The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 236 • Roberta Gilchrist
Figure 13.3 Reconstruction of defences and timber buildings at the castle
of Hen Domen, Montgomeryshire, based on excavated structures dated to
c.1150.
Source: Higham and Barker 1992, Fig. 9.6
Figure 13.4 Castle Acre, Norfolk, a castle with inner and outer bailey
connected by a bridge. The keep of the 1140/50s was converted from a
weakly defended house dating from the eleventh century; refortification
included heightening the perimeter bank and adding a curtain wall.
Source: Derek A.Edwards, Norfolk Air Photographic Library, Norfolk
Museums Service
were placed within the bailey or
ringwork. At Hen Domen, a motte
and bailey castle first established
c.1070, there were 50 timber
buildings of simple construction
excavated in the bailey, which was
encircled by a double bank and ditch
(Figure 13.3) (Higham and Barker
1992).
The first castles to be built in
stone were the keeps, or donjons: freestanding
towers of at least two
storeys with a highly fortified core.
The earliest English tower-keep was
the White Tower of London, built
in 1075, and clearly symbolic of the
authority of the new Norman king.
The hall was located at first-storey
level, with an off-centre cross-wall
placed to allow the division of space
into further suites of private rooms.
Additional facilities included a
kitchen, garderobes (latrines) and a
chapel. In some cases houses may
have evolved into keeps, as shown
by the development of Castle Acre,
Norfolk (Coad and Streeten 1982).
Excavation on the site evidenced a
late eleventh-century stone structure
surrounded by a weak ringwork.
This was converted to a keep in the
1140/50s, which involved doubling
the thickness of the internal walls,
raising the interior and blocking the
main entrance and the door through
the spinal wall. Only the northern
half of the building was completed
as a keep; the southern half became
a courtyard. A masonry curtain wall
was added to the bank of the
ringwork (Figure 13.4). Shell keeps
were built on mottes that could not
support the full weight of a towerkeep.
These shells were simply
masonry walls built around the
perimeter of the summit of a motte,
replacing the timber palisade (e.g.
Totnes, Devon).