So A R C H I T 
called the white palace , becaufe the walls of it were woven 
with white wands which had the bark peeled off. By the 
laws of Wales, whoever burnt or destroyed the king’s hall 
or palace wifts obliged to pay one pound and eighty pence, 
belides paying one hundred and twenty pence for each of 
the adjacent buildings, which were eight in number, viz. 
the dormitory, the kitchen, the chapel, the granary, the 
bake-houfe, the ftore-houfe, the liable, and the dog-houfe. 
From hence it appears, that a royal refidence in Wales, 
with all its offices, when thefe laws were made, was valued 
at five pounds and eighty pence of the money of that age, 
equal in quantity of lilver to lixteen pounds of our money, 
and in efficacy to one hundred and fixty. This is certainly 
a fufficient proof of the meannefs of thofe buildings which 
were only of wood. Even the cattles in Wales, in this 
period, that were built'for tire fecurity of the country, 
appear to have been conftruifted of the fame materials, 
namely, of wands with the bark peeled off, and wrought 
into wicker in the manner of our baffiets. Such were the 
materials which formed the fide w^alls of edifices defigned 
for defence agtiinft the attacks of an enemy, and whence 
it was that the laws required the king’s vaffals to come to 
the building of thefe cattles with no other tool than an axe. 
By the Scots and Pidts of this age, the art of building 
feems not to have had much improvement. In the begin¬ 
ning of the eighth century, however, they began to make 
fome advances, as appears from fome lingular edifices yet 
remaining in Scotland. Thefe buildings are all circular, 
and fo extremely various in ftyle, that they rather feem to 
be the works of different ages and nations, than of one age 
and country. The largeft of thefe ftrutlures are of an 
extraordinary ftyle of architecture, and are deferibed in 
nearly the following manner by Mr. Gordon, a modern an¬ 
tiquary, w ho viewed them with great attention. “ Hav¬ 
ing arrived at the barrack of Glenbeg, I was conducted 
to the remains of thefe ftupendous fabrics, feated about 
two miles front thence in a valley called Glenbeg, in which 
four of them anciently ltood. The firft I met with is called 
Malcolm’s Caftle ; the fecond, Caftle Chonel. About a 
quarter of a mile further, upon the bank of a riyulet, 
which palfes through the middle of the glen, ftands that 
which is called Caftle Tellve. I found it compofed of 
ftones without cement; not laid in regular courfes after the 
manner of elegant buildings, but rudely and w ithout or¬ 
der. Thofe toward the bafe were pretty large; but thofe 
on the top fcarcely exceeded the thicknels of a common 
brick. I w-as furprifed to find no windows on the outfide, 
nor any manner of entrance into the fabric, except a hole 
towards the weft at the bafe.” “ But (continues he), to 
give a more complete idea-of thefe buildings, I fhall de- 
feribe the fourth ftrutlurc, called Caftle Troddan, which 
is by far the moft entire of any of that country, and from 
whence I had a very .clear notion how thefe fabrics were 
originally contrived. The area of this building makes a 
complete circle; and there are four doors in the inner 
wall, which face the four cardinal points of the compafs. 
Thefe doors are each eight feet and a half high and five 
feet wade, and lead from the area into the cavity between 
the two walls which run round the w r hole building. The 
perpendicular height of this fabric is exa&ly thirty-three 
feet; the thicknefs of both w-alls, including the cavity be¬ 
tween, no more than tu-elve feet; and the cavity itfelf is 
hardly wide enough for two men to walk abreaft ; the ex¬ 
ternal circumference is 178 feet. The whole height of the 
fabric is divided into four parts or ftories, feparated from 
each other by thin floorings of flat ftones, which knit the 
two walls together, and run quite round the building; and 
there have been winding-ftairs of the fame fiat ftones af- 
cending betwixt wall and wall up to the top. Over each 
door are nine fquare windows, in a direfl line above each 
other, for the admiftion of light; and between every row 
of windows are three others in the uppermoft ftory rifing 
above a cornice, which projedls out from the inner wall 
and runs round the fabric.” From the foregoing deferip- 
tkm of thefe fingular edifices it plainly appears, that they 
E C T U R E. 
were defigned, both for the purpofe of defence and lodg¬ 
ing', and, confidering the times in which they were created, 
they feem to have been pretty well calculated for both 
thefe purpofes. 
