Dr Peter Purton FSA, leading expert on medieval siege warfare examines one of the most famous British medieval sieges, that of Rochester in 1215.
The great donjon of Rochester castle (Kent) is still visible from miles around – including from the Eurostar. It stands above a bridge across the tidal waters of the river Medway and that was one reason why it was subject to a famous six- week siege which ended when an entire corner of the great tower was brought crashing to the ground, leading to the fall of the castle on 30 November 1215.
This was the first big battle in the civil war that broke out between King John (1199-1216) and the barons who had forced him to seal Magna Carta in June of that year. The king got the pope to declare it null and both he, in the south, and the barons, based in London, began to gather soldiers. We know a great deal about what happened because contemporary chroniclers, including eyewitnesses and those closely associated with men fighting there, wrote it down; and because some government records survive. We know the names of the nobles and many of the knights on both sides, of the engineers paid to construct the King’s five stone-throwing siege engines, and the master miners from the Forest of Dean who with their team (altogether 13 miners) undermined first the wall of the bailey and then the great tower itself.
Sappping a tower: Foix castle museum
The first castle was built after the Norman conquest but the great tower dated from 1127 when it was built for the archbishop of Canterbury, then William of Corbeil, who shared ownership and use with the crown. It is the tallest keep in the British Isles (125 feet, 38 metres) and unusually boasts two floors above the main level and basement below, divided vertically by a spine wall that gave access to the castle well. Richly provided with latrines and comfortable chambers, two spiral staircases, beautifully decorated stonework, it was a place fit to entertain king or archbishop. But in 1215 none of this mattered, archbishop Stephen Langton ignored John’s demand to hand it over and instead allowed rebel baron William de Albini and 60 or 80 knights, their retinues and archers and crossbowmen, to take possession.
Interior of Rochester’s keep showing the rebuilt corner. To the left is the spine wall the defenders fell back to after the sapping
Control of the ancient bridge over the Medway was vital for both sides, and so it became John’s first target once he had gathered an army of several thousand experienced fighters mainly from Flanders, Poitou and Gascony. The defenders resisted every attack for weeks, inflicting many casualties on John’s men. In the end the besiegers turned to their miners, who first broke through the bailey wall (we don’t know where), then, using the grease from 40 slaughtered pigs (‘of the kind not fit for eating’) as an accelerant to burn the props they had used to prop up the masonry while they sapped the south east corner turret of the great tower, brought it crashing down. The defenders retreated behind the spine wall but had run out of food so surrendered. King John wanted to hang them all but was dissuaded by his own captains who didn’t want to meet the same fate if the wheel of fortune should turn against them.
To this day one can see the join on the sides of the donjon where the wall had to be rebuilt after the siege.
In 2015 the Castle Studies Group (www.castlestudiesgroup.org.uk) held a conference there to mark the 800th anniversary and I presented a short paper analysing the siege. Now, following an invitation from across the Atlantic, an extended and illustrated version of that talk can be viewed at:
Neil Ludlow, co-project lead in both the Castle Studies Trust funded 2016 geophysical survey and 2018 excavations looks at Pembroke Castle’s most iconic structure, it’s keep.
Pembroke Castle is probably best-known for its magnificent cylindrical keep, begun in 1201-2. But why was it built? And how was it used? These and other questions are being explored as part of the wider study of the castle.
Great keeps like these were bold statements of power and prestige. At Pembroke, it seems the keep was also celebratory and commemorative, marking the marriage, ennoblement and inheritance of its builder, William Marshal – and in the most conspicuous way. But it was not intended for residential use: there is neither bedchamber, latrine nor water supply. Household accommodation was instead provided by the great hall, while a chamber block served the Marshal earls on their rare visits to Pembroke.
Use of the keep, as intended, was restricted and episodic, probably confined to the handful of occasions when the earl visited. Access was clearly limited to those above a certain rank – for instance, there is only one spiral stair and no separate stair for lower ranks. And the interior had to be crossed to get to the stair, showing that its use was strictly controlled.
Pembroke Castle keep section drawing. Copyright Neil Ludlow
The main chamber lay on the second floor, which has a high-quality window and a fireplace. It may have been intended as an audience or reception chamber, and a setting for formal and ceremonial occasions. It has been suggested that its external doorway was served by an external bridge and stair from the curtain wall, but such an arrangement is inconsistent with the remains. The doorway may instead have led onto an appearance balcony, visible from the town before the outer bailey was added and allowing the earls to be seen by their subjects. Similar balconies existed at King Henry II’s round keeps in France.
