Castle Rising Castle

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The Keep of Castle Rising Castle, view from the southeast

Castle Rising Castle is a ruined castle on the southern edge of the English village of Castle Rising about five miles northeast of the town of King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk . The system includes one of the largest Keeps in England and is a Grade I classified building since February 21, 1989 under monument protection . The ring wall surrounding it is so high that the residential tower hardly protrudes beyond it and is therefore almost invisible from the outside.

The castle was built in the first half of the 12th century by William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel on the site of an old Saxon settlement and adapted to the changing uses and tastes over the course of the following centuries. The most famous resident of the complex was Isabelle de France , who resided there from 1331 to 1358. In the 15th century, largely ruined but still in use, Henry VIII gave the run-down facility to the Howard family in 1544, who are still the owners today.

Castle Rising Castle is open to visitors and can be visited daily from April to October, and for a fee on Wednesdays to Sundays the rest of the year.

history

Isabelle de France was the most famous inhabitant of the castle

Castle Rising belonged to Snettisham in the Middle Ages , owned by Stigand , the Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury , since 1052 . In 1070 it was conquered by the Normans , and William I then gave the settlement to his half-brother Odo , the Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent . After the latter fell out of favor with his royal brother in 1082, Castle Rising came to William Rufus , who gave it to William d'Aubigny. When he died in 1136, his son of the same name inherited him , who married the king's widow Adelheid von Löwen in 1138 and was given the title of Earl of Arundel by her right . Shortly after his wedding, he began building a Norman keep in Castle Rising to replace an old Saxon settlement. At the same time he also had construction work carried out on Arundel Castle and a new castle built in New Buckenham . He had Castle Rising Castle secured by a large earth wall and a castle moat in front of it . The wall was raised in the late 12th or early 13th century and the ditch in front was deepened. At the same time, a Vorwerk was built west of the wall . Until 1224, the fortified complex within the family was always passed on to the eldest son named Wilhelm, until the fifth of this name died childless that year. The property went to Wilhelm's brother Hugh, who also left no heirs. When he died in 1243, his four sisters shared the inheritance among themselves. Castle Rising received the youngest, Cecily. Her husband Robert de Montalt became de iure uxoris Lord of Rising and thus the new owner of the castle. The couple's childless grandson, also named Robert, sold the castle in 1327 to the English King Edward III for 10,000  marks . According to the provisions of the sales contract, however, the system should only actually pass into the control of the royal family after his death and that of his wife. After his death, Robert's widow Emma sold her right to live in the castle to the king for an annual pension of £ 400  . He then determined Castle Rising Castle in 1331 as the residence of his mother Isabelle de France , who had her main residence there until 1358. During this time, the English king and his wife Philippa of Hainaut stayed at the castle on at least four occasions (1342, 1343, 1344 and 1349) while they were visiting Isabelle. It is possible that various outbuildings were erected under her aegis south of the Keep, of which excavations in the 1970s are known to have been built in the first half of the 14th century. The new buildings included servants' accommodation, workshops, stables, a kitchen and a chapel . At the same time, modifications were made to the keep and a curtain wall with three towers was built on the top of the castle ramparts .

The castle in Castle Rising was supposed to go to Edward's younger brother John of Eltham after Isabella's death , but since he died before his mother, Edward III changed the building. in October 1337 the provision that he firmly linked the castle there with the title of Duke of Cornwall and awarded it to his son Edward, the Black Prince . This had the fortifications of the system reinforced. After his death in 1376, his son Richard II of England inherited him , who swapped the castle with John V , Duke of Brittany , for the Brest fortress . In 1397 Castle Rising Castle came back into the possession of the English royal family and was subsequently given to Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York , an uncle of King Richard, after whose death the complex returned to the crown. From 1403 to 1544 ownership of the castle was once again linked to the title of Duke of Cornwall. As early as the late 15th century, however, the buildings were described as derelict. A representation from the year 1542/43 reports that the keep was a ruin with a collapsed upper floor, but some of it was still in use. When Edward IV of England came into possession of the castle in the 15th century, all the buildings were in ruins. It seems as if King Henry VII had some repairs carried out on the buildings again, but they were neglected again under his direct successor. Henry VIII gave the property to Thomas Howard , the third Duke of Norfolk , in 1544 , and in return received Walton, Falkenham, and other Suffolk estates . The Howard family is still the owner of the property, although it was transferred to a younger branch in 1693. In the 18th century, the castle ruins briefly housed a mentally ill person.