The ftone edifices of the other kind, which were pro¬ 
bably erefted in this period, and of which fome few are 
ftill to be leen in Scotland, are not fo large as the former, 
but more artificial. They are flender and lofty, with cir¬ 
cular towers of cut ftone, laid in regular rows, between 
forty and fifty feet in external circumference, and from 
feventy to one hundred feet high, with one door fome feet 
diftant from the ground. They are exactly fimilar to the 
round tower of Ardmore, and feveral others, in Ireland, 
It is therefore probable that they were both built at the 
fame time, which was in the 10th century, and for the 
fame purpofe, which fome believe was for the confinement 
of penitents, while they were performing penance. Others 
are of opinion, that, as thefe towers were never found but 
in the neighbourhood of fome place of divine vvorlhip, the 
original intention was, that from them the people might 
be called to public worfhip, by the found of a horn or 
trumpet, anfvvering the end of a church bell, which had 
not then been invented. 
During the laft four hundred years of the Saxon monar¬ 
chy, that people erected great numbers of cathedrals, 
churches, chapels, abbeys, monafteries, &c. which after¬ 
wards became facrifices to the fury of the Danes, who com¬ 
mitted fuch ravages and devaftations, particularly from 
the year 979 to 1017, when king Edmund was murdered 
by Edric, and Canute feized upon the kingdom, and made 
himfelf the firft Danifli king of England, that all the ve¬ 
nerable buildings which the Saxons had raffed, St. Paul’s 
cathedral only excepted, were either lying in ruins, or fo 
irreparably defaced, that very little judgment could be 
formed of what they had formerly been. By this unhappy 
devaftation, pofterity was deprived, not only of the ori¬ 
ginal Saxon manner of building, but alfo of the geome¬ 
trical rules by which thefe ftrmShires were defigned and 
fet out; for it cannot be doubted but that the rules for 
erefting thefe early buildings contained the rudiments of 
the original Gothic architecture. From this time, how¬ 
ever, to the end of the 15th century, thefe buildings were 
amply reinftated, and an improved Gothic architecture 
univerfally prevailed. The great and general improve¬ 
ments that were thus made in the fabrics of abbeys and 
churches, in the nth and 12th centuries, which might be 
called the age of architecture in England , are thus deferibed 
by a cotemporary writer. “ The new cathedrals and in¬ 
numerable churches that were built in all parts, together 
with the many magnificent cloifters and monafteries, and 
other apartments of monks, that were then ereCfed, afford 
a fufficient proof of the great felicity of England in the 
reign of Henry I. The feligiousof every order, enjoying 
peace and profperity, difplayed the moft aftonifhing ardour 
in every thing that might increafe the fplendourof divine 
worfhip. The fervent zeal of the faithful prompted them 
to pull down abbeys and churches every where, and to 
rebuild them in a better manner. But, as the prodigious 
expence of raffing fuch a number of large and fuperb 
ftrmfhtres as the cathedrals, abbeys, monafteries, and o- 
ther buildings, which were now ereCfed in England, was 
fo enormous, that even to keep them in repair exceeded 
the ability of after-times ; it may not be improper to give 
one example of the arts employed by the clergy and monks 
of this period to inflame the pious ardour of kings, nobles, 
and others, to contribute towards the expences attendant 
on building and adorning churches. Whenjoffred, abbot 
of Croyland, in Lincolnfhire, refolved to re-build the 
church of his monaftery in a moft magnificent manner, 
A. D. noft, he obtained from the arehbilhops of Canter¬ 
bury and York a bull, difpenfing with the third part of 
all penances for fin to thofe who contributed any thing to¬ 
wards the buildingof that church. This bull was directed 
not only to the king and people of England, but to the 
kings of France and Scotland, and to all other kings, earls, 
barons. 