Pembroke keep second floor door. Copyright Neil Ludlow
The first floor, at entrance level, may have been an anteroom or ‘waiting area’ for the second floor. It too has a fireplace. The uppermost chamber lies beneath the unique, masonry dome. It lacks a fireplace, suggesting events here were of short duration. Nevertheless, it is lit by a second elaborate window, while a decorative painted scene can perhaps be envisaged on the underside of the dome. It may have been a ‘prospect chamber’ for entertaining special guests. Other openings, at all levels, are very narrow slits which are too small, too narrow and too high up to have been used by archers, and were probably for light and ventilation only.
At summit level, at least one major change in design occurred during construction, which culminated with the crenellated parapet and concentric inner wall that now crown the keep. As originally built, the dome seems to have been circled by a wide, slate-lined drainage channel. The slates are fossilised, as a series of crests and troughs, within the concentric inner wall and seem to have been truncated when the present wall-walk was established. It is not known whether they were contemporary with the overhanging timber hourd, the sockets for which can be seen beneath the present parapet, but it is difficult to envisage how the two could have worked together.
Pembroke Castle keep from southeast (photo: Adam Stanford @ Aerial-Cam)
Hourds like this are now thought to have often been leisure-related rather than military,providing a viewpoint from which a lord’s estates could be shown off to his important guests. At any rate, this overall scheme was replaced, possibly before it was complete, by the present parapet, wall-walk and concentric inner wall. Another slate channel, within the latter, runs around the haunches of the dome and is of very similar design to the earlier drain. These substantial drainage arrangements may indicate that the dome was not roofed, perhaps instead being finished with slates like the domes of some later medieval church towers in south Pembrokeshire.
Much later alterations at summit level included the insertion of a floor beneath the dome – creating an attic space which was accessed from the wall-walk through a secondary doorway, and lit by crudely-inserted window – showing how the keep’s role changed through time, with loss of its original prestige. And much of the dome’s facework was robbed, perhaps to make the central ‘turret’ that now occupies the summit. Part of the second drainage channel was removed in order to create access to this turret, confirming that it is a later addition, but it was present by c.1600 when it was shown in a sketch of the castle.
Either one of these summit alterations may be contemporary with the partition in the body of the keep, the chase (or scar) for which survives in the internal plaster. The plaster contains coal fragments; a corresponding absence of charcoal suggests that the present finish may itself be late, but also means that it cannot be radiocarbon-dated.
Pembroke Castle keep from north (feature photo) Adam Stanford @ Aerial-Cam
As part of his 2018 PhD thesis on Scotland’s early stone castles, Dr Will Wyeth assessed some of the country’s underexplored sites. One such was Loch Doon castle which provides a case study for two of Will’s key themes of his research, namely the castle’s orientation and its landscape.
Loch Doon was home to a series of small islands, one of which was largely occupied by a medieval castle, comprising an enclosure and within it, parts of a later medieval tower house. In 1935 the loch was dammed and in consequence of the resulting rising water level, the castle dismantled and re-assembled on the modern lochside to the west of its original position.
Original location of Loch Doon Castle, picture taken between 1902-18. Picture courtesy of Brian McGarrigle, Scottish Castle Association
Connecting its architecture with the emergence of scattered references in documentary sources, we believe it was built by the mid-late 13th-century earls of Carrick, among whose members were Robert de Brus and his son by the same name, later Robert I. The castle appears in the 1370s Scottish (as opposed to the revised early 15th-century English) portion of the ‘Gough Map’ as loghdone. Little store can really be set by its depiction there, owing to uncertain cartographic conventions, though it is noteworthy that it is represented by two castle icons – one on the loch island, another on the adjacent shore.
Loch Doon castle featured in an episode of the war which saw Sir Christopher Seton, brother-in-law of Robert the Bruce flee to the castle. It was besieged and thereafter was surrendered to English troops by Sir Gilbert de Carrick in 1306, who was probably a kinsman to Robert. While the meagre early history of the castle is reasonably well-known, what has hitherto not been explored in great detail are two other elements of Loch Doon Castle. What can it tell us about its builders? And is there evidence for a wider landscape to the castle, and what can this tell us?
Why build it on an island?
There is a significant volume of evidence, and discussion by many earlier and contemporary historians, regarding the long-lived tradition of natural, modified or artificial island lordship centres in Scotland. So was Loch Doon castle referencing this tradition, alive and well in contemporary Scotland? I argued that while there was no question of an island site’s defensive advantages, as well as an acknowledged similarity to the crannog tradition, Loch Doon castle was more of a castle than a crannog-like castle.
Loch Doon Castle Main Entrance, copyright Prof. Richard Oram
The way the castle’s formal entry point, its large pointed portal, opened nearly straight onto water, whilst its work-a-day entry (the sole other access) opened onto part of the island with a beach for ease of landing and more space, suggested similarities with the managed routes of access to castles specifically: the rest of the island can be imagined as small outer yard. Such routes and configurations may have been apparent in contemporary crannogs, but evidence is simply lacking. Both insular castles and medieval crannogs may have been built to draw attention to vast sheets of natural water for which terrestrial castles elsewhere used ponds and lakes. The castle’s long southern wall, forming the exterior face of its great hall, was designed for maximum exposure to the sun, but also towards routes from Galloway in the south.
