REIGATE HUNDRED 



REIGATE 



which has been artificially scarped, forming a plateau 

 of about 300 ft. from east to west, by 200 ft. wide at 

 the western end and 1 50 ft. at the eastern end. At 

 the foot of the scarp is a ditch, of varying widths, 

 from 60 to 3 oft. The crest of the scarp had a 

 stone wall round it at one period. This formed the 

 inner ward of the castle. The entrance was to the 

 east, by the causeway, perhaps once broken by a 

 drawbridge, across the ditch. There was an entrance 

 tower standing here 1 20 years ago. The dwelling- 

 house was latterly, and probably always, at the wider 

 western end. Outside the north-western part of the 

 ditch, up the hill, was an extensive outwork. This 

 part of the site is partly covered by private grounds, 

 and has been cut into by building and a road, and 

 is hard to define exactly. From this outwork or 

 barbican a wet ditch ran eastwards, and then south- 

 wards in a curve. The south ditch of the inner 

 ward is continued eastward for about 3 20 ft., and has 

 a short limb reaching north and divided from the 

 south-eastern extremity of the wet ditch by a bank. 

 The wet ditch and extended dry ditch inclose an 

 outer ward of nearly twice the area of the inner ward, 

 and lying north-east and east of it. 



From the northern outwork or barbican a wall was 

 carried round the west and south sides of the castle 

 on the outside of the dry fosse round the inner 

 ward, making a narrow outer ward here also. Some 

 small parts of this outer wall seem to remain in the 

 garden walls of the houses on the south side of the 

 castle, being the only stonework left in situ with 

 any claims to antiquity. 



The castle was an important place in the line of 

 fortresses between London and the south coast. 

 It immediately commanded a way north and south, 

 by Bell Lane and Nutley Lane up the downs ; a 

 natural line of communication on the dry ground 

 ran east and west immediately below it, through 

 Reigate High Street, and it was not far from the 

 great cross-county route along the chalk to the north. 

 It surrendered to the French and the barons 8 June 

 1216." It passed back into the regent's hands in 

 1217. In the campaigns of 1 264 it is not mentioned, 

 but was probably held for the king till after Lewes, 

 while its near neighbour, Blechingley, de Clare's 

 castle, was certainly held for the barons. In 1 268, 

 after the violent affray in Westminster Hall, when 

 Alan de la Zouche was attacked by the Earl of Surrey 

 and his men, and received wounds from which he 

 ultimately died, the earl shut himself up in Reigate 

 Castle and defied justice till Edward, the king's son, 

 appeared before his walls, and Henry of Cornwall and 

 the Earl of Gloucester persuaded him to surrender." 

 As in so many other cases, the decay of the castle was 

 so gradual that no definite period can be assigned to 

 it. Roland Lenthal stated in 1441 that the houses 

 within the castle were ruinous. 11 Camden described 

 it as 'now neglected and decayed with age.' A 

 survey of 1622 " calls it 'a decayed castle with a very 

 small house." This is the interior dwelling-house, 

 rebuilt at some earlier period. In 1648 the Earl of 

 Holland's Royalist insurrectionaries came to Reigate 

 and skirmished with Major Audley's soldiers on 

 Redhill. The Royalists occupied the decayed castle, 

 which was no doubt in some sense defensible, but 



abandoned it next day, when the pursuing Parlia- 

 mentary commander Livesay thought it worth while 

 to leave a garrison in it. ls While this was in progress, 

 4 July 1648, Parliament referred to the Derby Home 

 Committee an order to make Reigate Castle, among 

 other places, incapable of being used as a fortress. 16 

 This order no doubt completed the ruin. In 1782 

 Watson " gives a contemporary view from the south, 

 which shows the small house, a one-storied building 

 with two wings, the Gate Tower, apparently of 

 about 14th-century date, in good preservation, a 

 round tower to the south-west and a bit of ruinous 

 wall between these two towers. It is badly drawn, 

 and the Gate Tower is in the wrong place, according 

 to his own plan, and judging from the existing 

 causeway over the ditch. 



Some French jetons and a large mediaeval spur 

 have been found in the castle. 



The caverns are under the western part of the 

 inner inclosure. There is an entrance from the 

 middle of the castle, and another, perhaps more recent, 

 from the western ditch. The sandstone of the hill 

 yields readily to excavation, and is hard enough to 

 stand unsupported. The caverns were in all prob- 

 ability dry cellars and storehouses to begin with, 

 enlarged later from busy idleness, which is also 

 responsible for the sham antique gateway of the 

 castle, or merely from commercial desire to dig and 

 sell the fine sand which is in great request. The 

 survey of 1622 mentions ' special white sand within 

 the lord's castle." The tradition that William de 

 Warenne's castle was made a rendezvous for a secret 

 meeting of the barons who were about to demand 

 the Great Charter from the king, is equivalent to 

 saying that the Reform Bill of 1832 was elaborated 

 in the Carlton Club. Moreover the combined barons 

 went nowhere near Reigate except in legend. 



Some of the same uncertainty which prevails about 

 the date of the castle exists about the date of the 

 foundation of the priory. This can be more approxi- 

 mately dated, however, for it was founded by William 

 de Warenne, who died in 1 240, and by Isabel his 

 wife." It was grievously decayed before the Suppres- 

 sion, when its revenues were only 68 a year, and 

 there were only the prior and three Austin Canons 

 residing in it. The Priory House, on its site, the pro- 

 perty of Lady Henry Somerset, is not the old Priory. 



When Lord William Howard, first Lord Howard 

 of Effingham, obtained the priory estate by grant 

 from Henry VIII he must have demolished a 

 great part of the buildings, including probably the 

 church, and transformed what remained into a 

 mansion for his own use, and this house was in 

 turn almost entirely rebuilt or refronted in 1779. 

 The main or south front of this last period is of 

 pleasing elevation in Reigate stone, consisting of a 

 long central portion with a pediment in the middle, 

 above which rises a cupola, and projecting wings, 

 the whole under a steep-pitched tiled roof. The 

 simple and dignified style suggests a date of a century 

 earlier. Parts of the walls in the rear are those of 

 the priory buildings perhaps of the refectory in 

 particular a range of plain stone corbels, and what 

 appears to be the lower part of a corbclled-out 

 chimney belonging to an upper story. 



11 Ann. Men. (Rolls Ser.), ii, z8?. 

 " Flora Hi:r. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 18. 

 u Mins. Accts. Gen. Ser. bdle. 1 1 zo,no.z. 



14 Copied in the Ct R. 



" y.C.H. Surr. ii, 418-19. 



w Whitelocke, Memoriali, date cited. 



2 3 I 



" In hi Hiit. of the Earls of Warren. 

 18 f.C.H. Surr. ii, 105-6. 