From December 31, 1958, the facility was under state administration and was looked after by English Heritage . Since then, various restorations and repair work have been carried out on the existing building fabric. In addition, the found from 1970 to 1976 under the direction of M. Beric Morley excavations, among others, on the ground floor Keeps place where discoveries confirmed a previous Saxon occupation of the site. Today the castle owner, Baron Howard of Rising , manages the complex himself again.

description

Site plan of the castle complex without the two outbuildings

Wall and Vorwerke

The twelve acres (around 4.8  hectares ) of the castle complex consists of the well-preserved ruins of a keep from the 12th century, which stands in the middle of an earth wall with an oval floor plan, as well as the remains of several outbuildings, some of which have only survived as foundations. The wall dates from around the same time as the residential tower and is - if at all - not much older than this. The assumption that it dates back to Roman times has been refuted by excavations. These also showed that the rampart was initially lower and in the 12./13. Century was increased. The great wall is between six and ten meters higher than the area inside, which is about 198 meters long and has a maximum width of 150 meters. To the west and east of the wall, which is surrounded by a dry trench around eight meters deep , two smaller earthworks with a rectangular floor plan and without any buildings are in front of it. The western one measures about 125 × 50 meters, has a surrounding ditch up to two meters deep and a 1.5 meter high wall. This encloses a platform made of earth up to five meters high, which has no connection to the central ring wall. Perhaps it was only used as a pasture for cattle and was once accessible via steps in the wall and a subsequent bridge over the moat.

The eastern Vorwerk is about 155 × 92 meters in size and has a nine-meter-high embankment and a four to five-meter deep trench in front of it. It served to protect the castle entrance, which is located on the east side of the castle area and there interrupts the inner earth wall. There a brick, single-arched bridge leads to the ruins of a rectangular gatehouse from the 12th century, the bridge being of a later date. The outward facing west wall of the gatehouse is six feet , its eastern wall at least five feet thick. The width of the arched archways is twelve feet. The remains of a spiral staircase can be found on the southern outer wall of the gatehouse , which formerly led to the guard room on the upper floor of the building, which is no longer there. South of the gatehouse closes on the top of the mound a piece of the late 14th century, mostly of brick built ramparts to. The two-foot thick masonry had blind arcades on the inside . The holes in the wall that were still visible could have been holes for beams that supported a battlement .

Porch and vestibule

Front building (left) and front tower (right) on the east side of the keep

A special feature of the castle in Castle Rising is its porch on the eastern side, richly decorated with arcades, friezes , sculptures and reliefs . It is not only one of the architecturally most elaborate keep porches in England, but also one of the best preserved. Its rich decor makes it stand out from the otherwise simple exterior of the keep. The building accommodated an eight-foot-wide staircase to the upper floor of the adjoining tower, from where the entrance on the first floor of the keep could be reached. The entrance to the stairs is on the narrow southern side of the staircase, the outer walls of which are up to six meters high and six feet thick. The two-winged portal is flanked by columns on both sides and shows two blind arcades above its archway. It leads to a nine-foot-wide stone staircase, which was used as a defense, because halfway up it could be barricaded through a door with heavy wooden beams. The beam holes are still clearly visible today. Above the door there was a defense platform from which potential attackers could be attacked by the defenders through a throw hole .

