a sort of triforium gallery, into which the outer windows open, and which opens into the chamber by lofty and larger arches of 3 feet to 4 feet opening. Possibly these galleries and their windows were intended to give another line of defence; but they must have destroyed the privacy of the hall and made it very cold. Above the main floor was an upper floor, probably occupied as private rooms, bratticed off by partitions of wood. Where this floor was not a part of the original building, to gain it seems to have been one object of the addition. It was placed immediately below the roof. The original roof seems to have been inclined at a moderate pitch, such as was necessary to carry off the water from a covering of shingles. The gables did not rise above the parapet, so that there was thus a great loss of space. In the smaller keeps the roof was a simple ridge with lateral gutters; where there was a cross wall the roof was double, with a central as well as lateral gutters. That this was the usual arrangement is clear from the old weather mouldings, which remain in the end walls wherever these have been raised. The original roof having its ridge rather below the parapet, had its side gutters in deep hollows. Of course, no military engine could have been placed on such a roof. Where the walls have been raised the roof has been replaced by a floor, and an upper story introduced with either a flat, or nearly flat, and leaded roof. These additions are almost always late Norman; but at Brougham they are Decorated. At Ludlow, where there was a central ridge with two lateral gutters, the interior has been re-arranged, and a flat roof laid at the ridge level of the old one, gaining a floor without raising the walls. The gables never seem, as in the Scottish towers, to have risen above the parapet. Probably one reason why the Norman roofs were lifted and flattened was to allow of military engines being placed upon them, and the use of lead must have come in rather suddenly just before the close of the Norman period.

The floors of these keeps are almost always of timber; thick rough planks, resting upon stout balks 12 inches or 14 inches square, placed about 2 feet or 3 feet apart, and resting either on a ledge or in regular joist-holes. Such floors exposed the keep to be burned, and once well on fire it would certainly burn till it was gutted. The basement is now and then vaulted, but the vaulting is very rarely original, and when it is so the keep is late. The vaulting at the Tower and at Dover is modern brickwork; the Ludlow vault seems Early English; that at the lower part of Carlisle, that of Porchester, Brougham, Bowes, and Richmond, Decorated; the vaulting at Middleham, Newcastle, and Mitford may be original. The vaulting at Norham, a late keep, may be original, but was more probably inserted at an early period by Bishop PuisÈt. That of Bamburgh is an insertion. The basement of Bowes was vaulted, but what remains of one rib is either Decorated or later. In a few examples where guns have been mounted on a Norman keep, a brick vault has been sprung over the upper chamber, and the roof filled up and paved. At Dover, Carlisle, and Newcastle, where this has been done, the upper openings of the hall are closed, and the interior of the fabric utterly disfigured. There is certainly no original vaulting of a great chamber higher than the basement.

In most keeps there is a well-stair in one angle, which commences at the ground-level, supplies every floor, and terminates on the roof under the turret-head, but has no communication below with the exterior. This was so originally at the White Tower. There are also other staircases at other levels, beginning on the first, or even the second, floor, and not always reaching the roof. As a rule, one stair, descending to the storeroom, seems to have been enough; but it was thought an advantage to have two or three ascending from the hall or upper floor to the ramparts, for readiness during a siege. At Canterbury there are also two well-staircases in the side walls; and there is one in London. These well-staircases are from 8 feet to 12 feet in diameter, and lighted with loops. Usually they communicate with each floor through a sort of lobby. The stairs are always of stone. As the steps at each angle do not suit the same level of the mural gallery, these latter are coaxed and accommodated, usually very clumsily. Now and then the arrangement is different, the stair stops at the first floor, and is continued at the opposite diagonal. Sometimes, as at Carlisle, Ludlow, and Bamburgh, where the outer door is at the ground-level, the staircase commences in the side of the doorway, and ascends straight in the wall, and, on reaching the next angle proceeds as a well-stair. This is so at Chepstow, where the upper ascent is probably an addition. At Carlisle and Ludlow the staircase stops at the first floor, and is continued at another angle. At Brough, where the outer door is on the first floor, a narrow straight stair rises in the wall to the second. At Prudhoe, it is continued round two sides, and at Richmond. The direction of the staircases may be always detected by the position of the exterior loops, and the general rule seems to be to limit the approach to the stores and main floor, and from the latter to give a free access to the ramparts. The curves and angles in those narrow staircases facilitated the defence of them.

