The six buttresses rose as turrets above the crest of the parapet. That to the north-west, near the chimney-shaft, and its neighbour westward, contain half-round recesses, round the curve of which are short staircases, opening from the rampart walk, and which probably ascended to small parapeted platforms, now gone. The buttress to the south contains, as at Orford, an oven, circular, 7 feet across, with a segmental arched door 2 feet wide. The two buttresses to the north and north-east are occupied by two cavities, probably cisterns, half-hexagons in plan, and 2 feet 6 inches deep below the rampart wall level. Each would contain about 650 gallons. The remaining buttress, that above the oratory, contains a half-hexagonal recess or alcove, the floor of which is 9 inches above the rampart wall. It is 9 feet broad at the opening, 5 feet broad at the end, and 8 feet 8 inches deep. It is covered in with a round-headed vault tapering to fit the plan. The height at the entrance is 7 feet 6 inches, and at the inner end 5 feet 7 inches. There are no loops, but the walls of this chamber and the adjacent parts of the parapet are pierced by a number of holes, about 6 inches high by 5 inches broad. These have been supposed to be intended to carry the floor spars of a bretasche or wooden gallery, though they are small for such a purpose, and there are no holes or corbels below for struts. Moreover, these holes are confined to the buttress over the oratory and the adjacent walls, and are not straight (see plan). They extend, it is true, over the main entrance, but had they been intended for its defence they would probably have been placed with the door beneath their centre instead of below one end of the line. That is, they would have been placed in the two flanking buttresses as well as in the bay between them. It has been suggested that these are pigeon-holes, and no doubt, during a strict siege a good supply of these birds might have been found useful. There are certain holes in the keep at Rochester, that probably were so intended, and that are, or recently were, so used.

The height of the parapet is 6 feet 6 inches, and the pattern of the coping may be seen at the junction with the buttress turrets, and this also shows that the roof was confined to the inner circle, and did not project over the parapet. There are also traces showing that the embrasures contained, as at Alnwick, a hanging shutter.

The inner circle, or chamber within the inner walls, was 27 feet diameter, and its flooring rested upon a range of nineteen plain corbels. Only the lower part of the wall of this chamber remains, but the jambs of a doorway show that it was entered from the rampart walk. The wall, and consequently the chamber, was about 7 feet high, and upon it was a conical covering, the eaves of which must have projected somewhat over, and discharged their water into the rampart walk. This mode of finishing off the summit of a tower, by placing the uppermost floor within the circuit of the rampart walk and leaving the battlements free from the roof, is seen in its greatest completeness at Coucy, and what is there seen illustrates what must have been the arrangement here, at Pembroke, at Martens Tower, Chepstow, and in the smaller and later flanking towers of Holyrood House. It is obvious that unless the roof sprung here from a wall within the parapets, or unless there was a timber gallery carried round outside the wall, such a tower as this could not be defended. Its loops were intended for light and air, not for defence; this could only have been directed from the battlements. Hence the absurdity of covering in towers intended for defence, or at any rate to have the appearance of being defensible, with conical roofs springing from the outer wall.

Of course the accommodations of such a tower as this of Conisborough were not such as to suit its lords, still less their ladies, save under the pressure or in expectation of a siege, a remark which applies to all, save the largest, keeps. The passive strength of Conisborough, and its rocky base, secured it against attacks even if seconded by engineering machinery. No catapult or battering-ram would be at all likely to shake or break it. The peril to be guarded against was a blockade, and with this view there was a well within the tower, and the two lower floors, it is clear, were intended for the storage of provisions. The first floor would be the ordinary room of the constable, or lord, and of his family or guests; the men, probably, also sleeping there. The room above would be the ladies’ room, with the oratory close at hand. The kitchen was above all, and there, also, at the battlement level, would be the lodging of the small garrison, probably of not more than ten or a dozen picked men, with a ready communication with the ramparts.

The fashion of round keep towers, quite different from the shell keeps, came in towards the close of the Norman and during the Early English period of architecture, when frequent communication with the East had affected men’s military ideas. A few, such as Brunless, Tretower, Launceston, and Orford, are found in England of that time, but in France there are many, widely spread, and very grand examples. Philip Augustus was a great builder of such towers. That of the Louvre, of which the circular foundations, with the well and the sewer, were uncovered a few years ago, was his work, and to the same period, though late in it, 1223–30, belongs the Tower of Coucy, probably the finest military structure ever built.

