Читать книгу The Building of England: How the History of England Has Shaped Our Buildings - Simon Thurley - Страница 40

The crisis of 1216–17 (p. 120) and the continued tension between the Crown and the magnates caused some fundamental questions to be asked about the design of castles. It must be remembered that Dover, the most important and powerful castle in England, had been besieged in 1216 and nearly taken. At the start of Henry III’s reign it was time to review how these powerhouses were built. Henry III spent the following 30 years completing the outer defensive walls at Dover, building outworks and what was probably the most impressive and complex gatehouse to any castle in England (fig. 115).³⁷

Dover was key to the defence of the kingdom, as had been demonstrated in 1216–17. No less so was the Tower of London. Built to overawe Londoners, and by Henry III’s reign the home of the royal treasury and arsenal, it was central to the power of the monarchy. Relations with the city had, however, been strained, and Henry felt it vital to bring this fortress up to standard, too.

Fig. 115 Dover Castle, Kent; the Constable’s Gate, probably the largest gatehouse ever built in England. Begun in 1217 as the new principal entrance to the fortress, but also to contain a residence for the castle’s permanent chief, the Constable.

At the Tower of London, in the 1220s and from the late 1230s, Henry III re-planned the defensive circuit around the Conqueror’s White Tower, building a massive curtain wall protected by a series of circular and D-shaped towers and a 160ft-wide moat. A new gatehouse and barbican faced the City of London, and the White Tower assumed its current name thanks to its first all-over coat of whitewash. Henry’s work, which increased the walled area of the Tower by at least an acre, probably remained unfinished; part of it certainly collapsed, and it was left to Edward I to complete the fortification of the Tower between 1275 and 1285. Edward threw a second wall around the one built by his predecessor, digging a new moat and creating a complex series of outworks and gatehouses as a new entrance. The Tower of London was now the first coherently planned concentric fortress in England (fig. 116).

Fig. 116 The Tower of London today. Although altered in the 18th and 19th centuries, the Tower is still recognisably a concentric fortress with rings of defences and, bottom right, an elaborate system of gatehouses, drawbridges and causeways that secured its entrance.

To enter, it was now necessary to pass from Tower Hill on to the Lion Tower, a semicircular enclosure surrounded by a moat and guarded by two gates and a drawbridge. From here the would-be visitor had to pass through the twin-towered Middle Tower, a gateway defended by a drawbridge, gateway and two portcullises, before passing onto a parapeted causeway across the moat. Here visitors were confronted by a second twin-towered gatehouse, the Byward Tower, also defended by a gate, portcullises and a drawbridge. King Edward I is known, rightly, as one of the great builders in English history. As well as substantial work in England, over a 25-year period – and at the cost of £80,000 – he built a series of castles and fortified towns in North Wales as part of his campaign to conquer and subdue the Welsh. Caernarvon, Conway, Harlech and Beaumaris, for example, still stand witness to this remarkable chapter in royal patronage. As these buildings are in Wales they fall outside the scope of this book, yet it is necessary to ask what influence, if any, did this gargantuan building programme carried out for an English king with English labour and finance have on the development of English architecture?³⁸

The first point to make is that the Welsh castles were exceptional, not only because of the incredibly impressive focus of men, materials and money, but because they were all built from scratch. Most English castles were a product of hundreds of years of piecemeal addition; very few new castles were built after 1150. Therefore, unusually, Edward had the opportunity to create a series of brand-new ideal forts, building what were probably the greatest military achievements of their age in Western Europe. The design of the Welsh castles brought together ideas that had been tried and tested at Dover and the Tower. For instance, none of them has a great tower or keep. Their most prominent feature, and where the prime accommodation lay, was the gatehouse. It was the gatehouse that had proved decisive during the siege of Dover, and the new defences at Dover, particularly the Constable Tower, emphasised its importance. But there was perhaps more than military necessity in the prominence given to gatehouses. Since Saxon times the English had favoured the gatehouse as a sign of status (p. 52), and the Welsh castles of Edward I reinforced this as a major feature in English architectural design (p. 146).³⁹

Finally, both Conway and Caernarvon castles effectively contained royal palaces.⁴⁰ This is an important point because neither Henry III’s works nor those of Edward I were confined to defence. Henry III transformed his castles into major and comfortable residences for himself; his works at Dover and the Tower included new palaces, as did those at Windsor and Winchester. After his marriage in 1236, yet more building was commissioned to provide suitable accommodation for the queen. These royal works reflect a wider move by magnates who were making their castles more comfortable and spacious. The Cliffords at Brougham Castle, Cumbria, were typical in setting out to extend and modernise their Anglo-Norman great tower in 1300. They added an elaborate gatehouse to its face, raised it by a storey and added fine rooms, including a vaulted oratory (fig. 117). Brougham was no longer a cold northern fortress; it was a commodious and fashionable residence.

Fig. 117 Brougham Castle, Cumbria, is a lesson in how to transform a severe Norman great tower into a compact but luxurious residence. The bottom three storeys date from around 1200 and contain a store, the castle’s hall and above that the original lord’s chamber. The storey above, with its fancy oratory and big fireplace, date from a century later and was added by Robert Clifford.