A landscape
context?
The castle is
situated at the border of two counties; indeed, at the time of its
construction, it was located at the south-eastern extremity of the earldom of
Carrick. A routeway from the political heartland of medieval Galloway in
Glenken runs through the valley of Loch Doon towards the royal centre at Ayr.
Another route ran from another politically important area in eastern
Wigtownshire into the valley of Loch Doon.
There is evidence
for all kinds of medieval activity near to the castle. At the farm sites of
Starr and Loch Head south of the castle are traces of rig-and-furrow
cultivation assumed to be medieval in origin. The nearby farm of Portmark
evidenced later medieval metalworking, and its name suggests a tangible
connection to the castle; elsewhere, port– place-names mark the
embarkation point for medieval crossing to insular lordship centres. Perhaps
this was what the Gough map was representing as a second ‘castle’? Such
composite island-waterside complexes are widely recognised in Ireland. Lastly,
in the rugged hilly district south of the castle, in neighbouring Galloway, are
a cluster of place-names connected to deer traps, from the Gaelic eileirig,
as well as the location of a hitherto unattested hunt hall (possibly medieval
in origin) at the aptly named ruined building named Hunt Ha’.
What was the
castle ‘for’?
It is difficult to establish a conclusive answer. In 1306, Sir Henry Percy seized administrative and military documents stored at the castle for the English crown following its surrender. Whether these documents were at the castle as a matter of course (so making the castle a manorial centre of sorts) or because of the political violence unfolding across the kingdom is not clear. Both may be true. The evidence from the castle and its landscape suggests it was ‘doing’ many things. It was made to be seen from far and wide. Its position by a routeway through the rugged Galloway Hills is typical for castles in general. Its insular setting may reflect a castellar rendering of the crannog tradition, or a Carrick take on the watery landscapes of castles lowland Britain and Ireland. The earldom’s main and older centre – Turnberry castle, on the coast in lowland Carrick and over 31km as the crow flies from Loch Doon – was its only other castle. Thus, Loch Doon castle may have as much been a retreat for leisure, for welcoming guests and the comital ensemble travelling to Galloway, as an administrative centre for the earldom’s extensive upland districts.
Like medieval monasteries, castles had gardens. These could be places of rest, play and display as well as productive centres for (some of) the food to supply the castle household while also providing curative or medicinal plants. We know that in the Middle Ages, plants were highly valued for their culinary, fragrant and medicinal properties; and, they were considered to have mental and spiritual benefits. What do we know about the plant-life of the medieval castle and its green spaces?
Surviving architecture indicates that some of these spaces were enclosed with relatively high walls, often surmounted by a parapet or at least crenelated. Excavations tell us something about what plants were at castles but there is no certainty about what was grown in their gardens.1 Seeds can be tricky to identify in the archaeobotanical record from reasons as diverse as poor preservation to sampling issues. Beyond general mentions of gardens, medieval historians have noted references to bowers (arched trellis covered with vines or climbing plants) and possible water features as well as hawthorn hedging, roses and juniper trees.2 Many medieval manuscripts show luxurious images of trellising and water features in a verdant green dreamland (Fig. 1). I am not going to suggest that exact replica sites of mythical gardens existed but perhaps we can use these images as a reference point.
Figure 1. GR12994 Garden of Paradise, c.1415 (tempera on panel) by Master of Oberrheinischer (15th century); 26.3×33.4 cm; Stadelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany; German, out of copyright.
So, we know what gardens might have looked like and some of the things that may have been present. What then, do we know about gardening?3 Certain castles, such as Richmond, have latrines that empty into the garden space suggesting that medieval people were good at composting! (Fig. 2) But what about plant propagation and curation? What plants or flowers were grown? Or how?
Figure 2. ‘Cockpit’ Garden at Richmond Castle, latrine on eastern wall. Authors own.
Nurseries were established at monasteries across Europe in the later medieval period; one existed in London by at least the late thirteenth-century4 and at Kilmainhaim, Ireland during the early fourteenth century.5 Perhaps they also existed at castles? Some medieval manuscripts show images of plants in pots – isn’t that very interesting? (Fig. 3). So possibly plants in pots, like elite households, were on the move.6 If plants moved with their households what types were selected? Were they transplanted to grow in new locations? While extensive archaeological excavation might be able to answer these questions – what if we look at the evidence in front of us: the modern ecological landscape?
