Page:The Architect, Volume 1, 1869.pdf/237

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162

THE

AKCHITECT.

■wall, and said to have been 400 feet deep ; it terminates in a Snail chamber on the second floor. There are no architectural decorations in the loops on the two lowest floors, and only just enough in the upper ones to show that they were lighter chambers appropriated to the possessors of the castle. The point in which Dover more parti cularly differs from other early keeps is in having a highly decorated chapel in the entrance tower. This is a peculiarly valuable example of florid Norman, and we are enabled from it to date, within a year or two, the various ornaments and mouldings peculiar to the style.

The Castle may be generally described as consisting of a central keep within an inner ward or bailey, in which were erected the build ings commonly met with in a large Norman fortress, such as the hall, kitchen, brewhouse, and various offices. These are encircled by a cinguhim, or wall of enceinte, strengthened by 1 mural towers ' pro jecting inwards, and 'buttress towers' projecting outwards, and gateways ; these are further defended by a broad and deep ditch ; beyond this is the outer bailey, or base court, of great extent, and comprising the church within its walls; these are again protected by an imposing array of rectangular and circular towers, rind by a broad ditch going entirely round them. We have already shown, from the ' Great Roll of the Pipe,' that the Castle was provisioned and repaired in 11(30; payments were subsequently made to a large number of soldiers in the garrison, and minor repairs carried on until 1180, when such extensive works were commenced and continued for seven years that it is evident that nearly the whole of the castle was within this precise period rebuilt. Referring to that venerable series of records which were annually delivered into the Exchequer, we find that in the year 1180 a charge of 165/. 13*. Ad. was allowed for works upon the walls. In 1183, upon various works, 129/. 16*. llrf. In the following year the expenses for the keep amounted to 131/. 8s. lOd. ; in 1185 the con tinued expenses upon the ' tunis ' alone were 290/. 2s. Id. ; and in the same year Mauricius the engineer (engeniator), who hod probably studied at the works at Canterbury Cathedral, received 71. 19s. In 1186 207/. 9*. were expended upon the keep and cingulum under Mauricius; in 1187, 151/. 15*. 4rf. was paid for work on the keep and Castle, at which time it must have been very nearly completed, the building of the keep and walls of enceinte having cost 1,085/. 5*. 6</., exclusive of the payment made to Mauricius for his plans and super vision. These expenses may be compared with those of the Castle of Orford, built in 1163 at an outlay of 323/., and that of Bogis, 11721188, at a cost of 397/. 15*. 6d., and some idea may thus be formed of the magnitude of the works carried out at Dover in the short space of seven years. In the first year of Richard an additional outlay of 50/. was made upon the works ; certain flooring was done in 1106, and in 1198 the walls were further strengthened at a cost of 76/. 3s. The Clause Rolls give a few particulsrs of the works carried on during the reign of John and the provisioning of the castle in 1213 and 1214. These preparations are important, as Philip II. of France was then menacing England with an invasion. It is true that nothing was effected by him at that time, but at the close of the reign the ' Dauphin ' captured a great many places in England, and even be sieged the castle of Dover. He fruitlessly assaulted it for fifteen weeks, when, owing to the vigorous resistance of Hubert de Burgh, be was forced to raise the siege and leave the kingdom. This will explain why so much was done to further protect this extreme fortress of the English coast during the long reign of Henry III. On the accession of this monarch in 1216, Hubert de Burgh was ordered to provision the castle ; in 1218 he was allowed all the pro ceeds arising from farms, tallages, scutages, and pleas in the counties of Kent, Norfolk, and Suffolk; these amounted in 1221 to 1,656/. 10*. 10£(Z. and were employed in strengthening and fortifying the castle, Hubert receiving 1,000/. a year as constable. From 1223 to 1239 we learn

March 27, 1869.

