CHAPTER X

THE EDWARDIAN CASTLE AND THE CONCENTRIC PLAN

Castles like Carew, enclosing a rectangular area with round towers at the angles, were the fruit of the transition in the course of which the fortified curtain wall took the place of the passive strength of the keep. At Carew the castle was protected upon its most exposed side by outer defences of stone; but on all other sides it presented a single line of defence, flanked by the four formidable angle-towers. A castle thus defended was, like the early stone castles at Richmond and elsewhere, a keep in itself; but its wall no longer depended merely upon its passive strength, but was calculated to resist attacks on which the builders of Richmond and Ludlow had no means of reckoning.

The castle of the latter half of the thirteenth century, the golden age of English military architecture, was, then, an enclosure within a strong and well-flanked curtain wall. The keep, where the site was new, was dispensed with: where an old plan was altered or enlarged, it took a secondary position. The castles of this age may be divided into three separate classes. First, there are castles without keeps, in which the flanked curtain wall forms the sole line of defence. Secondly, there are old castles, which, by extension of their site, have adopted a concentric plan of defence. And thirdly, there are castles newly planned, in which the defences are formed by two or more concentric curtain walls.

I. The grand examples of the first class are the castles of Carnarvon (253) and Conway (254). Conway was begun in 1285 by the orders of Edward I. Carnarvon, in which more architectural splendour is shown, was begun in 1283, and was not finished until 1316-22.[269] Both castles were built in connection with walled towns, and occupied an angle of the defences; and both stand on a point of land where a river meets the sea, so that two faces of the site were defended by water, while the base was separated from the town by an artificial ditch. Carnarvon, however, is situated on low ground, and commands the town only by the height of its curtain and its formidable towers; while the promontory on which Conway stands is raised high above the greater part of the town and commands the whole (256).

The plan of both castles is very similar. The enclosure, in both cases an irregular polygon of an oblong shape, was divided into two wards by a cross-wall,[270] built at a point where the curtain is slightly drawn in on both sides, and the site is consequently narrowed. At Conway the main entrance is in the west or end wall of the lower ward, opposite the cross-wall. The lower ward, thus entered, is a hexagon in shape, flanked by six cylindrical or drum towers, one at each of the angles, and occupies about two-thirds of the enclosure. The remaining third is the upper ward, an irregular rectangle flanked by four drum towers, the two towers to the west being common to both wards. The whole enclosure is thus flanked by eight towers, four at the angles, and two on each of the sides.

The two wards at Carnarvon (253) were more nearly equal, the upper ward, placed, as in Conway, at the end next the confluence of the river and the sea, occupying about two-fifths of the site. The main entrance to the lower ward, the King’s gateway, is in the middle of the side wall next the town, and the wall of division between the wards crossed the enclosure from a point close to the right of the inner entrance. The curtain of the lower ward was built in five sections, with a tower at each of the projecting angles between them. With these towers must be reckoned the two splendid gatehouses, the King’s gatehouse at the north-west, and Queen Eleanor’s gatehouse at the east angle of the ward. The curtain of the upper ward was built in four pieces, and this ward, with its cross-wall, forms an irregular pentagon, at the apex of which is the famous Eagle tower, at the point where the town wall joins that of the castle. There are nine towers in all, counting the two gatehouses, and a turret on each of the north-east and south-east sections of the curtain. The towers are polygonal in shape, the straight faces being for the most part very broad, and the angles very obtuse.[271]

Of the two castles, Conway, which stands, as we have seen, on the better site, was the more economically defended. The leading features of the plan at Carnarvon are the two large gatehouses and the Eagle tower at the western angle, which was virtually a strong tower or keep. The King’s gatehouse formed the main entrance. Queen Eleanor’s gatehouse stands at the highest point of the castle, and is now inaccessible from outside: when in use, it must have been approached by a steeply rising bridge across the ditch.[272] There is also a postern, through which provisions were, no doubt, brought to the kitchen, in the basement of the Well tower, which caps the angle of the curtain between the King’s gatehouse and Eagle tower. At Conway, there was no separate strong tower, nor was there a real gatehouse: the gateway is in a narrow end-wall, and the towers on each side are in close connection with its machicolated rampart-walk. There is also a second and smaller gateway in the wall at the opposite end of the castle, opening on a platform at the edge of the rock, from which a stair led to the water.