Figure 3. Plants in Pots. Book of Hours, Belgium, Bruges, between 1500 and 1526. M.363 fol. 24. http://ica.themorgan.org/manuscript/page/29/112393
Might the modern landscapes of medieval castles give some clue to plants of the past? The study of relict plants – those that survive from the past – involves the examination of modern landscapes for the presence of plants that may have been deliberately planted and cared for by people in the past. An ecological survey of Welsh castles completed in 1994 by Ann Connolly noted that there were clusters of plants with known medicinal uses present at castle sites but notably absent from suitable surrounding terrain.7 This included wild sage (Salvia verbenaca) at Montgomrery and wild rocket (Reseda luteola), as well as henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) at Rhuddlan. The implication is that these plants were deliberately planted at these sites for their medicinal use.
Pioneering work has been completed on relict plants in from medieval monastic gardens in Norway8 and Iceland.9 Fiona MacGowan, working in Ireland noted the presence of yellow wallflowers (Erysimum cheiri) at the windows of the main focal building at Lea Castle, Co. Laois (2014; Fig 4). These are non-native to Ireland and were thought to be frame the windows and waft in good smells. Relict plant studies, as part of wider analyses, is becoming established as a novel way to gain insights into past communities’ growing or cultivation practices as well as potential medicinal and dietary concerns.
‘Sowing the Seeds of Interdisciplinary Work’, the project funded by the Castle Studies Trust sets out to build on this work, and understand if surviving plants at medieval castles which were possibly planted, grown, cared for and used by medieval people can further inform us of medieval lived experiences in the garden and possibly with gardening. Ecological surveys will be carried out at four geographically distant but culturally similar medieval castles sites with diverse landscapes: Adare. Co. Limerick, Castleroache, Co. Louth, Mocollop Castle, Co Waterford and Castlecarra, Co. Mayo (Figs 4-7).
From the selected sites, only Adare has been subject to archaeological investigation and therefore has an associated archaeobotanical report to be analysed.10 Castlecarra is surrounded by woodland which has the potential to be ancient; it is included in the Lough Mask and Lough Carra Special Area of Conservation (Site code 001774). It will be part of the survey. All four have associated settlements and a variety of religious houses from parish churches to abbeys. At Mocollop and Castle Carra these spaces will also be surveyed owing to their relatively undisturbed surrounding landscapes. They will provide an interesting set of comparative sites.
Figure 5. Castle Carra, Co. Mayo. Main focal building of castle complex. Large protruding latrine in the foreground. Authors own.Figure 6. Castleroche, Co. Louth. Extensive castle complex. Image courtesy of Dr David Whelan.
Working with Dr Fiona MacGowan, an ecologist who has a passion for the medieval, we will carry-out the ecological surveys over the late summer (hopefully). Once compiled the ecological reports will be used to expand our knowledge of what plants may have been used or grown at Irish medieval castles by contextualising the results within appropriate historical and folkloric traditions. These findings will be analysed together with of archaeological, historical and architectural details of the four castles sites. We are sure that the results will demonstrate the potential of relict plants studies to enrich our understanding of the ‘green’ lives of people in the past.
Figure 7. Mocollop Castle, Co. Waterword. Ruinous castles situated in a working farm. Image courtesy of Niall C.E.J. O’Brien
Footnotes
Caple 2007
Thorstad 2019
Dempsey 2020
Harvey 1985
Reeves-Smith 1995
Smith 2018
Connolly 1994
Arvid Åsen 2009
Kristjánsdóttir, Larsson & Arvid Åsen 2014
Dunne 2007; Dunne & Kiely 2013
Bibliography
Åsen, A. P., 2009. Plants of possible monastic
origin, growing in the past or present, at medieval monastery grounds in
Norway, in Plants and Culture: seeds of
the cultural heritage of Europe, eds. J.P. Morel & A.M. Mercuri. Edipuglia Bari: Centro Europeo per i
Beni Culturali Ravello, 227–38.
Caple, C., 2007. Excavations at Dryslwyn Castle 1980-1995. London: Society for Medieval Archaeology.
Connolly, A., 1994. Castles and Abbeys in Wales: Refugia for Mediaeval Medicinal Plants. Botanical Journal of Scotland 46(4), 628–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/13594869409441774
Dempsey, K. in press. Planting new ideas: a feminist gaze on medieval castles. Chateau Gaillard 29.
Dunne L. 2007. Adare Castle, Raising Bridges and Raising Questions, in From Ringforts to Fortified Houses: Studies on Castles and Other Monuments in Honour of David Sweetman, C. Manning (ed.), Dublin, Wordwell, pp. 155-170.
Harvey, J.H., 1985. The first English garden book: Mayster Jon Gardener’s treatise and its background. Garden History 13, 83–101. https://doi.org/10.2307/1586825
MacGowan, F., 2014. Ecological Report for the area around Lea
Castle, Portarlington, Co. Laois. Unpublished Report.