Taking a general view of the Castle of Conisborough, and giving due weight to the value of the evidence afforded by its remains, it is clear that the excavation of the ditch, both of the hill and the outwork, and the scarping of the former, were the original and English works, to which an early, though not the earliest, Norman lord added the curtain wall of the enceinte, and much of the lower gatehouse. He certainly also built a hall, kitchen, and lodgings within the inner area. The next addition of importance, the keep, was certainly made a century later. The curtain wall was taken down to make room for a part of it, and not only was there no bond between the old wall and the new tower, but the junction was carelessly and clumsily effected, as may be seen from its present condition. Probably some later alterations were made as regards the hall and lodgings. The wall near the entrance to the inner ward seems to have been partially rebuilt, but subsequently to this there does not seem to have been any addition of importance. The castle was no doubt rendered untenable during the wars of Charles I., and time and neglect have since completed the ruin.

It is singular that so strong and so remarkable a fortress should be but little noticed in the earlier records. Invention, indeed, in the absence of evidence, has attempted to fasten upon it an early history. “Conyng” has, by British antiquaries, been converted into a Breton Conan, and Caer-Conan, thus constructed, has been mixed up with Aurelius Ambrosius and the Kentish Hengist, who is asserted to have here fought, been slain and buried. There is, however, no evidence whatever connecting this place with either the Britons or Bretons, or the Romans, or Hengist. Everything bearing upon its origin is Saxon, but Saxon of a much later date than Hengist. Two tombstones carved in what is generally regarded as a prÆconquistal style were long seen in the churchyard, and are now placed for security in the church—so securely placed, indeed, as to be scarcely visible. The earliest mention of the place is probably in the testament of Wulfric Spot, the minister of King Ethelred, and the founder, in 1004, of the Abbey of Burton-on-Trent. By this document, printed by Dugdale in his Monasticon [I. 266], Wulfric bequeaths to Ælfred certain lands and fisheries of Cunuzesbury, so that about a.d. 1000 it belonged to that great Saxon. Mr. Hunter, whose history of Conisborough leaves nothing to be desired, points out that this devise was really a very ample one, for the fisheries were not those of the Don but of a part of the Soke of Hatfield, which were of great value. In Domesday, the lord of “Coningesboro” had twenty fisheries at Tudworth, yielding each 1,000 eels, and long afterwards they were important enough to be specially recorded. It seems therefore probable that, at least as early as the year 1000, Conisborough was the head of a large estate or Soke. The name of “Moothill field,” borne by an enclosure about three-quarters of a mile south-east of the castle, indicates the place of the court for the liberty or jurisdiction. The hill has been removed. There is a Moot-hall near the church.

While the castle has retained something of its ancient name, that of the ferry over the Don at its foot has undergone translation, and is known as Kingsferry. Who the king was who gave name to both has long been unknown; probably he was of Northumbria. The old Soke, the growth of centuries, received its final consolidation at the Conquest, when it was granted by William the King to William Earl Warren. At that time the fee was probably one extensive parish, for Conisborough seems to have been the mother church of Barthwell, Hatfield, and Sandal, three churches named in Domesday. Conisborough as a parish church, therefore, thinks Mr. Hunter, can scarcely be later than Ælfred, and may be older than even Doncaster itself. Such is the antiquity of the memories and speculations with which this very remarkable place is associated.

Immediately before the Conquest it belonged to Harold the Earl. Earl Warren evidently took it as it stood, and seated himself in the English “Aula” at Conisborough, having about him the twenty-eight vills which either wholly or in part were appended to it, and which included much of the Wapentakes of Strafordes and Siraches. These were the lands “quÆ pertinent ad Coningesberc,” and which formed the “SocÆ pertinens.”

The possessions of Earl Warren in England were extensive, but were especially valuable in Sussex, Norfolk, and Yorkshire; and what Lewes was to the former Conisborough was to the latter, and as the Soke became an Honour the castle was its “caput.” In Earl Warren’s foundation charter to Lewes Priory in 1078, it is provided that the monks should find him lodgings as he went and returned from Yorkshire, so that when he crossed from Normandy he took Lewes on his way. The connexion between his two lordships he cemented by giving to Lewes the church of Conisborough. Earl William was created Earl of Surrey about 1088, and died in 1089, and among his possessions stand enumerated the Lordship and Soke of Conisborough, with twenty-eight vills and hamlets.

II. William Earl of Surrey, son and heir, supported Robert Curthose against Henry II., and with him retired to Normandy. On being pardoned, and his earldom of Surrey restored, he changed sides and fought for Henry at Tinchebrai. He gave to Roche Abbey the tythe of his Hatfield fisheries. He died 1138.

