VI. 



Norwich Castle as a Museum. 



THE most salient features which, from a' distance, mark the site 

 of the ancient and picturesque City of Norwich are its cathedral 

 spire, and its still more venerable castle, the donjon-keep of 

 which forms a striking object for many miles around. Long before 

 the Romans had set foot in Britain this spot had been selected by the 

 Iceni for a British village, and the elevated peninsula of land, almost 

 encircled between the rivers Yare and Wensum, had presented to 

 these early and warlike people a favourable site for a stronghold 

 where, enclosed by earthworks, defended by wooden palisades, and 

 encircled by ditches, they might well defy the incursions of neigh- 

 bouring tribes as restless and as hostile as themselves. 



There is no evidence of Roman masonry in the castle walls, but 

 the neighbouring camp at Caister was doubtless maintained to over- 

 awe the district, and they may have fortified the earthworks of the 

 British station, and even kept a part of their garrison there ; for all 

 the old Roman roads in Norfolk must have radiaced from Caister or 

 Norwich (then the Venta Icenov'um), proving that it was a place of 

 great military importance in the Roman period. 



As the earlier occupiers, the Danes and Saxons, mostly built in wood, 

 we shall be justified in concluding that nearly the whole of the 

 present castle ^ is of Norman origin. 



Uffa, first king of the East Angles, built the earliest structure 

 here, a.d. 575, but this was destroyed by Sweyn, king of Denmark, 

 in 1003, in revenge for the massacre of the Danes in the previous 

 year; but in loii the Danes themselves rebuilt the castle and city, 

 and Norwich, for the time, became a Danish stronghold. Canute, it 

 is stated, erected another building here about 1018, but the present 

 castle was probably built soon after the Norman Conquest. 



The following inscription is placed on the eastern face of the keep: — 

 " This Royal Castle, built by William Rufus, as Knyghton 

 testifies in his Chronicles, on the site of one much more ancient, has 

 been used as a county gaol since the year 1345, and was finally vested 

 in the Magistrates of Norfolk for that purpose by a Royal Grant, 

 confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1806. 



" The ornamental work and facing of the exterior having fallen 



1 Except the rubble flint-work foundations, the lower course of the keep, and the 

 bridge over the moat, which is the largest arch extant in this country attributed to 

 the Saxons. 



2V 2 