Where the curtain was so well defended as in these two castles, a double entrance was a source of strength rather than weakness. The problem for the enemy was how to distribute his forces, so as to keep the whole _enceinte_ under observation. To concentrate an attack upon one gateway was to run the risk of being outflanked and taken in the rear by a sortie from the other. Strong as Château-Gaillard and other castles of the transition had been, they had simply met the prospect of attack with successive lines of defence. Carnarvon and the castles of the Edwardian period generally were not entirely a refuge for a besieged garrison: they were shelters which provided a base of operations for offensive as well as defensive stratagem. The most imposing feature of the defences of Carnarvon castle is the long irregular line of the south and south-west wall, fronting the river Seiont (258). Here the curtain is pierced by three rows of loops, one above another. The lowest open from a gallery in the thickness of the wall: the middle row from an upper gallery, which is now open internally, constructed on the top of the very massive lower wall; while the top row is pierced in the merlons of the battlements (259). The wall could be guarded simultaneously by three rows of archers, one above another—not an inviting prospect to a besieging force. It is obvious that such a castle, large enough to shelter an army, could also be held by a relatively small body of men, so excellently was the area of defence concentrated, and so readily could every part of the curtain be reached from the interior of the fortress.

While the actual defences of the curtain at Conway were more simple than at Carnarvon, the isolation of the site was greater, and the possibility of active movement in and out of the stronghold was less. The attack was bound to be concentrated upon the one main entrance; and consequently, next to the flanking of the curtain, the chief object was the defence of the gateway. The end wall, in which the gateway was pierced, is high above the adjacent town, and the level piece of ground in front was broken short by a steep edge of cliff, at the foot of which was the ditch. The entrance was therefore approached by a well-guarded barbican at right angles to the gateway. This outwork was reached from the town by passing along a rising causeway with a drawbridge at the end, which gave access to the gateway of the barbican, standing in advance of the north-west tower. A short rising path then led through a doorway closed by a wooden door to the platform in front of the gateway, along the west side of which, above the ditch, was continued the outer wall of the barbican, flanked by three small round towers, open at the gorge. The parapet above the gateway was machicolated, and the large corbels still project from the wall.[273] Into a narrow barbican like this, only a small detachment of an attacking force could venture; indeed, the position is practically impregnable. The north-west tower commands every inch of the approach; and the drawbridge, the portcullis and upper gateway of the barbican, and the oblique entrance to the gateway of the castle, formed successive and intimidating obstacles. The main gateway was closed by a portcullis, which was worked from a mural chamber, between the crown of the arch and the rampart-walk. It may be noted that, while the oblique entrance at Conway has some likeness to the ingenious entrances at Beaumaris, the works of Conway have at least two points in common with Harlech—the corbelling-out of the rampart-walk against the interior face of the towers (261), and the carrying up of the stairs of the four eastern towers into turrets above the level of the roof. The lofty stair-turrets above the roof are also a prominent feature at Carnarvon.

The arrangements of the rampart-walks at Conway and Carnarvon were of the usual type. At Conway, where the cross-wall between the wards is still in existence, there is a walk along the top, so that no part of the curtain is really distant from another. The domestic buildings at Carnarvon unfortunately no longer stand; but the position of the hall and kitchen in the inner ward is still known. Probably, as at Conway, there was a large hall for the garrison in the outer ward. The domestic arrangements at Conway can be easily followed, although the kitchen, against the north curtain of the lower ward, is gone. The great hall, which is built against the south curtain, and follows the obtuse angle formed by it, stands above a cellar, but its floor was on a level with the surface of the ward. Its timber roof was built upon stone transverse arches, spanning the hall: the east end was screened off and formed a chapel. The buildings surrounding the smaller or upper ward formed a separate mansion, distinct from the great hall and its appendages. The chief features of this set of apartments were the smaller hall, against the south curtain, the separate withdrawing-rooms called the King’s and Queen’s chambers, and the small chapel or oratory in the north-east tower (263). This chapel was entered from the main stair of the tower, but a straight stair also led to it in the thickness of the east wall from the postern-gate, and communicated with a similar stair in the other half of the wall, leading to the King’s chamber and the lesser hall. Water at Carnarvon was supplied from a well in the tower west of the kitchen: at Conway a cistern was made near the south-east corner of the lower ward.

