Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)Clark, George Thomas
History
Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)
Clark, George Thomas
Architecture -- England; Architecture, Medieval; Military architecture
Bronllys Tower presents divers peculiarities. Though of rude masonry,
its door and window dressings are excellent. In general design it
resembles early English work; but its doors, recesses, fireplace,
and corbels, seem of early Decorated, and perhaps, in parts, of
Perpendicular work. It is altogether superior in detail to Penrice,
which it resembles in dimensions, and it is inferior to Tre-Tower. The
walls may be safely assigned to the first quarter of the thirteenth
century; but it was no doubt inhabited as a place of defence, and
afterwards as a dwelling, for two centuries and a half after this;
and from time to time it received certain alterations, of which the
present fireplace-front, the cinquefoiled and other windows, and the
entrance to the mural chamber in the upper floor, may be cited as
instances. The vault of the basement is possibly original, but may be
an addition.
THE CASTLES OF BROUGH AND BROUGHAM, WESTMORELAND.
“Anne Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery,” Baroness Clifford,
Westmoreland, and Vesci, hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and Lady
of the Honour of Skipton, in Craven, was in every way a remarkable
woman: she was of high birth, held large estates, was the widow of
two considerable peers, and had received and largely profited by an
excellent education. To a strong and copious memory she added a sound
judgment and a discerning spirit. She was a person of great firmness
of character, and passed her life amidst events that exercised and
strengthened that quality. Among the many subjects upon which she was
informed, and which ranged, says Dr. Donne, from “predestination to
slea silk,” was included a very close knowledge of the particulars
of her own estates, and a very thorough determination to maintain
her houses and castles in good repair. She found the castles of her
Clifford and Vipont ancestors, Appleby, Brougham, and Brough, in ruins;
she restored and made them habitable, and, though time and the hand of
the spoiler have again brought two of them, Brougham and Brough, to
decay, their walls still exhibit much of the amending hand of the great
Countess, as well as of the original work of her remote ancestors.
BROUGH CASTLE.
Brough Castle covers the whole of a steep knoll which rises 60 feet on
the left bank of the Swimdale or Helle Beck, and is about 50 yards from
the water. The beck receives the Augill from the south-east, just above
the castle, and their combined waters, at times of considerable volume
and force, fall into the Eden about a mile and a half lower down. The
castle itself is 630 feet above the sea-level, and the encircling fells
of Westmoreland and Yorkshire rise to elevations of from 1,000 feet to
2,000 feet. About five miles to the east are the sources of the Greta
and the Balder, and a little further off and towards the north the head
springs of the Lune, not the noble stream that gives name to Lancaster,
but a tributary to the Tees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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