A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



sick and wounded from the French war, of whom Sir 

 A. Ponyngs gave a list, with the charges amounting 

 to 4 4*. lod. daily. 6 ' In 1628 a suggestion was 

 made to use it as a storehouse for the Navy, 63 but the 

 idea was abandoned, and twenty-five years afterwards, 

 when Blake's victories in the Channel brought many 

 prisoners to England, the Navy Commissioners recom- 

 mended the castle as a naval hospital, the situation, 

 air, and water being good, but it ' may cost as much 

 to repair as a new house.' 64 During the Civil War 

 some of Sir W. Balfour's 4,000 horse and dragoons 

 were quartered at Portchester, 2 1 March, 1 644. They 

 were probably Sir Arthur Haslerig's cuirassiers, known 

 to fame as The Lobsters from their iron shells, as six 

 days later, 27 March, Sir W. Balfour was leading 

 these against the cavaliers under Lord Hopton at 

 Cheriton. 65 In 1665, during the war of Charles II, 

 500 Dutch prisoners were detained in the castle. 

 Thomas Middleton writing to Samuel Pepys com- 

 plained that the Dutchmen refused to work on the 

 plea that they were servants of the states of Holland 

 and their wives would get no relief from their masters 

 if they worked for the King of England. 66 The 

 commissioners for victualling proposed to erect a 

 brew-house in the castle in 1 7 1 z, 67 but as it was difficult 

 of access to vessels and would be costly in other ways 

 the project was abandoned. Four thousand French 

 prisoners captured during the Seven Years' War were 

 kept here in 1 76 1, 63 and others during the Napoleonic 

 wars of I799- 69 Paterson describes the castle in 1821 

 as a ' noble pile in form quadrangular and surrounding 

 an area of near 5 acres . . . and it is in sufficient 

 preservation to be appropriated to the purposes of 

 a military prison, for which use it was rented by the 

 government of the proprietors, and during the last 

 war 5,000 persons were secured here at one time." 

 In 1855 ^e castle was 'examined by Dr. Mapleton 

 and Sir Frederic Smith with a view to ascertain its 

 fitness for conversion into a military hospital. They 

 agreed in returning that it was as unfit for the pur- 

 pose as could well be. A building ruinous and falling 

 to pieces, badly ventilated, badly drained, without 

 out-houses, its seven rooms 39ft. by 1 8 ft. badly 

 lighted, the site low, bleak, with miles of exposed 

 mud lying before it, difficult of access, and containing 

 within its limits the parish church and churchyard, 

 there could scarcely be chosen a less desirable site for 

 the proposed hospital." 1 By the end of the 

 eighteenth century the castle had passed with the 

 manor (q.v.) into the hands of the Thistlethwayte 

 family, 7 * and the ruins still remain in their possession. 

 The Roman walls of Portchester Castle, which 

 stand in an excellent state of preservation, due allow- 

 ance being made for the patching and repair which 

 their use in the Middle Ages has caused, inclose an 

 area of some nine acres. They have already been 

 described, 73 and it is unnecessary here to do more than 

 point out that they belong to the latest type of Roman 

 fortress met with in Britain, namely, that in which 

 the defences consist of a wall with towers projecting 

 on the outer face, with no trace of the earthen bank 

 which occurs in the earlier types. On the north and 



west sides it is still protected by a ditch, and there 

 may have been the like defences on south and east, 

 where now is a sea beach, as it is evident from 

 mediaeval records that the sea has encroached on the 

 land to some extent. To the west, outside the first 

 line of ditch, is a much larger bank and ditch, possibly 

 a pre-Roman earthwork. 



The original arrangement of the projecting towers 

 was that there was one set diagonally at each angle of 

 the fortress, and four on each side, except perhaps on 

 the east where there may have been two only, 

 making eighteen towers in all. Of these, two of 

 the angle towers and twelve of the others still stand, 

 and a thirteenth was destroyed as lately as 1790. 

 That the loss of the others was of ancient date is clear 

 from a record of 1 369, 74 when ' all the fifteen turrets ' 

 were ordered to be fitted with wooden tops, and a 

 round turret opposite the church otherwise repaired. 

 The angle turret at the north-west must have been 

 destroyed when the mount on which the keep stands 

 was made, early in the twelfth century or late in the 

 eleventh century. The entrances to the fortress were 

 in the middle of the east and west walls, both probably 

 protected by inner rectangular gatehouses, the eastern 

 of which still exists in part. Whether they were 

 covered by external defences is not clear, but there 

 are no traces of drum towers like those flanking the 

 probably coeval west gate of Pevensey. 



The position of the mediaeval castle is very like 

 that of Pevensey, set in the north-west corner of the 

 inclosure," a small piece being walled off to serve as 

 the inner bailey, while the rest of the area within 

 the Roman walls serves as the outer bailey. The 

 Roman wall forms the north and west curtain of the 

 inner bailey, but has been broken through at the 

 north-west angle, and the great keep projects some 

 feet beyond it in both directions. The inner bailey 

 measures 189 ft. east to west by 120 ft. north to 

 south, and is surrounded by a wall 6 ft. thick with a 

 projecting tower at the south-east angle, and a gate- 

 way towards the east end of the south wall. There 

 are ranges of buildings, all roofless and in ruin, on the 

 west, south, and east, and a tower within the north-east 

 angle, the buildings formerly on the north side of the 

 bailey, except those belonging to the keep, being 

 entirely destroyed. 



The earliest masonry on the site, not reckoning the 

 Roman walls, belongs to the middle of the twelfth 

 century, or perhaps a little later. The first reference 

 to the castle buildings occurs in 1 1 72-4," 4.0*. being 

 assigned to the reparacio of the gates and tower of the 

 castle, and <) for work on the bridge, gates, and 

 wall. The word reparacio, it must be noted, does 

 not generally mean ' repair ' in the modern sense, but 

 rather the fitting up of a building, which may be 

 entirely new, so that the entry does not necessarily 

 imply a much earlier date than 1 172 for the building 

 of the castle. The lower part of the keep is probably 

 the oldest work, and the east and south curtain walls 

 of the bailey, with the south-east tower and the first 

 23 ft. of the south gateway, are probably of the time 

 of Henry II. There is also some twelfth-century 



13 Ref. on MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury 

 (Hist. MSS. Com.), pt. i, 282. 



68 Cal. S.P. Dam, 1625-49, P- 3 11 - 



M Ibid. 1652-3, p. 224. 



85 Godwin, Civil War in Hampshire, 

 127, 128. 



66 Cal. S.P. Dom. 1664-5, P- 5'9- 



6 7 Cal. of Treat. Papers, vol. I47,p. 388. 



68 Cal. of Home Off. Papers, 29. 



Rep. on MSS. of T. B. Fortescue 

 (Hist. MSS. Com.), pt. iv, 220. 



7 Paterson, Deicr. of Roads, 1821. 



7 1 B. Woodward, T. Wilkes, and C. 

 Lockhart, Hist, of Hampshire, iii, 332. 



154 



7 Recov. R. Trin. 16 Geo. Ill, m. 84- 

 89. 



7" V.C.H. Hants, i, 329. 



7Exch. K.R. 479, No. 21. 



7 s At Pevensey the south-cast corner is 

 occupied by the castle. 



7 Pipe R. 20 Hen. II. 