The stairs ended at a double-winged door flanked by columns, which gives access to the so-called vestibule in the adjoining vestibule . This square tower on the northeast corner of the Keep has an outer edge length of 20 feet and may have been used as a prison on the first floor. Its three floors are closed off by a small pan- roofed gable roof, whereby the second floor including the roof is not part of the original structure, but was added in the early 14th century. It houses a 16 x 16 foot room with ribbed vaults and a fireplace on its south wall that dates from the 19th century. The large windows in the room no longer have their original arched shape, but have been replaced by today's rectangular windows. The vaulted ceiling is repeated in the room on the first floor, which played a special role as an anteroom to the Great Hall of the Keep. Its glazed windows with a semi-arched top were formerly open arcades . The large, elaborately designed portal has a triple profiled wall and is studded with columns. However, the six-foot-wide, semi-arched entrance has been built in since around 1840 and has served as a fireplace ever since.

  • Staircase

  • Window in the vestibule

  • Former entrance to the Great Hall

  • Window on the second floor of the fore tower

Keep

Floor plans of the ground floor (below) and the first floor (above) in the Keep

The three-story keep of Castle Rising Castle is a 12th century foundation. Limestone , sandstone from Sandringham and flint were used as building materials . With a height of around 15 meters and side dimensions of 24 and 21 meters, the building is a good example of a so-called hall keep , in which the residential tower is wider than it is high - in contrast to the so-called tower keep . The two-story building is similar to Norwich Castle and Falaise Castle . Its four corners are marked by square corner towers that are seven feet wide and protrude from the wall like a pilaster . Inside the south-west and north-east towers are spiral staircases with 76 steps extending from the ground floor to the second floor. The beginnings of the former battlement are still preserved at the floor level.

The south facade of the keep is divided into four fields by three-foot-wide pilasters. The same pilasters can also be found on the north side. The beveled plinth of the south outer wall is six feet and six inches thick at the base . The north and east walls are slightly thicker at seven feet, while the west wall is only six feet. On the ground floor of the south wall there are only narrow slits of light, which is due to the fact that this floor was not used for living but as a warehouse. The first floor on the south side shows different types of windows, while the second floor has mostly circular light openings. The only exception is a round-arched twin window in the fourth, eastern field. All of the keep's windows never seem to have been glazed, but they could be closed with shutters from the inside . On the western outer wall there is a toilet bay between two pilasters at the level of the first floor .

Inside, the former wooden ceilings and floors are no longer preserved, so that visitors can see the sky from the ground floor. The keep is divided into two sections along its entire length by a six-foot-thick partition. The north is determined on the first floor by the 13 × 8 meter large hall ( English Great Hall ). He could be reached through the portal on the first floor of the front tower. To the west of it were latrines, a utility room and the kitchen with a large fireplace. These rooms stand on the preserved, stone vaulted ceilings of the first floor, in which a well with a diameter of seven feet has been preserved to this day. In the southern part of the first floor, the 13 x 5 meters is measured so-called Large chamber ( English Great Chamber ), which served as a housing of the respective Burg master. To the east is the castle chapel with a floor plan of 3.9 × 4.2 meters and a ribbed vault on the ceiling of the choir .

Outbuildings and chapel ruins

Ruins of the Romanesque church

Inside the large earth wall are the excavated foundations of various outbuildings of the castle, which date from the 14th to 16th centuries. Servants' quarters, farm buildings and even a chapel for the castle men once stood south of the keep . Initially pure wood structures from the first half of the 14th century, these were later replaced by wood-stone or pure stone structures and finally demolished towards the end of the 16th century. Parts of the chapel ruin were still standing in the 18th century.

The oldest stone building on the castle area is the ruins of a Romanesque church from the 11th century, 30 meters north of the keep , which probably used to serve as the parish church of the settlement there. After the castle was built, it was secularized in the 12th century and used as an outbuilding, as evidenced by a 16th century fireplace on the southern wall. It was replaced by St Lawrence's Church in Castle Rising. The outer walls of the 26-meter-long, single-nave building are still up to four meters high. The 12 × 4.8 meter nave was joined to the east by a 4 × 4 meter central building, followed by a 4.8 × 4 meter choir and a semicircular apse at the eastern end. Two of the original three windows of the latter are still partially preserved. According to local tradition, the early Norman baptismal font in today's parish church of Castle Rising is said to originally come from the ruined chapel.