III. William Earl of Surrey, his son and heir, the third earl, joined in the mixed French, German, and English Crusade in 1145, during which, in 1148, he fell, leaving a daughter and heiress.

IV. Isabel de Warren, who married, first, William de Blois, a natural son of King Stephen; and, secondly, Hameline Plantagenet, natural son of Geoffry Earl of Anjou, and half-brother to Henry II.

William was Earl of Boulogne and Mortaigne, and, by his wife, possibly of Surrey. He died childless 1160.

King Henry seems to have taken and held the earldoms for a while in his own hands, but, in 1163, Isabel married Hameline Plantagenet, who enjoyed her honours and estates and, 12 Henry II., paid scutage on sixty knights’ fees. Hameline bore the probably Norman title of Earl Warren, and was an active soldier in his day, a faithful servant to Richard I., and much employed in transactions both of peace and war. Also, though engaged occasionally in Normandy, he appears to have passed most of his time in England, and was by no means an unlikely man to have added the keep to his castle of Conisborough. He died 3 John, 1201, Isabel having died in 1199. Their son succeeded. Earl Hameline founded an endowment for a priest for the chapel of St. Philip and James within the castle. This probably stood in the courtyard for the use of the garrison, for, 11 Edward II., the Earl of Lancaster gave timber from the wood of Conisborough to repair the roof of the chapel within the castle, which therefore could not be the oratory in the keep, which is vaulted. King John was here March 12, 1201, probably taking advantage of the earl’s death to view the castle and possessions.

V. William Plantagenet, or de Warren, son and heir of Hameline and Isabel, who succeeded as fourth Earl of Surrey, was probably then of age, as he had livery at the least of some of his lands, 4 John, 1202. He held the earldom for an unusually long time, and much added to its wealth and consequence. As a Magna Charta Baron, he behaved with great moderation, and upon John’s death he swore allegiance to Henry. He married, first, Maud, a daughter of the Earl of Arundel; and, secondly, Maud, widow of Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk and Earl Marshal, by a daughter of the great William Marshal. He died 1240, 24–5 Henry III., leaving a son, John. Maud, the earl’s widow, had livery, 30 Henry III., of the rod and office of Earl Marshal, as elder co-heir of her brother. She also held the custody of the castles of Conisborough and Chepstow until her death in 1246, 32 Henry III.

Their son and successor, VI. John, fifth Earl of Surrey, who succeeded at five years old, married in 1247, being then very young, Alice le Brun, who died 1290, half-sister of Henry III. In 1254 he paid an aid upon sixty knights’ fees. He lacked much of the prudence of his father, and his general character was scarcely in accord with his famous answer to the “Quo Warranto” of Edward I., to whom, however, he was a better subject than to his sire. He died 32 Edward I., 1304, having held the earldom sixty-four years. He was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Surrey and Sussex.

William his son died 14 Edward I., 1286, and therefore before his father. His son, and the successor to the earldom, was, VII. John de Warren or Plantagenet, sixth Earl of Surrey, a posthumous child, born 1286. When nineteen years of age, he married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Barr, but had by her no issue. 17 Edward II. Conisborough Castle was in the king’s hands, and 18 Edward II. he appointed the Constable. 19 Edward II. the earl recovered his estates, but had surrendered them to the king and his heirs, taking a re-grant for his own life. He was also both Earl of Sussex and Earl of Strathern in Scotland. Joan Countess of Surrey was at her castles at Sandal and Conisborough in 1314.

Earl John died 1347, and his will is dated from Conisburgh Castle, and the title of Surrey seems to have gone to Edward Earl of Arundel, son of Alice, Earl John’s sister. Besides natural daughters, he left two sons by Maud de Nerford, John and Thomas de Warren, to whom and their mother he left, with the king’s permission, a very considerable property, including Conisborough. Thomas Earl of Lancaster seems to have obtained from Earl John some sort of forced occupation of Conisborough, which came to an end upon his attainder, so that Earl John recovered and died seized of it.

About its descent there is some uncertainty, for Henry, the brother and heir of Earl Thomas of Lancaster, did homage for the castle, 1 Edward III., to which John, Earl Warren, laid claim. Earl John held it 5 Edward III., and agreed to a grant of 65 acres of the waste lands of the manor by the king to William de Skargill. Similar grants were made in the five following years by the earl and confirmed by the king, with a note that the earl’s tenure was for life only.