Reeves-Smyth, T., 1999. Irish Gardens and Gardening Before Cromwell (Barryscourt Lectures
4). Cork: Gandon Editions
Smith, S., 2018. Rills and Romance: Gardens at the Castles of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and Edward I, in The Medieval and Early Modern Garden in Britain, eds. P. Skinner, & T. Tyres. London & New York: Routledge, 40–55.
Thorstad, A. 2019. The Culture of Castles in Medieval England and Wales. The Boydell Press. Woodbridge.
Castle Studies Trust’s expert grant assessor Erik Matthews reveals the findings of the 10 years (and counting) excavation he has been directing of Hornby Castle in Wensleydale North Yorkshire.
A programme of
archaeological fieldwork involving excavation with some building recording has
been in progress since 2010 with the new season due to commence as soon as
conditions will allow. It has focussed on the site of a moated hunting lodge of
the Dukes of Brittany referred to in a Charter dated to 1115. It was
subsequently used as a “pleasaunce” for first the Nevilles of Redbourne in
Lincolnshire and later the Conyers
before its destruction in a military attack at the end of the Wars of
the Roses.
Pre-conquest origins
Recent work has focussed on the kitchen where
oven structures have been recovered with traces of a wooden tank for holding
live fish prior to their cooking. A stone sink with a wooden drain leading into
the moat to the north has been found with a cherry stone recovered from it. There
was also traces of a fireplace which collapsed with the remainder of the
building sending a plume of ash into the room. Following the discovery of
residual artefacts of Pre-Conquest date from the kitchen floor including a
carved walrus ivory handle, a sherd of Pre Conquest glazed pottery made in
Northern Germany and piece of fine
worked bone casket, it was decided to section the floor to find evidence of an
earlier structure beneath. Evidence of a wooden floored, stave walled structure
was found which may be associated with the immediate Pre-Conquest tenant
Arnekill who was of noble birth and related to the Earls of Northumbria.
Examination of the remains of the kitchen front wall yielded evidence of the ferocity of the destruction of the complex with the recovery of a large stone cannon ball (below)from a heavy calibre cannon which had become embedded in it. Close by a carved Nidderdale marble capital was found which has been dated to the 12th Century and which may have come from a chapel in nearby.
Stone canon ball found in the kitchen front wall (copyright Erik Matthews)
The Great Tower – post medieval survival?
The 2019 season focussed on a section of the moat which
located traces of a stone bridge abutment and wooden foot bridge surviving in
the moat silts heading towards an earthwork in an adjacent field. The main discovery has however been evidence
of an ashlar clad stone Great Tower. Two wall foundations 2.8 metres wide sunk
into a rock clad mortar embankment rising some 1.2 metres have been located to
the north and west. The north wall includes the remains of a robbed out spiral
stair. Internal features include an internal chamber with very thick walls
which may have been a strong room, also a corridor from the floor of which an
iron knife was recovered blade down! Evidence of an external doorway heading to
the north towards the area of the most bank has been recovered and a small
section of roofing lead together with lime slurry suggests an impressive
structure. The close proximity of the foundations to the modern ground surface
suggest tantalisingly that the structure may have survived as a ruin into the
relatively recent past.
For more information about the excavation please contact
Erik Matthews on rubyna dot matthews at btinternet dot com
Project lead for the Shrewsbury Castle excavations Dr Nigel Baker looks forward to the forthcoming excavations at the castle, hopefully this year, funded by the CST
Last
year, the Castle Studies Trust excavation – the first ever to have taken place
within the walls of Shrewsbury Castle – produced three headline conclusions.
The first was that the work of the young Thomas Telford there for his client,
William Pountney M.P. in 1786-90 was, sadly, more destructive of the medieval
original than had previously been recognised. The extent of his restoration of
the house (now the Soldiers of Shropshire Museum) and the curtain walls has
long been known. What wasn’t appreciated was that standing walls of ruined
buildings and a 13th-century tower on the motte top were destroyed
and reduced to their footings, and the interior of the inner bailey was, it
seems, scraped flat, producing a lovely level lawn at the expense of any archaeological
deposits overlying the natural gravel of the hilltop. Despite this, infilled
negative features (pits and ditches) cut into the gravel survived and were
found by our excavation trench. As a result, our second headline conclusion was
that the motte was ringed on its landward side by a massive ditch, twelve
metres wide: what we know as the inner bailey must, in the early Middle Ages,
have been little more than a barbican defending the end of the bridge giving
access up the motte.
C18
Remodelling?
But
the extent of Telford’s work raises a question, first put to the archaeological
team by Martin Roseveare, our geophysicist: if Telford had the inner bailey
levelled flat, where did he put the proceeds, meaning the scraped-up earth and
debris? Could the apparently well-preserved medieval ramparts ringing the
bailey actually be down to the young Scottish civil engineer, rather than
impressed English labour under the whip-hand of William the Conqueror’s
henchmen? This is one of the leading questions that a second season of
excavation at Shrewsbury Castle hopes to be able to answer, by digging on part
of the western rampart known to be already disturbed by former Victorian
greenhouses.