II. There are old castles, however, which were adapted to the new form of fortification with an ingenuity equal to that shown on new sites at Conway and Carnarvon. In alluding to the lessons learned by the Crusaders in the east, we have noticed the concentric form of fortification which they saw at Constantinople. The city was girt by a triple wall, each ring of which was higher than the one outside it. The advantage of this was obvious: while three successive lines of defence were provided, the three could also be used simultaneously, each row of defenders discharging its missiles over the heads of the next. The Crusaders, the variety and ingenuity of whose castle plans deserve much admiration, profited by the concentric method of walling a stronghold; and none of their fortresses is so remarkable as Le Krak des Chevaliers (176), rebuilt early in the thirteenth century, where the curtain of the inner ward rises high above the curtain of the outer _enceinte_.[274] Approximations to the concentric plan were not unknown even in England at an early date. The earthen defences of Berkhampstead castle (42) are concentric, although no attempt was made to correlate them by giving the inner banks command of the outer.[275] In the plan of the cylindrical tower-keep at Launceston, we have a striking application of the concentric plan to a small area. In France, Château-Gaillard, where the inner ward is nearly surrounded by the curtain of the middle ward, was an approach to concentric methods; but the leading idea was still the exclusion of an enemy by lines of defence arranged upon an elongated plan, with the donjon as the culminating point. Even at Coucy, where the defensive provisions are so elaborate, the donjon is the great point of interest, and the castle is not concentric in plan. In fact, the concentric plan, although long known in the east, was not adopted as a basis of planning in the west until the thirteenth century was far advanced. The fortifications of Carcassonne, where the plan was applied to a town (264), were begun by St Louis, and finished by Philip III.: begun earlier than Caerphilly, their erection covered most of the time in which our chief concentric castles were built.[276]

The concentric plan may be described as follows. The site on which the castle was built was surrounded, as usual, by a ditch. The inner scarp was crowned, and sometimes partly reveted, by a wall, flanked by towers at the angles and, in the largest castles, on the intermediate faces. Within this wall, and divided from it by a narrow space of open ground, rose a second and much higher wall, also flanked by towers at the angles and on the faces. This inner wall enclosed the main ward of the castle, the intermediate space forming the outer ward or “lists.” There was no keep: here, as in the plan of Conway and Carnarvon, reliance was placed on the curtains. The entrances, however, were elaborately defended by large gatehouses and by sundry ingenious devices, as at Beaumaris, for perplexing a foe; and the castle was sometimes reinforced, as at Caerphilly, by special outer defences both of earth and stone. An enemy, attacking such a fortress, was exposed first to a double fire from the two curtains. If he effected an entrance, he had to fight every step of his way into the inner ward; while, if he was driven, by determined resistance at the gateway, into the narrow space of the outer ward, he was not merely in danger from the archers on the inner wall, but also might find his way blocked by one of the cross-walls which broke up the space in which he was confined.

Such a plan, although it might lack some of the advantages of a plan worked out on a new site, could be applied to the new defences of an old castle. Both at Dover and the Tower of London during the reign of Henry III., additions were made which gave each castle a concentric plan.[277] The effect at Dover was to ring the imposing keep about with a double wall: the inner circuit, however, is largely of the same date as the keep, and the outer is spreading and irregular in plan. At London the defences were more closely planned in harmony, and one feature of the additions is that, when the buildings are examined close at hand, the White tower, originally the most important feature of the fortress, becomes comparatively insignificant in the defensive scheme. The inner and outer curtains, with their towers, are of more than one date, from the end of the twelfth to the sixteenth century; but the most important work was done in the reign of Henry III., during which the concentric plan of the fortress was developed. The best idea of the fortifications can be obtained from the open space before the west front. Between the city and the castle lies the formidable ditch, which runs round three sides of the fortress, the fourth side being guarded by the Thames and a narrower ditch. Dug by the Conqueror’s workmen, the ditch was widened and deepened by Richard I.’s chancellor, William Longchamp: it originally seems to have admitted water at high tide. The entrance to the castle is at the south-west angle. A gatehouse, called the Middle tower, which was covered by an outer ditch[278] and outwork, stands on the counterscarp of the great ditch, on this side 120 feet broad, and gives access to a stone bridge. This crossed the ditch to the Byward tower, a gatehouse at the south-west angle of the outer curtain. This curtain has been much altered, and its angles along the north face are capped by bastions which belong to the age when the cannon had taken the place of the catapult. Along its south face, towards the narrow ditch, the quay, and river beyond, it is flanked by towers, the chief of which is St Thomas’ tower, the water-gate of the castle, well known by its name of Traitors’ gate, and, like the Byward and Middle towers, originally a work of the thirteenth century.[279] From the bridge leading to the Byward tower, the curtain of the inner ward, flanked by three towers, the Beauchamp tower in the middle, the Devereux and Bell towers at the angles,[280] can be seen commanding the narrow outer ward. This approach was apparently defended by three rows of archers, like the south curtain of Carnarvon. The highest row occupied the rampart-walk and towers of the inner curtain. Loops were made in the face of the same curtain, below the rampart-walk, for a second row, on the raised ground-level of the inner ward; while a third row could be stationed behind loops in the outer curtain. The outer ward varies in breadth, but the passage to the gateway of the inner ward, along the south face of the inner curtain, is very narrow, and is flanked by the Bell tower and Wakefield tower.[281] The inner gateway is in the ground-floor of the Bloody tower, which joins the Wakefield tower; and is immediately opposite the water-gate in St Thomas’ tower. At intervals the outer ward was traversed by cross-walls, so that an unhindered circuit of it was impossible: one of these crosses it on the east side of the Wakefield tower, and is continued across the ditch to the river bank.[282] The well-flanked approach from the Byward tower, arranged so that the gateway to the inner ward must be entered by a right-angled turn, may be compared with the entrances at Conway and Beaumaris, or with the earlier approach to the main bailey at Conisbrough.