Probably the children of Maud de Nerford found it to their interest to allow the Crown to possess the castle, for at Earl John’s death it was held by Edward III., who granted the castle to Edmund of Langley, his fifth son, afterwards Duke of York, who died 1402, from whom it descended to his son Edward, also Duke of York. He fell at Agincourt, childless, 1415, and was succeeded by Richard, son to his brother Richard Earl of Cambridge. He became Duke of York, and was called also Richard of Conisborough, from his birth in the castle. Richard, who was great-grandson of Edward III. and father of Edward IV., was slain at Wakefield, 1460. His second wife and widow, Maud Clifford, held the castle in dower, and lived here. She died 1464. The decay of the castle probably dates from her death, for Edward Duke of York, who succeeded, became Edward IV., and nothing has generally proved more fatal to an independent historic estate than its absorption by the Crown.

Conisborough remained in the Crown, and, though probably the buildings were suffered to fall into decay, some of the offices attached to the castle and domain were kept up. As late as 1522, Sir H. Wyatt and John Melton were bailiffs and stewards of “the lordships of Conysborowe,” keepers of the park, &c., and there were constables and door-wards of the castle. Finally, James II. granted it to Carey, Earl of Dover, from whose family it passed to that of its present owner. King, in his “Munimenta,” has given elaborate plans, and a yet more elaborate history of this castle, but neither can be depended upon. There is also an excellent paper upon it in the fifth volume of the ArchÆological Journal by Mr. Milward, the plans attached to which seem, however, to be taken from King.

Conisborough Castle deserves a better fate than has of late years attended it, or than seems likely to attend it. Its position upon one of the most celebrated of the Yorkshire streams, its grand natural mount, and the striking character of the earthworks by which it is defended, are quite enough to attract public attention; but in addition it has an undoubted though obscure Saxon history, and from the Norman Conquest it was for three centuries or more the residence of a very powerful race of barons, the evidences of whose power and wealth are preserved in the ruins of their fortress. By whom, or precisely when, the present works in masonry were executed, is a question not exactly to be decided. William de Warren, the third and last earl of the old stock, 1138–1148, was a very likely man to have built in masonry this his most important northern castle, and it is probable that he built the enceinte wall of the inner court, and the hall and offices now destroyed. The keep is certainly later, scarcely much earlier than 1200, and is, therefore, probably the work of Hameline Plantagenet, who held the earldom and the castle from about 1163 to 1201. The tower was, no doubt, added for security only, for, though it contains state apartments and an oratory, these were dark and inconvenient, only fit to be inhabited during a siege. The hall and ordinary lodgings were, of course, more spacious and placed in the court, where are still traces of their foundations.

At a still later period, possibly under Earl John, who held the earldom from 1240 to 1304, the Norman curtain seems to have been repaired and strengthened with round bastion turrets, small and solid, along the southern and western faces of the inner ward. Then also the arrangements for crossing the ditch, and defending the lower entrance, were made more elaborate. The work of this period is of inferior quality, and much of it has fallen down. Since this no additions of any importance seem to have been executed.

It is probable that, during the civil war and after the death of King Charles, the curtain wall, domestic buildings, and lower gate-house were broken down, and the keep gutted and unroofed, but since that time, now nearly two centuries and a half, the ruins seem to have been left untouched save by the hand of time. Such is the excellence of the workmanship of the keep that for very many years the walls stood unshaken. During the last quarter of a century, however, the rains of autumn and the frosts of winter have begun to tell upon the structure, and the top of the tower is in a shaky condition. Still, it is not so far gone but that a few pounds judiciously laid out upon it would save it. The upper two or three feet should be removed, stone by stone, and replaced with water-lime or cement. The cost of this would be very trifling indeed; but what should also be done, and what would not by any means involve a very serious expense, is the replacement of the roof and floors. All Yorkshire, and indeed all the ArchÆological Societies in England, from the Society of Antiquaries down to the most recent local society, must feel an interest in this subject. Probably, if it were brought before the owner of the castle in a proper manner, the necessary repairs would be undertaken; if not, surely it would not be difficult to provide the means by private subscription. In any case something should be done at once, for the top of the keep is in that condition that every winter tells severely upon it.

The plans and illustrations appended to this notice of the castle are from actual survey by Mr. A. S. Ellis, and by him presented to the Yorkshire ArchÆological Society, by whose permission they are here reprinted. They will be found as far superior in accuracy as in completeness of detail to any plans as yet published, and it may be said of them, and it is no slight praise, that they are worthy of the important fortress they are intended to illustrate.