High
Status Saxon Living
There
are, however, other at least equally compelling reasons for excavating on this
site. The third headline conclusion of the 2019 trench was that there was
pre-Conquest activity within the area of the inner bailey. This was
demonstrated by a pit, pit 20, containing Stafford-type ware (well known in
late pre-Conquest Shrewsbury) and a type of pottery known as TF41a, an import
up the Severn from Gloucester, never seen before in Shrewsbury. The question
is, what was it doing there?
Top piece Rim of type 41a Saxon pottery from Gloucester Lower piece: Rim of Stafford ware Saxon pottery
Shrewsbury
is one of those castles listed in Domesday along with the destruction it caused
to its ‘host’ shire town. Construction of Shrewsbury Castle took out 51
tax-paying tenements, a quarter or a fifth of the total built-up area, to the
economic distress of the remaining inhabitants. Many of the destroyed plots
will have lined the strategically important Chester to Hereford road that
passes through the outer bailey. However, looming over the road and its plots,
and the main gate through the pre-Conquest defences, was the hilltop on which
the castle would come to be built. And on it, overlooking the gate, most likely
on the Victorian greenhouse site, was the Church of St Michael, a church that
became the castle chapel, but was listed in Domesday between the entries for
two of the town’s pre-Conquest minsters and was served by two priests later in
the Middle Ages, when it was a royal peculiar, exempt from episcopal oversight.
This need not necessarily all add up to a pre-Conquest church – but the chances
are very strong that it does, and that this church, which, overlooking the town
defences, may have had some kind of
defensive role, was part of the context of pit 20.
The
clues are beginning to point to a high-status site, probably enclosed, with its
interior ground level two metres above that of its neighbours, and its own
church. For an analogy, one could do worse than look to Wallingford, whose
castle in the north-east corner of the Saxon burh had probably taken over and
re-fortified a royal site of some kind, possibly housing government functions,
perhaps a mint, and a garrison of housecarls. Or one might look to Oxford,
where St George’s Tower is now generally thought to be of pre-Conquest date. Shrewsbury
seems to be joining the list of Norman town castles established on sites of
political, not just tactical, importance.
But archaeology can be frustrating. While we hope that excavation of the Victorian greenhouse site in the west rampart may yield insights into the extent of Thomas Telford’s landscape gardening, the foundations of a pre-Conquest church and further clues to a high-status or even royal site preceding the castle, by 2021 the excavation team may well be singularly well-informed experts on…Victorian greenhouses.
The results are in, we’ve decided which projects we will be funding for 2020.
But before we get to the announcement, we want to thank all the applicants who proposed projects. It was a difficult decision, with exciting and innovative approaches to a group of fascinating castles. This year marks a milestone for us: we are award £30,000 across the successful projects which is the most we’ve given in a single year.
So without further ado, here are the five projects we will be funding in 2020. We hope you are looking forward to discovering more about them.
Lincoln Castle
Photo by Gustavo Faraon, licensed CC-BY-NC 2.0
The project will develop a reconstruction drawing of the castle, as it would have been in the latter part of the 12th century, founded by William the Conqueror, in the second half of the 11th century.
Shrewsbury Castle
We will be funding a second year of excavation, following on from 2019, this time to understand the rampart of the inner bailey.
Sowing the Seeds
Castlecarra is one of the sites to be investigated. Photo by Karen Dempsey.
The aim of the project is to try and understand better everyday life in castles by seeing if there are any surviving plants at four Irish castles that were planted, grown, and cared for by medieval people.
The Wirk
Could the Wirk be a Norse castle? Based on the island of Rousay, this stone tower is situated close to the old parish church and recently discovered Norse Hall. However, no one knows what this tower was used for or even when it was built.
Warkworth
Photo by Karl Davison, licensed CC-BY-NC 2.0
Using various forms of geophysical survey to try and understand the subsurface features for the former caput of the Earls of Northumberland.
Donate regularly for invitation to exclusive site visits
Regular donors will be invited to all exclusive visits to the projects we fund.
Those who are able to donate £500 a year or more (excluding Gift Aid) will also have the opportunity to attend our annual special castle visit to major/privately owned castles. In 2020 this will be at Edinburgh Castle on Saturday 6 June where we will visit parts of the castle not open to the public.
Any new donations by standing order or payroll giving will be matched by a generous supporter for the next two years up to a maximum of £2,000 a year in total.
You can donate regularly via payroll giving or by setting up a standing order. Please return the form to the address on the forms, with the gift aid form if applicable.