In some respects, the alterations undertaken at Chepstow (104) towards the end of the thirteenth century give it a place among concentric castles. The ridge on which the castle stands, between the town ditch and a sheer cliff above the Wye, was too narrow for concentric treatment, and the actual plan shows us four wards on end, each on higher ground than the last. The first and lowest ward was the Edwardian addition. The second ward formed the lower part of the bailey of the early castle. The third ward, at a very narrow point in the ridge, was almost filled by the great hall, which was virtually the great tower or keep of this castle; and there is only a narrow passage mounting the slope between the hall and the low curtain above the river. The fourth ward, at the highest point, and divided from the third ward by a deep rift in the rock, contains a wide gateway, which, as at Kidwelly—the nearest parallel—was the back entrance to the castle. We have only to imagine the ditch next the town filled up, and the outer curtain continued so as to embrace the second ward and great hall, and to unite the first and fourth wards; and we have what is virtually the plan of Kidwelly (267). Free ingress and egress for the garrison, so well studied in concentric plans, was provided by the two gateways at Chepstow. The exposed condition, however, of the lower ward, at the foot of the ridge, prompted an addition to the plan which recalls the Eagle tower at Carnarvon, or the strong towers at the later manor-castles of Raglan and Wingfield. Projecting from the lowest angle of the curtain, commanding the approach from the town, and covering the gateway, is the tower now called the Marten tower, rounded to the field and flat at the gorge. This tower, entered from the ground-level of the ward, had its own portcullised gateway, and a doorway, also portcullised, from the first floor to the rampart-walk of the curtain. Its three floors were very amply planned, and, projecting from the second floor, and partly built on the battlements of the curtain, is a small chapel or oratory, with an east window containing geometrical tracery. The Marten tower is a valuable example of the protection of a dangerous angle. Its flanking capacities were improved by a spur or half-pyramid built against the base: this may be compared with the rectangular plinths of the two western angle-towers at Carew, from which spurs rise against the rounded surfaces of the towers themselves. The first ward at Chepstow contains a lesser hall and other domestic buildings on the side next the river: these, with the vaults below them (268), contain work of great beauty. All the Edwardian work at Chepstow has that simplicity and adequacy of design, admitting here and there of beauties of detail, which is found in the best military work of the age (249).[283]

III. The castles, however, of the last twenty years of the thirteenth century, planned with a system of concentric defences, may be taken, with Carnarvon and Conway, as reaching the highest pitch of military science attained in medieval England. The earliest of these, Caerphilly (270), which was begun before the end of the reign of Henry III., was also the most elaborate.[284] The castle proper was placed in the middle of a lake, formed by the damming up of two streams; and in this respect the situation was not unlike that of Kenilworth, which was defended on the south and west by an artificial lake, and was irregularly concentric in the ultimate development of its plan.[285] The sides of the island were enclosed within strong retaining walls, which rose to form the curtain of the outer ward. This curtain was low, and was flanked, not by towers, but by curved projections forming bastions at the angles. Within this outer defence rose the rectangular inner ward, the lofty curtain of which was flanked by drum towers at each angle, and by a very large gatehouse with two drum towers in each of the east and west sides. The outer ward had also a front and back gatehouse, flanked by small drum towers, in its east and west curtains: these were directly commanded by the inner gatehouses, and the entrance was not oblique. The inner ward was spacious and cheerful. In the centre is the well: the great hall (272), the excellent stonework of which is sheltered from the weather by a modern roof, was built against the south curtain, and the chapel was at right angles to it at its east end. The kitchen was contained in a projecting tower south of the hall, which blocked the outer ward at this point: beneath the kitchen was a postern communicating directly with the lake. The place of the rampart-walk in the curtain next the hall was supplied by a gallery running in its thickness, and looped to the field. At the east end of the hall were apartments, through which the rooms in the first floor of the east gatehouse could be reached.

