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
Still further to the west are the castles of Dorset and Somerset,
Devon and Cornwall. Wareham, the ancient Frome-mouth, placed between
the Frome and the Piddle, once marked the limits of Poole harbour, and
was a place of great strength and fame. As early as 876 its west side,
the root of the twixt-waters peninsula, was criticised as weak. In one
corner of its rectangular and pseudo-Roman area, a moated mound has
been thrown up, as at Tamworth, by the river-side, and its earthworks
and position justify its reputation as the key of Purbeck, of which
Corfe was the citadel. Corfe, perched upon the summit and slope of a
chalk hill between two clefts whence it derives its name, is now a
magnificent ruin. Half its noble rectangular keep still stands, and
incorporated into the wall of its middle ward is a fragment of the
palace of the old West Saxon kings, probably the only material evidence
extant that they ever employed masonry in their military works. Of
Sherborne, an ancient episcopal seat, the spacious earthwork still
contains much of a late Norman keep, and is still entered through a
Norman gatehouse. Ilchester and Shaftesbury Castles are gone, and only
a part of the earthworks of that of Dorchester remain. West of Purbeck,
in Portland, is Bow-and-Arrow Castle, upon the sea-cliff, a curious and
somewhat peculiar structure of early date, built or occupied by the De
Clares. From Portland to the mouth of the Exe there do not appear to
have been any strong places of importance.
Just within the mouth of the Exe is Powderham, the work of an Earl of
Eu and of De Redvers, and their Courtenay successors, and higher up
and opposite, Rougemont, the citadel of Exeter, which still exhibits
the high banks, deep ditches, and ancient gatehouse, fragments of the
defences behind which the citizens braved the fury of the Conqueror.
Inland from the Exe is Okehampton, the earliest of the English
possessions of the great family of Courtenay, and the work of Baldwin
of Exeter, of the lineage but not bearing the name of De Clare. He was
the builder also of Tiverton Castle which is now destroyed, as also is
Bridgewater. Among the early castles of the district was Stoke Courcy,
now a ruin; Stowey, “pulchrum et inexpugnabile in pelagi littore
locatum”; and Dunster, the strongest place in the west, the “Domesday”
castle of the Mohuns, and after them, as now, of the Luttrells. In the
west of Devon there remains the mound of Plympton, a Redvers castle,
and the shell keep of Totnes, the work of Joel of that place, and
afterwards inherited by the Barons Braose. Barnstaple town was probably
walled, and certainly had four gates. At Taunton a Norman keep and part
of a Norman hall still stand on the banks of the Tone, and rise out of
earthworks attributed to King Ine. At Montacute, the high ground marked
by an immense Romano-British camp, ends in the sharp-pointed hill
which William Earl of Moretaine selected for his castle, of which the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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