literature

  • Harry Lawrence Bradfer-Lawrence: Castle Rising. A short history and description of the castle with illustrations. West Norfolk and King's Lynn Newspaper Company, 1954.
  • Reginald Allen Brown: Castles from the air. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1989, ISBN 0-521-32932-9 , pp. 80-82 ( digitized version ).
  • Reginald Allen Brown: Castle Rising. Norfolk. 2nd Edition. HM Stationery Office, London 1983, ISBN 0-11-671465-4 .
  • George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. Volume 1. Wyman & Sons, London 1884, pp. 364-377 ( digitized version ).
  • Lise Hull: Great Castles of Britain & Ireland. New Holland, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84773-130-2 , pp. 29-30.
  • James D. MacKenzie: Castles of England. Their story and structure. Volume 1. MacMillan, New York 1886, pp. 296-300 ( digitized ).
  • Beric M. Morley, David Gurney: Castle Rising Castle, Norfolk (= East Anglian archeology . Volume 81). Field Archeology Division, Norfolk Museum Service, Norfolk 1997, ISBN 0-905594-23-1 .
  • Mike Salter: The Castles of East Anglia. Folly Publications, Malvern 2001, ISBN 1-871731-45-3 , pp. 52-55.
  • William Taylor: The history and antiquities of Castle Rising. Taylor, Lynn 1850 ( digitized ).

Web links

Commons : Castle Rising Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Richard Humble: English Castles. Guild Publishing, London [1984], ISBN 0-297-78415-3 , pp. 90-91.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Entry of the castle ruins as a Listed Building on the Historic England website , accessed January 6, 2020.
  3. ↑ a b c Description and history of the system ( Memento from May 24, 2019 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ James D. MacKenzie: Castles of England. 1886, p. 296.
  5. ^ A b c Reginald Allen Brown: Castles from the air. 1989, p. 80.
  6. ↑ a b c d Information on the castle ruins at pastscape.org.uk , accessed on January 6, 2020.
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Entry of the castle ruins as a Scheduled Building on the Historic England website , accessed January 6, 2020.
  8. ↑ a b James D. MacKenzie: Castles of England. 1886, p. 297.
  9. ↑ James D. MacKenzie: Castles of England. 1886, p. 298.
  10. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 377.
  11. ^ Reginald Allen Brown: Castles from the Air. 1989, p. 82.
  12. ^ Website of the castle , accessed on January 6, 2020.
  13. ↑ Castle Rising Castle on the English Heritage website , accessed January 6, 2020.
  14. ^ Lise Hull: The great castles of Britain & Ireland. New Holland, London 2009, ISBN 978-1-84773-130-2 , p. 29.
  15. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, pp. 365-366.
  16. ↑ James D. MacKenzie: Castles of England. 1886, p. 299.
  17. ^ A b c George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 375.
  18. ^ Philip Dixon: Design in castle-building. The controlling of access to the Lord. In: Château Gaillard. Études de castellologie médiévale. Volume 18. Center de récherches archéologiques médiévales, Caen 1998, ISBN 2-902685-05-X , p. 49.
  19. ^ Henry Avray Tipping: Castle Rising, Norfolk, the Property of Major C. A. Howard, DSO. In: Country Life . Volume 46, 1920, p. 18.
  20. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 372.
  21. ↑ a b c d e f g George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 368.
  22. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 373.
  23. ↑ Reginald. Allen Brown: Castles from the Air. 1989, p. 81.
  24. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 374.
  25. ^ A b c George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 369.
  26. ↑ John Timbs, Alexander Gunn: Abbeys, castles and ancient halls of England and Wales. Their legendary lore and popular history . Fredereic Warne & Co., London [1872], p. 219 ( digitized version ).
  27. ^ George Thomas Clark: Mediæval military architecture in England. 1884, p. 376.

Coordinates: 52 ° 47 ′ 34.5 "  N , 0 ° 28 ′ 8.1"  E