This plan, in which the military and domestic elements were so well combined, is interesting upon its own account. But more interesting still were the outer defences by which the castle was surrounded. The whole east face of the castle on the outer edge of the lake was guarded by an outer wall, which had in the centre, nearly opposite the inner gateways, a large gatehouse, and was returned at the ends into clusters of towers, the larger of which, on the south, covered a postern. A wet ditch divided this outer line of defence from the village of Caerphilly, and in its centre was a pier on which the two sections of the drawbridge met. North of the gatehouse, the outer curtain was defended simply by the rampart-walk: on the south side, however, there was a narrow terrace left in the rear of the curtain, by which access was obtained to the castle mill and other offices. These two portions of the curtain were separated from each other by the gatehouse and a dividing wall, which, in case of the capture of one part of the curtain by besiegers, gave the defenders a distinct advantage. The inner lake was crossed from the platform in front of the main gatehouse by a drawbridge, which probably was worked by a counterpoise from the island side.

The lake on the north side of the castle was divided into an inner and outer moat by a bank of earth which sprang from the platform of the outer gatehouse, and curved round the north side of the island. This bank ended at a second and smaller island, the sides of which were reveted by a stone wall, covering the west face of the stronghold. This horn-work or ravelin was connected by drawbridges across the outer and inner moats with the mainland and with the western gatehouses of the castle. It is evident that a fortress like this, in which every resource of the defenders’ art has been brought into action, gave a besieger very few opportunities. Every entry was guarded: if he once effected an entrance, defence after defence had to be forced, while the resources of the several lines of defence could all be used against him at once. Moreover, he had to be careful to cut all communications off from the rear entrance and posterns; and this was a difficult matter, where the defenders of the castle had so much freedom of movement and could assail him from so many different points. It is not surprising to learn that the impregnable fortress of Caerphilly is almost without a history. Constructed to defend the lower valley of the Rhymney and to cover the coast castles round Cardiff from an attack from the Welsh of the valleys which slope southwards from the Brecon Beacons, it endured no important siege;[286] and it was not until the civil war that its military capacity was really tested—and then only in an age which had outgrown the methods responsible for its scheme of defence.[287]

Of Edward I.’s castles in North Wales, Harlech (273) and Rhuddlan, with lofty inner curtains and cylindrical angle-towers, have much in common with each other and with Caerphilly. The general plan of Harlech is nearly identical with that of the island defences of Caerphilly. Its situation on a lofty rock, however, does not call for elaborate outer defences. The rock was isolated from the mainland by a dry ditch cut across the east face. A causeway and a drawbridge led to the gatehouse of the outer ward, which was flanked by bartizans. The wall of the outer ward, like that at Caerphilly, is low, and has no towers: three of its angles form bastions, while the other, at the least accessible point, is simply curved. The unusually lofty curtain of the inner ward, some 40 feet high, towers above the comparatively slight outer defences; while the centre of the east side is occupied by the great gatehouse (274), projecting far back into the inner ward. The entrance is flanked by two semi-cylindrical towers; and in the rear of the gatehouse are two round turrets, rising high above the roofs. Rhuddlan, which stands on the right bank of the Clwyd, had a fairly broad outer ward defended by a deep and wide ditch on the three faces on which the site is fairly level. The inner ward had two gatehouses, of equal size and importance, placed diagonally to each other at the north-east and south-west angles of the curtain. Each of these was flanked by two large drum towers; while each of the two remaining angles was capped by a single tower.

There were at Harlech a hall and other domestic buildings against the curtains; but the gatehouse was also a complete mansion in itself, with its own small chapel or oratory above the gateway. There was an outer stair to the bailey from the main hall of the gatehouse. Exactly the same arrangement occurs at Kidwelly, while the importance of the gatehouse as a dwelling reaches its climax in the hall of the northern gatehouse at Beaumaris.[288] The dual arrangement of a hall, kitchen, etc., for the garrison, and a private dwelling-house for the constable or the lord of the castle, has already been noticed at Conway, whilst its growth has been traced in connection with the castle of Durham.

