132 The New Forest : its History and its Scenery. 



Avon. Here his son Baldwin de Kedvers in vain fortified himself 

 against Stephen. Here, too, lived his grandson William de 

 Vernon, who helped to bear the canopy at Richard's second 

 coronation at Winchester. Afterwards, the manor passed into 

 the hands of Isabella de Fortibus, who, on her death-bed, sold 

 it, with all her possessions, to Edward I., who well knew the 

 value of. such a stronghold. Though Edward II. bestowed the 

 estate on Sir William Montacute, yet the castle still remained 

 in the hands of the Crown. 



It was standing, though no longer a fortification, in the 

 Commonwealth period. Nothing, however, now remains but 

 the mere shell of the keep, whose walls are in places four yards 

 thick.* 



Below it stands what was, perhaps, the house of Baldwin 

 de Redvers, also in ruins, and roofless, but still a capital speci- 

 men of what is so rarely seen, the true domestic architecture 

 of the twelfth century. Like all the other remaining houses of 

 this period, it is a simple oblong, seventy-one feet by twenty-four 

 broad, and only two stories high, placed for defence on a branch 

 of the Avon, which serves as a moat. On the south-east it is 



* Grose, in his Antiquities (vol. ii., under Christchurch Castle), gives the 

 following curious extract from a survey, dated Oct. 1656, concerning the 

 duties of Sir Henry Wallop, the governor : " Mem. : the constable of the 

 castle or his deputy, upon the apprehension of any felon within the liberty 

 of West Stowesing, to receive the said felon, and convey him to the justice, 

 and to the said jail, at his own proper costs and charges; otherwise the 

 tything-man to bring the said felon, and chain him to the castle-gate, and 

 there to leave him. Cattle impounded in the castle, having hay and water 

 for twenty hours, to pay fourpence per foot." The fee of the Constable in 

 the reign of Elizabeth was 8/ 0*. 9d. Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., 

 book ii.. part. 5, p. 71. In the Chamberlain's Books of Christchurch we are 

 constantly meeting with some such entry as, " 1564, ffor the castel rent for 

 ij yeres xiijs. \d." " 1593, ffor the chiefe rent to the castel vi*. xi<tf. 