The immense thickness of the walls is usually taken advantage of for the formation of mural chambers. These are rectangular, and sometimes placed in an angle, and ?-shaped. They are vaulted, usually in a plain barrel, or equally plain groining, lighted by external loops, and now and then, though very rarely, have, as at Bowes, a fireplace. In breadth they vary from 4 feet to 6 feet, and they are of all lengths. Usually they are more abundant and larger, in the main and upper floors. They were intended for sleeping-rooms, garderobes, oratories, and well-chambers. At Guildford is a very remarkable oratory, at the first-floor level, ?-shaped, with a mural arcade. At Brougham the oratory is on the upper floor. At Rochester and Dover the upper gallery does not run all round; and in the latter ends in a prison cell. Some keeps, even with thick walls, contain but few chambers. The two remaining sides of Norham, a late keep, have none, or, at most, one. Dover, also late, is honeycombed with chambers at every level, and even the cross-wall above is threaded by a gallery, a singular example. Newcastle, built in 1080, has very many chambers. Where there are garderobes they have stone seats, and the vent is usually a vertical shaft in the wall, though sometimes there is a shoot upon the exterior surface of it, or, though more rarely, it is corbelled out. At Kenilworth, a fine but late keep, one angle contained a well-stair, and the three others chambers. They are turrets from the ground, and in size larger than usual. They are floored with timber. One angle turret seems to have been wholly occupied by garderobes, and the lower part, at present filled with light soil, was evidently a large cesspool. At Corfe a very large garderobe tower,—perhaps a Norman addition,—is appended to one side of the keep.

Most keeps, even early ones, contain fireplaces. One has been discovered in the Tower, long supposed to be without them. At Dover they are in the cross-wall; at Rochester, where they are very handsome, in the sides. Usually the funnel ascends in the wall; at Rochester and Colchester it forks, and the two flues open a little way up on the face of the wall, concealed in the hollow angle of a pilaster. It is not easy to tell whether a flue is original when the fittings of the fireplace have been inserted; thus, in the Tower closets, where the fireplaces are Tudor, there are no marks in the wall as though it had been cut into to construct a flue, so these may represent original fireplaces, though this is not probable. No doubt open hearths were much used, and fireplaces of iron with flues of wood and plaster, which would leave no trace when removed. The fireplaces in the mural chambers at Dover seem all to be of Tudor date. No fireplace has been discovered in Richmond keep; there is an original one in a mural chamber at Bowes.

These keeps, built mainly for security, have but few external openings, and those rarely of any size. Sometimes the narrowest part of the loop is in the centre of the wall, with a splay each way, having the section of an hour-glass. This is seen at Kenilworth and Porchester, late keeps. The arrangement seems a bad one, much aiding the entrance of an arrow. The larger windows, sometimes of 3 ft. or 4 ft. opening, were closed with shutters.

A well was an important accessory to a Norman keep. In Dover there are two—one being in the forebuilding. Sometimes, as at Bamburgh and Castle Rising, its mouth is at the ground level. More frequently its pipe is contained within the wall, and opens into a special well-chamber, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Kenilworth. At Carlisle it is in the wall, and was reached by an internal lateral opening, now converted into an external one. At Rochester it is in the cross-wall; the pipe there ascends to the summit, and has an opening at each floor, and there are traces of some such arrangement at Canterbury. At Porchester the well occupies one angle of the wall, and opens on each floor. At Colchester the well, long closed, has been discovered. It is in the basement, near the entrance. At Hedingham there is known to be a well, but its place is lost. At Bamburgh, one of the most remarkable wells in the country, carried down 145 ft. in whin rock, was only discovered in the last century. At Richmond a hollow octagonal pier, carrying the vault, has been built exactly over the well, which is reached through it. At Arques, in Normandy, where the well is near one angle, a pipe has been built over it, raising the mouth to the first floor. At Bowes, Brough, Brougham, Guildford, Castleton, and Corfe, no well has been discovered, and it is only very recently that one has been laid open in the White Tower, in London.

Great pains were usually taken to cover the entrances of these keeps by a forebuilding, the details of which have been but little studied. Upon one side of the keep, but a part of its structure, was placed a smaller tower, also rectangular, of the length—that is, covering one side—and about one third of the breadth, of the keep, and two thirds of its height. At one end, at the ground level, commenced a straight staircase which rose to near the other end when it stopped at a landing which was the vestibule of the actual entrance to the keep. Above the lowest part of the staircase was a low tower and a strong doorway. Halfway up the staircase was often a second doorway, and sometimes, as at Dover, a second tower. Over the landing at the stair-head was a larger and taller tower, also with a strong doorway. Outside this doorway the staircase was often broken by a drawbridge, as at Rochester. The staircase was not always covered over, but was protected by an exterior parapet of some height, as at Berkeley, where the shell keep has a forebuilding, a very unusual example. The battlements of the lower or entrance tower were reached by a little door in the adjacent angle of the keep high up. This is seen at Rochester, and at Middleham and Brougham, where the tower itself is removed. In the keep-wall by the side of the staircase was often a recess for the guard, as at Middleham. The bridge-pit had an exterior parapet concealing those who used the bridge. At Castle Rising where the middle gate is perfect, its battlements are reached by a small door from the keep.