Harlech presents two or three important points of interest. (1) The outer ward was not blocked at any point, as at Caerphilly, by projecting buildings, but was continuous: it was crossed, however, in at any rate one place, by a wall which barred an enemy’s progress. (2) Owing to the nature of the site, only one gatehouse was built. But a small doorway in the centre of the north wall of the inner ward opened directly opposite a postern, flanked by half-round bastions, in the outer curtain. From this point an extremely steep path, now hardly to be traced, followed the edge of the rock, rounded the north-west bastion of the outer ward, and passed close beneath the west curtain to the south-west angle of the rock. Here, doubling on itself, it descended through a gateway into a long passage between the slope of the rock and the outer wall, and ended at the water-gateway of the castle, at the foot of the great crag and near the present railway station. The wall which protected the outer face of this tortuous passage, formed an outer curtain to the castle, descending the rock from the south-west angle of the outer ward, continuing round the foot of the rock on its north side, and climbing it again to meet the north-east bastion.[289] (3) The rampart-walk had no machicolations and, as at Conway (261), was continued round the inner faces of the angle-towers on corbelling. This left the interior of the towers free, while their doorways and stairs gave them ready command of the rampart-walk. The walls are not only lofty, but very thick. The section of the jambs of the hall windows and the small north postern points to the fact that the lower part of the walls was thickened, probably as an afterthought, when their present height was determined upon. The upper part of the walls is homogeneous, and is evidently a heightening. (4) Although vices in the angle-towers communicated with the rampart-walk, freedom of action was given to the defenders of the towers by the provision of a separate stair for those told off to guard the intermediate ramparts. This stair is reached through the basement doorway of the south-east tower, and, branching off from the internal stair a few feet above the entrance, reaches a small external platform. Here a narrow outer stair, with a rear-wall, is carried up the face of the flat gorge of the tower, and, turning along the south curtain, at length reaches the rampart-walk. The planning of this stair, with its carefully covered ground-floor entrance, is very interesting and curious.

Nowhere, however, can the beauty of the concentric plan be so well appreciated as at Beaumaris (278), one of Edward I.’s latest Welsh castles.[290] The site is flat and low, on a tongue of land at the northern entrance to the Menai straits. There is no attempt at any elaborate outer system of defence, such as we see at Caerphilly. The defences consisted of a ditch, filled with water at high tide, and an inner and outer curtain, the inner curtain, as usual, commanding the outer. The inner ward is square: it has a drum tower at each of the angles, and another in the centre of each of the east and west sides. The north and south curtains are broken by gatehouses, also flanked by drum towers.[291] The north gatehouse was the largest, and upon its first floor was an imposing hall. The curtain of the outer ward, surrounding the inner curtain, was adapted to the projection of the intermediate drum towers and the gatehouses of the inner ward by the construction of each face with a salient angle in the centre (277). There are no traces of any cross-walls barring the passage of the outer ward. The outer curtain, which, owing to the flat site, is not the mere low bastioned wall of Caerphilly or Harlech, has a drum tower at each angle. On each of the north, east, and west curtains, there are three smaller drum towers, the central one of which caps the salient. The plan is thus of a most symmetrical and uniform kind. The south curtain of the outer ward, however, has no intermediate drum towers, and its salient is nearly capped by the outer gateway. This gateway, however, flanked by rectangular towers,[292] is set obliquely to the wall. Entering the outer ward, immediately on our right is the small rectangular barbican, pierced with cross-loops, which covers the inner gateway, so that two right-angled turns must be made before the inner ward is entered (277).

This entrance, most carefully protected, shows even higher skill than the barbican of Conway and the elaborate passage from the water-gate at Harlech. But there are two further remarkable defences in this castle. We have seen that, as at Caerphilly, there is a large gatehouse at either end of the inner ward. The rear gatehouse, which, as already noted, is the more important, has no barbican. The rear gateway of the outer ward is set obliquely to it, in the north curtain east of the salient, and is simply a large postern in the wall. Outside it, however, the wall is reinforced by four buttresses, each of which is pierced by a loop; the outer buttresses are looped to the field, the inner towards the gateway. The westernmost buttress projects beyond the rest, and it is clear that the design was intended to conceal and protect the postern from attack, and that the western side, in the direction of the interior of Anglesey, was that on which an attack was most to be expected. The other defence is the spur-wall, which, running almost at right angles to the south wall of the outer ward, shut off the main entrance and the beach on which it opened from the beach on the eastern side of the castle. The wall is pierced by a passage, is looped in both faces, and is flanked by a half-round tower on the west face.

Although, at first sight, the towers of Beaumaris, on its absolutely level site, look low and unimportant, and present an extraordinary contrast to those of Harlech, Carnarvon, or Conway, the area of the castle is actually large, and no other Edwardian castle presents so perfectly scientific a system of defence. The outer curtain, in addition to the rampart-walk, has loops pierced at regular intervals in its lower portion; the rampart-walk is partly carried by continuous corbelling upon the inner face of the wall. The inner curtain, moreover, is pierced, on the level of the first floor of the gatehouses and towers, by a continuous vaulted passage, looped to the field. This extends round the whole ward, and is broken only at the north-west angle, where it meets the northern gatehouse. Everywhere in the walls of the castle where a loop could be of use, it was made. Of the points noticed, both the entrances are unusual, and the design of the postern at the rear seems to be unique. The spur-wall, though less elaborately treated, is found covering a main entrance at Kidwelly and elsewhere; and the long passages in the thickness of the wall are found in portions of the defences at Caerphilly and Carnarvon. The towers at Beaumaris are entered by straight stairs from the gorge; and throughout the castle, in the gatehouses, great hall, and basements of the towers, the method of carrying a wooden roof upon detached stone ribs prevailed, which is very noticeable also at Conway and Harlech.

