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Medieval Castles
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The White Tower no longer
has its forebuilding |
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The entrance stairs inside the
forebuilding at Castle Rising |
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The forebuilding on
the keep at Rochester Castle |
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Castle Building
The design, construction and use of castles in the middle ages is varied and stretches from the basic fortification of domestic buildings to the advanced art of combining extensive defensive arrangements with residences. There was a steady technological advance in defensive architecture and plans with designs becoming ever more elaborate in attempts to make castles ever more secure. In terms of materials it would be logical to assume that there was an evolution from building in wood to building in stone. However, the need in a given situation seemed to be the real consideration for we find wooden castles being built quite late and stone castles early. A situation where a castle was needed hastily dictated the use of wood where stone was used in less urgent cases. Often the wooden construction would be erected to watch over and protect the building of a stone castle, nearby or on the same spot.
The Keep
After the conquest, the Normans built castles all around England and the main feature of these was the keep. The most famous is the White Tower at the Tower of London built as a fortress, palace and seat of government for William the Conqueror. The keep is rectangular with a sloping plinth at the base to make undermining difficult. The walls are twelve to fourteen feet thick and ninety six feet high with the four corner towers rising even higher. A keep usually had a fore building that allowed entrance to the first or second floor; this has now gone on the White tower but still exists at Newcastle, Dover, Rochester and Castle Rising. These are not the only examples but notable ones. The White tower originally had three floors; basement, entrance level, and main floor with the plan being virtually the same on all three. Rochester, a much taller keep, has a total of four floors, again, virtually the same. Keeps varied in size. Colchester castle in Essex is one hundred and fifty feet square while Clitheroe in Lancashire is just thirty two feet square. Similarities can be seen between different keeps. The keep at Norwich in Norfolk, although more elaborate, has a basis in the keep at Falaise in France while the keep at Castle Rising, also in Norfolk, is a design based on Norwich.
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