from the Clause and Liberate Rolls that no less than 2,022/. 13*. lOd. were spent upon works. From the same authentic sources we find that during the reign of Henry III. 750 oaks were brought to the castle chiefly from the forest of Kingswood in Essex, besides joists and rafters and a large quantity of oak trees not enumerated. The names of Hugh de Alberinorte and Nicholas de Andely occur as carpenters ; there are also considerable entries for lead and casks of Bordeaux. Briefly reviewing the architecture of the Castle at this time, it may be said that the keep, with its wall of enceinte, was the work of Henry II. between 1180 and 1187, and that the towers and boundary wall of the outer bailey were erected in the time of Henry III., be tween 1216 and 1230. Very little was done during tht reign of Edward I. : a windmill was built within the precincts in 1295, at a cost of 39/. 6*. lid., but no vestige of it now remains, though the full accounts of its weekly cost are still preserved. In the time of Edward III. much was done in the way of repairs, but no special buildings we» erected. Among the miscellaneous entries on the Records during the reign of Henry III. the following may be men tioned :—Making the great gate at the going out of the great barbi can in 1232; sending 40,000 quarrels and thirty-five balistars to the Castle in 1236 ; repairing the King's apartments and chapel, damaged by tempests, and putting in new glass windows in 1230 ; building a new kitchen in 1242 ; building a house in which the King's engines may be kept ; providing pipes lor the bellows in the forge, and a cow hide to mend them ; wages of a coppersmith mending the honey casks, and bran for cleaning the King's arms. The Castle possessed one large engine, which lay, in the time of Edward L, under the wall of the washer-woman's house. It took six men a whole day to remove it from this place into the grange ; at the same time another engine was placed there that used to be kept in the church. A new springald (for projecting gorroks) was con structed in 1207, and two more engines brought from London. There are charges for masons working eighty round stones for the use of these machines, and for a barrel of grease and pitch and tar purchased for the large engine. In 1342 there were 000 calketraps in the Castle, and in 1361 in the armoury twelve helmets, three visored bascinets, twelve light helmets, thirty haketons, nineteen chapelles de fer, thirteen plain basci nets, several boxes and barrels of quarrels, gauntlets, breastplates, &c. The wages of soldiers and archers varied from 1*. to 3d. a day in the time of Henry III., and Adam le Fevre received 4r/. a day for making cross-bows. The nails used in the works are variously called ' shingelprig,' ' leadneyl,' 1 dorneil,' ' hussem,' and ' prig.' An account of Dover Castle, by William Darell, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, was published in 1707. It assigns the erection of various towers to particular knights, and further states that they were obliged to defend and repair them, as they held their lands in Kent by virtue of this service. Compressing these assertions into a brief form, we find that John de Fienes granted certain manors to eight knights who were obliged to provide for the defence of the Castle. There is in this account an entire absence of reference to any kind of document, and these military services produced relating to Dover were unknown at the time of the Conqueror, the period to which they are ascribed. We can therefore scarcely accept them as reliable statements : at the same time there is exhibited in Darell's account and Lyons's History a certain amount of circumstantiality which tends to show that they derived their information from some accredited source ; but it must bear the same amount of credit that an unauthenticated statement has with reference to an original document. It is only in the instances of the tower called at different times Avranches and Mansellin's that the names upon the records agree with those given by these writers. However, none of the towers now existing were the work of the period when John de Fienes and his ' confederate knights ' are said to have flourished, for like themselves, their build ings have passed away. The most valuable part of Darell's account is the description he gives of the towers and the names they bore in his time. Though many of them are now gone, it would not be impossible at the pre sent day to define their respective sites amidst all the changes and destruction that have taken place. Among the most remarkable features of the Castle is a spacious and lofty vault, entered by a long flight of steps. It appears, from an entry on the Pipe Rolls, that this was built, in 1229, at a cost of 100/., ' in ima volta facienda ad exeundum de castro versus campum.' It was probably used as a large store room in case the castle was besieged. This entry enables us to estimate the date of the con tiguous buildings on the north side, including the singular Avranches Tower, to the east, and the remarkably placed tower of St. John, in the middle of the ditch, to the west. The series of souterreins connected with the latter tower renders this the most curious and intricate part of the Castle. The following are the names of the towers at present in existence : —beginning at the southern extremity of the wall of the outer bailey, we find Rokesley's Tower, Fulbert do Dover's Tower (for some time used as a debtors' prison), Hirst's Tower, Arsic's or Saye's Tower, Gatton's Tower, Peverell, Beauchamp, or Marshal's Tower, an extremely picturesque building, having the gateway set between a square and a circular tower. Passing by Post's, Gostlings or Mary's Tower, we next come to the principal entrance to the Castle, Newgate, Constable's, or Fienes' Tower. This is a very fine and impos