Kidwelly castle[293] (267), another late thirteenth-century building, stands on a steep hill, the east side of which slopes abruptly to the Gwendraeth Fach river. The castle is on the opposite side of the river to the town of Kidwelly, and a long base-court, of which part of the gatehouse remains, descended the slope towards the bridge. At the head of this ascent a barbican and drawbridge formed the approach to a strong gatehouse, flanked by two battering towers, and further protected by a spur-wall across the end of the ditch. The gatehouse is in the extreme south-east angle of the outer ward, which, describing a wide curve, covers three sides of the nearly square inner ward, and is separated from the suburb of Kidwelly on this side the river by the ditch. The site was narrow, as at Chepstow, and the eastward slope so steep that the outer ward was not completed along this side, but its curtain was continued by the eastern drum towers and curtain of the inner ward. Three half-round towers were made in the curving curtain of the outer ward; at the opposite extremity to the gatehouse, near the north-east angle, a postern, flanked by small drum towers, gave access to a northern earthwork, which may be compared with the horn-work at Caerphilly, but had no retaining wall.

Kidwelly, with its outworks in front and rear, at once recalls Caerphilly. The irregularly concentric plan, with the inner ward on one side of the interior of the outer, is very unusual, but provides a link between the concentric plan and the extension of the early plan of Chepstow. The provision of both front and rear gateways is a feature of Caerphilly, Chepstow, Beaumaris, and Conway; and, as at Caerphilly, Rhuddlan, and Beaumaris, the inner ward also has front and rear entrances. These, however, at Kidwelly, are mere doorways in the wall. The inner ward was small, with very large and perfect drum towers at its angles: the domestic buildings arranged on either side of it left only a narrow passage through the middle. A tower, of which the two upper stories formed the chapel, was built out upon the east slope, from the corner of the ward next the south-east drum tower. The gatehouse, then, which here, as at Harlech and Beaumaris, contains a large hall and other apartments, and, in addition to a vice to the upper floors, has an outer stair and landing against its north face, was on the outer, not the inner, line of defence, and was protected by the ditch, the barbican, and the base-court beyond. There are remains of buildings, probably intended for the garrison, in the outer ward. The basement of the gatehouse, which is below the level of the ward, contains vaulted chambers. In one of these is a lower vault, which has had a domed roof, and may have been used for stores or a reservoir: in another there appear to be indications of the mouth of a well.

The defensive precautions taken at Kidwelly were not so thorough as in the other great Welsh castles of the time, and the chief reliance of the builders was in the strength of their walls and towers. The outer curtain has the peculiarity, rare in English castles of the date, of possessing a stair built against it from the level of the ward.[294] The inner ward has several curious features. The stair to the curtain was a straight flight of steps protected by the west wall of the main entrance from the outer ward. A path along the back of the rampart of the south curtain led into the south-west drum tower, from the second floor of which the rampart-walk was gained. The walk, though much overgrown by ivy and other weeds, still keeps its rear-wall, and is continued through the towers and round the inner ward. The two western drum towers are interesting. The upper part of that on the north, where it faces the ward, is not a simple curve, but is broken into two convex curves, with a recess between: the reason of this is not apparent.[295] The south-west tower (281), standing at an angle from which it commands the inner face of the great gatehouse, has the most unusual peculiarity of having all its stages covered with vaulting: the vaults themselves are shallow domes, rather rudely constructed. It is probable that the engineers may have intended to establish a catapult on the tower in time of siege. The situation of the tower would have been excellently suited for that purpose, but its unusual strength may be due merely to its position in the line of attack. The basements of all the towers are vaulted, but that of this particular tower, instead of being entered from the ward or one of the domestic buildings directly, is entered by a long and dark passage in the thickness of the south wall, from the left-hand side of the doorway of the inner ward. The unusual precautions taken with regard to this tower and its entrances give it a prominent position in an account of the castle; and, although it is no larger or loftier than the other angle-towers of the inner ward, it has something of the special importance of Marten’s tower at Chepstow or the Eagle tower at Carnarvon.

