The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.Armitage, Ella Sophia
History
The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles.
Armitage, Ella Sophia
Architecture, Norman; Castles -- Great Britain -- History -- To 1500; Normans -- Great Britain
NORWICH (Fig. 23).--We find from Domesday Book that no less than 113
houses were destroyed for the site of this castle, a certain proof that
the castle was new.[524] It is highly probable that it was outside the
primitive defences of the town, at any rate in part. Norwich was built,
partly on a peninsula formed by a double bend of the river Wensum,
partly in a district lying south-west of this peninsula, and defended
by a ridge of rising ground running in a north-easterly direction. The
castle was placed on the edge of this ridge, and all the oldest part
of the town, including the most ancient churches, lies to the east of
it.[525] In the conjectural map of Norwich in 1100, given in Woodward's
_History of Norwich Castle_,[526] the street called Burg Street divides
the Old Burg on the east from the New Burg on the west; this street
runs along a ridge which traverses the neck of the peninsula from
south-west to north-east, and on the northern end of this ridge the
castle stands.[527] There can be little doubt that this street marks
the line of the _burh_ or enclosing bank by which the primitive town
of Norwich was defended.[528] A clear proof of this lies in the fact
that the castle of Norwich was anciently not in the jurisdiction of the
city, but in that of the county; the citizens had no authority over the
houses lying beyond the castle ditches until it was expressly granted
to them by Edward III.[529] The mediæval walls of Norwich, vastly
extending the borders of the city, were not built till Henry III.'s
reign.[530]
[Illustration: FIG. 23. Norwich.
(From Harrod's "Gleanings among the Castles and Convents of Norfolk,"
p. 133.)]
The motte of Norwich Castle, according to recent investigations,
is entirely artificial;[531] it was originally square, and had "a
prodigious large and deep ditch around it."[532] The fancy of the
antiquary Wilkins that the motte was the centre of two concentric
outworks[533] was completely disproved by Mr Harrod, who showed that
the original castle was a motte with one of the ordinary half-moon
baileys attached. Another ward, called the Castle Meadow, was probably
added at a later date. The magnificent keep which now stands on the
motte is undoubtedly a work of the 12th century.[534] The castle which
Emma, wife of Earl Ralf Guader, defended against the Conqueror after
the celebrated bride-ale of Norwich was almost certainly a wooden
structure. As late as the year 1172 the bailey was still defended by
a wooden stockade and wooden bretasches;[535] and even in 1225 the
stockade had not been replaced by a stone wall.[536]
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