PORTSDOWN HUNDRED 



PORTCHESTER 



badges, and borders, for the windows of the hall, the 

 great chamber, the chapel, the exchequer or treasury 

 room, and the high chamber adjoining it, and also for 

 the windows of the tresancia or passage, the kitchen, 

 and the basement beneath the great chamber ; and it 

 is perhaps a sign of Richard's anxiety, amid the 

 dangers and difficulties of the last year of his reign, to 

 see his work finished, that between the feasts of 

 All Saints and the Purification of our Lady the 

 workmen used 26 Ib. of candles by working at night. 



His buildings still stand, but roofless and floorless, 

 and are the most picturesque part of the castle. The 

 hall was on the first floor, with cellars beneath, and 

 was entered by a flight of steps under a projecting 

 vaulted porch. On either side of the entrance are 

 brackets for lanterns. The square building east of 

 the hall was clearly the kitchen, and there are traces 

 of a large fireplace in its east wall ; it was on the 

 ground floor, and there was a stair at the south-west 

 leading from it to the hall. The arrangements of 

 buttery and pantry are not clear, but they may have 

 been below the hall screens. A passage contrived in 

 the north-west angle of the hall Ml led to the great 

 chamber and private apartments, the queen's chamber 

 being probably at the west end of the hall, and the 

 king's chamber next to the south face of the keep. 

 The Roman bastion west of the queen's chamber, 

 now completely pulled down, seems to have been 

 fitted up as living rooms, and part of a garderobe is 

 still to be seen in the wall. From the king's chamber 

 a passage ran eastwards through the exchequer cham- 

 ber (if this identification of the building at the south- 

 west angle of the keep is correct) to the chapel. A 

 little older work is incorporated with Richard's build- 

 ings, as at the north-west angle of the hall, where 

 part of a late twelfth-century arcade is to be seen, but 

 the greater part of the work seems to have been built 

 from the ground at this time, as the accounts would 

 imply. 



There is nothing to show whether anything of 

 importance was done to the building in the next few 

 reigns, but in 1488 a writ 8311 was issued under the 

 privy seal for the delivery of sufficient sums of 

 money to Sir Reginald Bray for the repairing of the 

 castle. Very little work now remains which can be 

 attributed to this time beyond the royal arms on the 

 south wall of the chapel, a doorway and part of a 

 window near by, and the wide window in the north 

 curtain wall near the keep. 



The last document of importance which need be 

 quoted here is Norden's survey of the castle in 

 I dog. 8 * It is accompanied by a bird's-eye sketch 

 of the buildings from the south-east, which, though 

 very distorted, shows a good many interesting details. 

 At this time the castle was ruinous, Norden reports, 

 ' by reason the leade hathe beene cutt and imbezeled.' 

 He recommends that the remains of the lead should 

 be removed and a lighter roof-covering substituted, 

 with new roof-timbers. In the great hall, ' verye 

 fayer and spacious,' ' to which was an assent by 4 fayer 

 stone stepps,' the leaded roof was ready to fall. The 

 adjoining rooms were ' maine spacious though darke 

 and malincolie.' Three towers are mentioned, the 

 keep being described as the ' mayne towre,' of four 



stories ' dowble raunged.' Norden suggests that it 

 should be lowered to half its height, because it 

 'annoyeth the reste of the howse by raflexe of the 

 chimneye smoake,' but fortunately this was never 

 done. 



The range of buildings on the north side of the 

 inner bailey, now entirely ruined, was then standing, 

 but in bad repair. It is described as a building not 

 long since in part newly erected, containing four fair 

 lodgings above and as many below ; its windows were 

 unglazed, and its roof had lost its slating. From this 

 it would appear that the ' camera between the keep 

 and Ashton's tower,' repaired or rebuilt in 1 396, had 

 been again rebuilt for the most part in the latter 

 years of Elizabeth's reign. On the Roman bastion to 

 the north a chamber was built, as on the south-west 

 bastion. This latter is shown rectangular in Norden's 

 drawing, but this is probably mere convention. 



The south gate of the castle was approached by a 

 drawbridge over the ditch in 1609, and flanked by 

 walls running at an obtuse angle towards the main 

 curtain ; it seems that the latest or southern extension 

 of the gateway was not at this time in existence. 

 On the annexed plan it is shown, together with the 

 eastern range of the inner bailey, as of sixteenth- 

 century date, but both actually belong to the early 

 years of the seventeenth century. 



The eastern range, the walls of which still stand, 

 was built by Sir Thomas Cornwall is, as Norden 

 reports, at a cost of 300 and more, in place of older 

 work of which nothing has been preserved. It was 

 probably quite new at the time of the survey, as in 

 1608 sixty timber trees were delivered to Cornwallis 

 from the forest of East Bere, evidently for work at 

 the castle. 83d The design is very simple : of the 

 latest Gothic type with no renaissance detail, with 

 four-centred doorways and three-light mullioned win- 

 dows with square heads. Norden's drawing shows 

 windows of this kind, with transoms, in the curtain 

 wall at this point. The range is returned along the 

 south curtain wall as far as the gateway, and it is 

 probable that the whole was built to provide suitable 

 accommodation for the officials in charge of the castle, 

 the royal apartments built by Richard II being by 

 now too much out of repair to be fit for use. 



There is nothing to show whether there were any 

 buildings in the outer ward of the castle in mediaeval 

 times ; in any case, they are not likely to have been 

 of much importance. In the accounts of Sir John 

 Daunce, 1521-27, printed in Archaeokga, xlvii, 335, 

 is an item of 400 paid to Lord Lisle ' upon the 

 buldyng of a stores house at the castell of Porchester, 

 and other causes,' and the foundations of a long 

 buttressed building, 240 ft. by 30 ft., near the south- 

 west angle of the ward, 83 ' may be those of the store- 

 house in question. The barracks built for the French 

 prisoners in the eighteenth century stood along the 

 north side of the ward, between the buildings of the 

 inner ward and the east wall of the Roman fortress. 



The great west gate of the castle, now as always 

 the chief entrance to the outer ward, is in a very fair 

 state of preservation, and dates for the most part from 

 the last years of Richard IPs reign, though the lower 

 parts of its walls may be older. In the first story are 



83a In Norden's drawing, 1609, a round- 

 ed bay window is shown on the north side 

 of the hall to the west of the porch. 



"> Material! illu,t. of Reign of Hen. VII 

 (Rolls Ser.), ii, 438. 



" S.P. Dom. Jas. I, xlviii, No. 46. 



157 



88(1 Ibid, xxxi, No. 78. 



*** 1 70 ft . from the west wall . 