Although the Edwardian castle in Wales has many points of interest, and provides a highly-developed scheme of defence, yet its devices are simple when compared with the highest achievements of French fortification. The elaborate care bestowed upon the outer defences of Caerphilly, and the variety of ingenuity manifested at Beaumaris, are exceptions to this general statement; while the general plan of Carnarvon is as imposing as that of any castle in Europe. But such carefully contrived approaches as the barbican of Conway and the long ascent from the water-gate at Harlech take a second place when compared with such a work as the outer approach to the castle of Carcassonne, as restored with approximate faithfulness in the drawings of Viollet-le-Duc (283). The castle stood within the inner wall of the town, occupying a rectangular site on the south-west side of this masterpiece of concentric planning. The entrance from the town was guarded by a semicircular barbican; but the approach which called for the most watchful defence was that from the foot of the hill, on the edge of which the city stands. Where the hill meets the plain, therefore, below the castle, a great barbican was constructed, within the outer palisade and ditch of which was a great round tower, not unlike the great tower on the mount at Windsor, surrounded by a wet ditch. The centre of this _châtelet_ was open to the sky: the walls were pierced with two rows of loops below the rampart. This tower guarded the entrance to a walled and carefully protected ascent, which, after making a right-angled turn, led upwards in a straight passage,[296] commanded by the rampart of the outer curtain of the town. Where it met the curtain, it turned to the right, along the foot of the wall, and so reached a gateway into the outer ward or “lists” of the town. But here the passage, passing through a covered vestibule, turned back on its own course, and entered an inner barbican, with two upper stages. Not until this was passed, were the lists entered, and the chief gateway of the castle, in the inner curtain, reached. As we trace this passage, we recall the ascent at Harlech and the traps set for an enemy at Beaumaris; but their combination here is on a scale undreamed of in those fortresses, minutely calculated though their planning was.

The wall-galleries, again, at Carnarvon and Beaumaris, are a device of great utility, unusual in English castles, and are planned at Carnarvon with exceptional skill; while, at Caerphilly, the gallery in the south wall, between the hall and the moat, is a solution of the defence of a point which the somewhat crowded plan of the domestic buildings threatened to leave unguarded. But the covered gallery below the ramparts was not a prominent feature of medieval defence in England. On the other hand, it was used freely in France. Two examples of the defensive use of covered galleries may be given here. One is from Domfront, where, as at Coucy, the castle was separated from the walled town by a very formidable ditch. On the side next the castle, the rock was covered by a retaining wall flanked by two round towers at the ends, and a polygonal tower near the centre. At some time in the middle ages, probably late in the thirteenth century, the rock behind the wall was pierced by a long gallery, communicating with all three towers, and by stairs at intervals with the upper ward above. Loops were made in the retaining wall, so that the approach upon this side was thus provided with a line of defence below the level of the towers and curtain. The gallery is not on one level throughout, but forms a series of separate vaulted casemates, connected with one another by short flights of stairs[297] (284).

In the second case, at Coucy, we have a case of a closed gallery, without loops, which was designed as a counter-mine against the efforts of the sappers of an attacking force. Remains of such galleries exist in more than one part of the castle, forming a remarkable addition to defences which, by themselves, were strong enough to discourage attack. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, the curtain of the donjon, the strongest tower in Europe, was thickened by the addition of a talus or battering base, which was pierced by a passage. The main object of this work was to cover in a spring which had its source in the ditch at the foot of the curtain: the passage communicated at one end with an earlier and well-guarded passage leading from the domestic buildings to a postern in the wall which crossed the west end of the ditch, while, at the other, it communicated by a stair with the rampart-walk of the curtain and gatehouse of the inner ward. But it did not merely form a convenient means of access to the spring. It afforded an opportunity to the defenders of counteracting the miners of the enemy; while, if the miners pierced their way through the talus, they would be met by the thick curtain on the other side of the passage. The passage itself, well protected at both ends, would be commanded by the defence; while the spring in the middle, to those not acquainted with the geography of the place, would form a dangerous barrier in the darkness.

To such finished achievements of military art as these, which have been quoted as specimen examples, our English castles can afford no exact parallel. In the military, as in the ecclesiastical architecture of France, principles were worked out with a logical precision and completeness, which, in its practical effect, provokes our wonder. The effort manifested in the Edwardian castle is more humble; the achievement more limited. This, however, is true rather of the scale of the castle and the details of its defence than of the general idea. The main object, of flanking the curtain effectually and completely, is as fully realised as in any foreign example; while it may be safely said that in no country were the advantages of concentric lines of defence better exhibited than in the Welsh castles, whose main features have been indicated in this chapter. The walls of Carcassonne may provide us with the concentric plan on its largest scale; but the Welsh castles show at least an equal understanding of the value of concentric fortifications. The difference lies in the fact that the French engineer proceeded to strengthen his defences by the addition of intricate refinements and subtle devices; while the Englishman stopped short at this point, and was satisfied when his aim of providing and combining adequate towers and walls of defence was achieved.