Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)Clark, George Thomas
History
Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)
Clark, George Thomas
Architecture -- England; Architecture, Medieval; Military architecture
The rest of the _enceinte_, forming what is now known as the inner
ward, could not, however, have been much later. According to the
“Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” Gervase, and Le Livere, Rufus was, in 1097,
building about the Tower a wall of sufficient magnitude, with the
new hall at Westminster, to be the cause of heavy taxation, and the
subject of general discontent, augmented, no doubt, by the impregnable
character of his work. The existing curtain of the inner ward, being
from 9 feet to 12 feet thick, from 39 feet to 40 feet high, and of
sound but rude masonry, cannot be later than John, by which reign
the wall of Rufus could not have fallen into decay. It is far more
probable, and quite consistent with the dimensions and character of the
work, that this was the actual wall commenced by Rufus, and upon which
he was employed in 1097.
Bell Tower, indeed, which seems to bond into the curtain, and the base
of which presents masonry very like that of Wakefield, is octagonal,
and its vaulting can scarcely be earlier than John; but Devereux Tower,
which is cylindrical outside, and has round-headed recesses in its
polygonal basement chamber, may be as old as Wakefield, and therefore
in substance the work of Rufus. The vaulting is later, but both may
have been, as at Wakefield, taken down to the first floor at a later
period, to which the vaulting may belong. Beauchamp, Bowyer, and all
the other towers on this wall are evidently later insertions; but the
wall itself, where it remains, as on the west and part of the east and
south fronts, is of a very early character, and not unlike the wall
of John at Corfe and the earlier one attributed to Robert Consul at
Cardiff.
Most of the chroniclers record a violent storm that swept over London
towards the close of the eleventh century. Le Livere dates it Friday,
27th October, and Malmesbury, 28th November, 1091, and says it unroofed
St. Mary-le-Bow, and destroyed 600 houses, as houses then were.
Stowe adds that the White Tower was damaged “by tempest and winde sore
shaken,” and that it was repaired by Rufus and Henry I.; but he gives
no authority for this statement, which the extreme solidity of the
building renders very improbable. The outworks, however, both wall and
towers, if in course of construction, with scaffolding up, might very
well have suffered severely.
The Tower, therefore, of the close of the reign of Rufus, and of those
of Henry I. and Stephen, was probably composed of the White Tower with
a palace ward upon its south-east side, and a wall, probably that we
now see, and certainly along its general course, including what is now
known as the inner ward. No doubt there was a ditch, but probably not a
very formidable one.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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