12th August, 2024 in Archaeology, Local & Family History

Castles of Northumberland: A gazetteer and history of the county’s castles

By Brian Long

Northumberland has more castles, fortalices, towers, peles, bastles and barmkins than any other county in the British Isles. Castles of all periods were the private residences and fortresses of kings and noblemen. Read an extract from the new book Castles and Strongholds of Northumberland below.

Upon the summit of the motte or mound, within the stockade, usually rose a wooden tower, which was the residence of the lord and the ultimate stronghold and vantage point of the castle by reason of its superior height. The exact time and place or origin of this type of fortification is unknown. A castle of this type was mentioned for the first time in ad 1010 and stood on the banks of the Loire in France. It was built by a man skilled in military affairs whose name was Fulk Nerra. He was also the first man to employ mercenary soldiers. It cannot be denied that a motte is a fortress for a man who wishes to defend his family and close friends from all would-be enemies, whether other lords or his own rebellious retainers. Whatever its origin, the motte was in wide use in Normandy before William conquered England.

The tower on the motte was not always a crude and uncomfortable lodgingon stilts as stood at Durham in the castle of Prior Laurence: ‘Four posts are plain, on which it rests, one post at each strong corner.’ Many were comfortable tower houses, as described by Lambert of Ardres in 1117: Arnold, Lord of Ardres, built on the motte of Ardres a wooden house, excelling all the houses of Flanders of that period both in material and in carpenters’ work. The first storey was on the surface of the ground, where were cellars and granaries, and great boxes, tubs, casks and other domestic utensils. In the storey above were the dwelling and common living rooms of the residents, in which were the larders, the rooms of the bakers and butlers, and the great chamber in which the lord and his wife slept.

Adjoining this was the private room, the dormitory of the waiting maids and children. In the inner part of the great chamber was a certain private room, where at early dawn, or in the evening, or during sickness, or at time of blood letting, or for warming the maids and weaned children, they used to have a fire… In the upper storey of the house were garret rooms, in which on the one side the sons (when they wished it) and on the other side, the daughters (because they were obliged) of the lord of the house used to sleep. In this storey the watchmen and servants appointed to keep the house also took their sleep at some time or other. High up on the east side of the house in a convenient place was the chapel, which was designed to resemble the tabernacle of Solomon in its ceiling and painting. There were stairs and passages from storey to storey, from the house into the kitchen, from room to room and again from the house into the loggia, where they used to sit in conversation for recreation, and again from the loggia into the oratory.

It may be noted that neither the Bayeux Tapestry, nor indeed many of the contemporary accounts, mention or show the bailey. It should not be deduced from these facts that in most castles the bailey did not exist, but it should be taken as an implication of the immense importance of the motte both militarily and socially. The bailey must have been essential for stables, barns, smithies and affording shelter for the garrison and its supplies in most, if not all, of the early Norman strongholds. As mentioned above, the Bayeux Tapestry shows several of these castles withtheir towers on the motte and bridges in position. The pictures of the siege of the castle at Dinan shows just how vulnerable they were when fire was used. There can be little doubt that the walls were hung with wet hides to prevent them catching fire.

One of the many tragedies that must have overtaken these houses and their besieged occupants happened in 1190 when the Jews of York were attacked by a mob and had taken refuge in the motte, and many of them perished when it was fired. Motte-and-bailey castles were cheap and quick to build but a castle of importance required more permanent defences, and as timber in contact with damp soil rots quickly, the second build of such a castle would at least be on stone sleeper walls if not entirely rebuilt in stone when circumstances allowed. It was at this time that many sites were abandoned in favour of stronger and healthier sites. Elsdon Castle, the best motte-and-bailey in Northumberland, never had stonework built on it as the occupants moved out when the timber decayed. The remainingmounds, known as the Moat Hills, are worthy of inspection.

The next step in castle building came about by a change of materials rather than tactics, and the keep-and-bailey castle came into being. The keep, normally, was a large square stone structure taking the place of the motte, or incorporating it in its own defences, as at Warkworth. The plans of these castles were the same as those of timber, though as the first urgency of the conquest declined and the lords began to seek the comfort and safety of stone, quite a number of the original sites were abandoned, as was Elsdon, for safer and more suitable ones. The main gate, the most vulnerable point of the bailey, was the first to bestrengthened by a stone tower. A strong square tower, beneath which ran theentrance passage, would be built. Then came the bailey walls enclosing the site; this enabled the occupants to work in safety on the keep and other offices. Norman ramparts can still be seen under the successive layers of stonework of nearly every period at Alnwick, Warkworth, Morpeth, Mitford and Norham.

As mentioned above, keeps were normally large square structures, as at Newcastle, Norham, Bamburgh and Prudhoe. The normal arrangements in these large towers or keeps can be seen to advantage at Newcastle. It is obvious that much in the way of comfort was sacrificed, but in days of peace there would be other more comfortable lodgings in the bailey. Because of their weight, great towers and keeps were seldom placed on the earlier mounds as at Warkworth. To replace the security offered by the height of the motte, the entrance to the later stone keeps was often on the first-or even the second-floor level and housed by a forebuilding.

Bamburgh, built on its rock, was so inaccessible as to be safe with its entrance on the ground floor, or so the builders thought. No two keeps are exactly the same, but all are similar in many respects, internally and externally. They have shallow but tresses in the centre of each side and at the corners. The corner ones often terminate in small angle turrets, but the bases of all of them are splayed. The walls were of great height so as to protect the high-pitched roof from fire arrows. In some castles, such as Warkworth, the keep was so large and of such excellent design that it may have been in general use and at least would have been much more comfortable than most.

Extracted from Castles and Strongholds of Northumberland by Brian Long