1850.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



219 



portion of Architectural history, tlie facts I liave hrought together 

 miglit add something to our limited knowledge of Pvrgology. 

 Having carefully measured these different buildings, whose plans 

 now hang on the waUs (for without having applied the two-foot 

 rule, and five-feet rods, I feel convinced that no remarks would be 

 entitled to the least consideration,) having examined them in 

 analogy with the respective systems of fortification peculiar to the 

 period, and in detailed connection with each other, and subsequently 

 consulted those evidences stored up among tlie national records 

 which serve to disclose the circumstances and the cost of their 

 erection, I thought, as we have all a common object in view, I 

 might venture to lay before you the conclusions to which they have 

 given rise. But I undertake this agreeable oflSce, not influenced 

 by the supposition of instructing so many from wliom I ought to 

 learn, but rather with the view of simply stating the results which 

 this combined method of illustration has originated in my own 

 mind. The announcement has, perhaps, been made public in too 

 extended and general terms, for a discussion of the Military Ar- 

 chitecture of Great Britain would occupy more time than the 

 Institute might feel justified, even under more competent guid- 

 ance, in bestowing upon it; and I will therefore, for present con- 

 venience, confine the attention to those leading features which the 

 subject presents under the Norman and Edwardian periods. 

 Passing over the numerous earthworks thrown up liy the Britons 

 against the Roman invaders, fortifications which, especially on the 

 North Welsh borders, excite our astonishment for their magnitude 

 and strength; and, disregarding those carefully I)uilt walls, which 

 the conquerors subsequently erected to preserve their newly- 

 acquired possessions, I will come at once to a time when tliere is 

 direct evidence to show the precise date, the methods adopted, and 

 the charge of building, some of the most important English and 

 AVelsh Castles. Of the Conq\ieror's castles, we know little more 

 than what we read in ' Domesilay,' which is simply that of the forty- 

 nine enumerated in his survey, he built eight himself, and the 

 rest were erected by his barons. Our only true source of informa- 

 tion concerning them are the oflioial documents of the time ; and, 

 after the great survey, we have a break in the series of records till 

 we come to the Sheriffs' accounts. 



Mr. Hartshorne then proceeded to explain the nature and im- 

 portance of the official documents still existing, and known as the 

 Pipe Rolls, the Clause Rolls, the Liberati, the Patent, and the 

 Minister or Chamberlain's Accounts, all of which are kept in 

 regnal years. The following may serve to illustrate the value of 

 the information to be obtained from examination of these docu- 

 ments. From the Pipe Rolls we learn the dates, as well as the 

 cost of construction, of different portions of the castles described in 

 them : — 



Temp. 18 & ID Hen. II. 

 .. 34 Hen. II. 



Boffis. 



A.D. 1172—1173 



£ S. d 



cost 3-24 



.. total 397 18 



17 Hen. II. 

 81 Hen. II. 



Nottingham, 



1171 .. 271 14 9 



Baly completed. 



Mr. Hartshorne then explained, referring at the same time to 

 the plans and drawings on the walls, the parts and appendages of 

 a castle, their uses, and relative positions, viz.:— The Keep— the 

 Fosse — the Barbican — the Portcullis— Stockade— Enceinte, or 

 Cingulum— the Baly— Donjon— Loops— Oillets— Cross Oillets— 

 Battlements— Crenelles— Embrasures— Merlons — Alures — Vaw- 

 mer- Postern Gate; or Sally Port— Drawbridge; or Pons tornatilis 

 —Gemews— Bastions— Towers— Turrets — Machicolations— False 

 Machicolations. He next alluded, in further explanation of the 

 subject, to the instructive and magnificent pile of Caerphilly, with 

 its leaning tower, 9 feet out of perpendicular, and to Bridgnorth 

 Castle, whose ruined tower inclines some 25 feet, and bears evident 

 marks of reparations at its base having been made at different 

 periods. 



The names and duties of the officers attached to a castle were 

 then described— viz., the Constable; the Ingeniator; the Attiliator; 

 the Garritor, or Sentry; the Porter; and the Watchman, for whose 

 shelter shutters were contrived in the embrasures of his watch 

 turret. As Engineers, mention was made of Alnod, at the Tower, 

 temp. 20 Hen. II., 1174; Yoo, at Windsor; Bayard, Nottingham, 

 7 John; Ganfridus, at the Tower, 37 Hen. I.; Albert and Urric, 

 Hen III.; Richard, Edw. I. 



A succinct description of Norman castles followed, in which it 

 was stated, that they were generally built after the same model, 

 and that tliey have usually a keep, or square building, on a mound 

 or elevated portion of ground. A remarkable feature of the keep 

 IS, that the entrance is on the first floor. The walls are strengthened 

 at the sides by shallow buttresses, which die into the face of the 

 work before they reach the summit. The earliest have no port- 

 cullis. They were defended btj outer walls, of the circle of which 

 they sometimes form a part, as Pevensey. 



The keeps are of various shapes, the quadrangular form being the 

 most common; as at Rochester, Porchester, Canterbury, Risina. 

 Heddingham, Norwich, Newcastle. Sometimes they are of poly- 

 gonal shape, as at Kilpeck, Caerdiff, Coningsboro' Chillham, and 

 Orford. At others, they are circular, as at Skenfrith, Pickering, 

 and Launceston, to which class may be assigned Alnwick. The 

 solid type of the Norman keep passed, by an easy gradation, into 

 the geometrical form, as seen in Clifford's Tow'-er at York, and 

 later again at Barnswell, 1264., Hen. III. The transition from 

 this to the concentricity of tlie Edwardian, was natui-al and easy. 

 Of the Norman and Edwardian forms, all later ones are only 

 modifications. 



To illustrate the gradual progress which took place in building 

 these castles, attention was called to the Castle of Alnwick, in 

 Northumberland, which was commenced by Yoo de Vesci, temp. 

 Hen. I. William de Vesci, Sti Edw. I., having no legal issue, 

 enfeoffed it to that great prelate, Anthony Bek, Bishop of Durham, 

 111 social confidence that he should hold them for William de 

 V esci, his illegitimate son, till he came of age. But being irritated 

 by some slanderous words he had spoken, he afterwards sold the 

 castle, 19th Nov. 1309 (3 Edw. II.) to Henry de Percy. He made 

 large bequests to Fountains' Abbey, where he was buried before 

 the high altar, dying in the 8 Edw. II. His son Henry, who suc- 

 ceeded him, built the octagonal towers of entrance into the inner 

 baly, about the year 1350, as is shown by the armorial bearings of 

 the Nevilles, Fitzwalter.s, and Umfruanville, inscribed on shields 

 tuider the ^battlements. This castle was visited by King John, 

 Edw. I., Edw. II., and William, king of Scotland, was taken 

 prisoner under the walls in 1174. 



The remaining portion of the paper had reference to the Ed- 

 wardian Castles of Wales, and consisted chiefly of a detailed 

 account of the progress of the works at Conway and Caernarvon, 

 being the result of a very long and diligent research, among the 

 records before alluded to, in connection with a careful examination, 

 measurement, and delineation of those buildings. ;\Ir. Hartshorne 

 demonstrated that the works were commenced at Caernarvon, 10th 

 November 12 Edw. I. (1284), six weeks after the execution of 

 Prince David, at Shrewsbury; and at Conway, 2Sth October, II 

 Edw. I. (1283), thus showing that the latter castle preceded the 

 former by a few months in the date of its erection; and that the 

 walls round the town of Caernarvon were built in the 14th year 

 (1286), when some portion of the castle was covered in with lead, 

 and the works were in progress in the fosse. That in the same 



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