The vestibule at the stair-head was usually a good-sized chamber, often vaulted. In it was the main doorway of the keep, of not less than 6 feet opening, with flanking shafts and moulded architrave. At Castle Rising this ante-chamber is arcaded, and very handsome; at Rochester it is plain, or nearly so. At Dover it contains a guard-chamber, at Newcastle and at Middleham a chapel. The basement below the vestibule was usually a prison, and had a small door into the corresponding basement of the keep. At Rochester are two floors below the vestibule and two above it. The forebuilding is perfect only at Castle Rising, Norwich, Dover, and Newcastle; there are large remains of it at Rochester, Porchester, and Middleham, and some at Hedingham, Corfe, and Kenilworth. At Scarborough, Brougham, Bramber, Canterbury, and Helmsley there are traces only. At Dover there are vaults below the staircase and lower tower, above which is a vestibule and a chapel, and in the first or upper floor a second chapel. Sometimes there is a way from the foot of the staircase of the forebuilding into the basement of the keep, but probably this is not original. It is seen at Dover, Newcastle, and Castle Rising. The White Tower has been so pulled about that it is difficult to say how it was originally entered. The forebuilding is essentially a Norman appendage, and, with the exception of Berkeley, and, perhaps, Chilham and Orford, confined to keeps of the rectangular pattern. It has been supposed to mark a late keep, but there is a forebuilding at Arques usually regarded as a very early one.

In the smaller keeps, and some few of the larger ones, there is no forebuilding, and the entrance is by a plain arch, as at Clitheroe, Goderich, Bowes, Guildford, and Malling. This entrance was on the first floor. In the latter case it is, indeed, in the basement, but nevertheless 10 feet above the ground level. The approach in these cases seems to have been by an external staircase of timber. At Chepstow, Carlisle, Bamburgh, and Ludlow, the entrance was by a single doorway at the ground level. In almost all the larger keeps it has been found convenient—probably when they ceased to be used solely as military buildings—to have a large direct entrance at the ground level. Such have been made at London, Rochester, Norham, Kenilworth, Porchester, Guildford, Clitheroe, Hedingham, Colchester, Goderich, Canterbury, Brough, and Malling, and probably Chepstow. Some of these are evidently insertions, taking the place of a loop; others seem to have been original doors opening from the basement of the keep into that of the forebuilding, made external on its destruction, as at Corfe and, perhaps, Kenilworth. At Richmond the removal of the forebuilding has laid open a large Norman arch in the basement which opened into it. Besides these main doors, Ludlow has two doors opening from the keep upon the ramparts of the curtain; and at Rochester is a small door whence probably a plank drawbridge, six feet or eight feet long, dropped upon the adjacent curtain. There is something like this at Helmsley, and in the Norman keep of Adare, in Ireland.

Most keeps contain an oratory; some a regular chapel. Dover is peculiar in having two, both in the forebuilding, in its lower tower. Newcastle has one in its forebuilding, under the staircase and upper tower. Middleham has the remains of a very handsome one at the head of the outer staircase. At Rochester the chapel seems to have been in the forebuilding, high up, beneath the kitchen. At Castle Rising it is on the first floor of the keep, at one end of one of the large rooms. At Guildford and Brougham it was in the wall. The finest and earliest castle-chapel in England is that in the White Tower. It is large, has a nave, aisles, and semi-circular apse, all vaulted. This chapel occupies two stories, and below it are two floors of vaulted crypts, intended for prisons. The chapel at Colchester, though smaller and ruder, resembles in position that in the White Tower.

Of the three drawings here given, the first gives the plan of the White Tower, London, at the second or chapel floor. The three well staircases are there seen, and the outer and cross walls. Here also is shown, in the south wall, the small mural staircase which ends at this level, and affords the only communication with the main floor of the chapel.

The next drawing shows a plan of the third or uppermost floor, at the level of the clerestory of the chapel. Here the outer wall is shown perforated all round by a mural gallery, which communicates with the three well staircases and with the chapel.

Finally follows a vertical section of the whole keep from east to west, in which is shown the chapel with its clerestory above and its two tiers of crypts below. These drawings, which more especially belong to the detailed description of the Tower of London which follows in its place, are here inserted as illustrating what is written of Norman rectangular keeps in general.