The commission to carry out a reconstruction drawing of Ruthin Castle came after several years of visits and informal discussions with Will Davies and others, all anxious to bring the castle to greater prominence. Once the Ruthin Castle Conservation Trust had been set up in 2016 to arrest the deterioration of the castle ruins, it became imperative that better researched material, texts and drawings be produced to raise awareness of the castle and the critical condition of the ruins. The Trust accordingly commissioned a reconstruction drawing with grant aid from Castle Studies Trust, Castle Studies Group, and the Cambrian Archaeological Association.
The available documentary sources were scarce. Principal among them was the somewhat hesitant plan drawn by Randle Holme in the 17th century, complete with alterations and amendments, accompanied by two very similar versions of a perspective view, and the inevitable Buck from a century later.
Rick Turner identified a detail in the background of a 17th-century picture of “Orpheus Charming the Animals” housed at Chirk Castle, which he believed represented Ruthin. After several attempts at getting a good look at it, some shots were obtained for me by helpful member of National Trust staff. All this was greatly enhanced by a reasonably good topographical survey of the hotel and gardens prepared some years ago.
I began by creating a very rough block model of the remains of the castle with the hotel in place, to better identify the elements missing completely and those in doubt, with a view to possibly carrying out some minor excavations to resolve some of these issues. Unfortunately this was not to happen within our timescale, so such revelations still await us in the future.
The need to produce a useful image for the Trust rather than a long drawn out programme of investigation resulted in a quick agreement of the general viewpoint, displaying the most dramatic surviving parts of the castle in a completed medieval context, but in such a way that minimised the missing pieces. The result was essentially the Buck and Holm views, but altering some details contained in the latter which did not agree with the surviving remains. A lower vantage point was chosen to conceal the missing details of the buildings in the background.
The model was subtly orientated to provide the optimum view, turned into a line drawing, and then the final colour version was produced.
Ironically, it was at this point that the most heated discussion began, regarding the colour of the walls. The present remains of the outer ward are predominantly of a deep red sandstone, with the inner ward of light grey limestone (with some red quoins). The implications of this were far reaching, but for the purposes of the drawing the issue was simply to render or not to render, and if rendered, what colour? The castle is described in some documentary sources as “Castell Coch”, hence red was taken to be the main colour, so perhaps the inner grey ward was rendered red. In the end the consensus was not to render at all, but to expose the masonry as it presently appears, with the red colour of the outer bailey dominant, giving rise to the name. Even then there was some dissent over the strength of the colour of the natural red sandstone in the final image, but “Castell Coch” won out.
Reconstruction drawing of Ruthin Castle from the south-west as it may have appeared in the late medieval period. Artist: Chris Jones-Jenkins. Copyright: Ruthin Castle Conservation Trust.
The original painting has now been elegantly framed and is hanging in the foyer of the Castle Hotel, available for all to see. It is hoped that the image will go on to stimulate further discussion in the years to come and generate interest in and publicising the work of the Trust in promoting this historic asset.
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The
deadline for grant applications passed on 30th November. We’re going through
the various projects now. Altogether the 13 projects, coming from England,
Ireland, and Scotland are asking for over £88,000. They cover not only a wide
period of history but also a wide range of topics. In a little more detail,
here are the applications we’ve received:
The main aim is to recover evidence for the base natural topography around the approach to the main gate of the once royal castle, from the area of the medieval village, and explore how this was altered, presented and exploited to create a sense of theatre for visitors to the site.
A geoarchaeological auger survey of the moats that surround this former royal castle and palace of Thomas Becket. The survey aims to answer such questions as what were the moats original profiles, when were the moats filled and how do the two moats compare with each other.
To try and understand the date of the construction of the castle owned by the MacDougall clan through various through buildings and materials analysis including radiocarbon dating and mortar analysis.
To try and understand the date of the construction of the former royal castle through various through buildings and materials analysis including radiocarbon dating and mortar analysis.
Hoghton, Lancashire
The aim of the project to continue the work the CST funded in 2019 with excavations and building survey. Further excavations will try and understand the purpose of the structures found in the 2019 excavation season and if they were related to the original great tower.
Holme Pierpont, Nottinghamshire
To build up an understanding of this late medieval great house, never previously researched. The work will include a mixture of desk research, building survey and geophysical survey of the parkland surrounding it. The house is the most complete of the three late medieval brick-built houses in Nottinghamshire.
To develop a reconstruction drawing of the castle as it would have appeared in the second half of the 12th century. Lincoln Castle was founded by William the Conqueror in the late 11th century.
Shrewsbury, Shropshire
To fund a second year of excavation, this time to understand the rampart of the inner bailey. The geophysical survey carried out in the 2019 suggested there could be remains of buildings there, possibly even a late Saxon church. Shrewsbury was a very important border castle up until the 13th century and frequently used as a base for English raids into Wales.
Sowing the Seeds
Hortus conclusus depicted by Meister des Frankfurter Paradiesgärtleins
The aim of the project is to try and understand better everyday life in castles by seeing if there are any surviving plants at four Irish castles that were planted, grown and cared for by medieval people. The research will involve ecological surveys at each location.
Strongholds of Wessex
Photo of Silbury Hill by Greg O’Beirne, licensed CC BY SA 3.0.
The aim of the project is to understand the military organisation of the northern part of Wessex (Wiltshire and West Oxfordshire) from the transition from Saxon to Norman rule between the 9th and 12th centuries. The work will involve documentary research, landscape and place name surveys. Sites examined will include Castle Combe, Cricklade and Silbury Hill.
The Wirk, Orkney
Could the Wirk be a Norse castle? Based on the island of Rousay, this stone tower is situated close to the old parish church and recently discovered Norse Hall. However, no one knows what this tower was used for or even when it was built. The work would involve a geophysical survey of the surrounding area as well as two trial trenches to try and find dating evidence.
Thermal Imaging of Castles
A thermogram of Cirencester Roman amphitheatre by Dr John Wells, licensed CC BY SA 4.0.
To test how useful thermal imaging could be in understanding castles. The thermal survey using a FLIR camera of two castle facades in different climates. within the UK—Caisteal Uisdein, on the coast of Loch Snizort, and a castle farther south and slightly inland, Castle Rising.
Using various forms of geophysical survey to try and understand the subsurface features for the former caput of the Dukes of Northumberland. The survey will focus on the bailey inside the 12th-century curtain wall as well as the strip of land outside but on the early earthwork castle, the motte and field near the entrance to the castle.
The applications have been sent to our expert assessors who will go over them. And if you want to know more about how the assessment process works, we have a brief summary.
Parchmarks, and geophysical survey funded by the Castle Studies Trust in 2016, show that a large building once occupied the outer ward of Pembroke Castle. In outline, it seemed to be a free-standing, winged ‘mansion-house’, of a kind broadly dateable to the fifteenth century – making it a compelling candidate for the location of King Henry VII’s birth in 1457. But further investigation was needed to confirm its form and date.
This began in 2018, with an archaeological evaluation that again was funded by the Castle Studies Trust, and carried out by Dyfed Archaeological Trust with the assistance of dedicated volunteers, and the support of Pembroke Castle Trust and staff. In essence, this was a preliminary scoping exercise: two trial trenches were excavated, representing around 20% of the suspected area of the building. And, as Pembroke Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, the consent needed to carry out the work specified that the bulk of the stratified deposits had to be left in situ. Project objectives had, therefore, to be kept within realistic boundaries, namely to establish the condition, character and extent of the building – and, if possible, its date.
Pembroke Excavations Trench 1
Despite these limitations, we feel that the evidence uncovered does not seriously challenge our interpretation of the building as a winged house. It was shown to have had stone walls, one of which housed a stairway suggesting it had at least one upper floor, and an annexe containing a pit for kitchen waste alongside a possible cess-pit. The dating evidence was not precise, but does not rule out a late-medieval date, while the stair was of a helical form seen in fifteenth-century buildings in Pembrokeshire. Which means that we could still be looking at Henry VII’s birthplace.
And the trenches may confirm our suspicions about the antiquity of the
castle site. It has long been suggested that the medieval remains overlie an
earlier, Iron Age fort, which may have continued to be used throughout the
Roman period – and perhaps even right up until the Norman Conquest. The waste
deposits seemed to slump into an earlier pit or trench, and contained Roman
pottery and charcoal yielding a Roman-period radiocarbon date. Both perhaps
came from disturbance of deposits within the earlier feature.
Future Plans
We feel that further excavation is the only way to fully unlock the
secrets of this intriguing building, as the best clues to its date, status and
function will probably be found in its form and plan. This information may in fact prove even more useful
than the dating evidence provided by finds and radiocarbon samples. This is
because the area around the building was heavily disturbed by excavation in the
1930s, following which soil, containing pottery, seems to have been brought in
from outside the castle for landscaping. In addition, the scheduled monument
consent limits the excavation of the undisturbed deposits.
Further investigations will hopefully begin next year. Another trench in the area of the suspected cess-pit may confirm whether or not it occupies a winged ‘annexe’ housing a suspected second stairway, while a trench in the suggested kitchen wing may show whether it did contain any ovens or fireplaces. It is hoped that, eventually, the entire ground-plan of the building will be revealed. We may then also see how it related to other deposits and features in the outer ward. Excavation can be a cautionary tale, which advises against letting prior assumptions govern interpretation of the results. It is entirely possible that a very different storyline from the one suggested above may yet emerge.
Neil Ludlow – consulting archaeologist on the excavation
To read the full report you can download it here: https://www.castlestudiestrust.org/Pembroke-Castle-2018.html
