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CAERPHILLY
CAERPHILLY
in
Glamorganshire has no great reputation among British castles. It is a
hollow
shell without sufficient historical or human interest to draw large
numbers of
tourists. Nevertheless, with the exception of Windsor it was the
largest of our
castles in area, as it was also the first and finest of the concentric
type in
these islands. As at Kenilworth, the imagination receives little
assistance in
reconstructing the mediæval fortress. Its scheme was one of islands
protected
by the lakes they stood in, but the water has been drained away. Long
ago every
trace of metalwork and woodwork was removed; gunpowder was used either
to
quarry its stones or to destroy its military value, and the towers
without
battlements, the buildings without roofs, present a mass of walls in
which it
is difficult to detect a concentric, or indeed any, plan. Caerphilly
was a
Marcher castle, an outpost of the lords of Glamorgan to protect Cardiff
and the
coastal plain from the forays of unbeaten Welshmen in the Brecon hills.
It lay
on a knoll in the plain between two rivers, the Rhymney and the Taff,
the knoll
jutting out like a peninsula into swampy ground between two small
rivulets on
their way to join the larger streams. Perhaps
the
tradition is correct, that this was the site of a Welsh stronghold,
Senghennydd, but it was Gilbert de Clare, third Earl of Gloucester and
Hertford, who built the concentric castle there at the end of the reign
of
Henry III. For some time de Clare had quarrelled with Llewelyn over
this land,
and the castle could hardly have been half-completed before Llewelyn
laid siege
to it, and would only withdraw when the King himself intervened. After
that,
the great strength of the castle was really wasted, for immediately
after it
was erected Edward conquered and fortified North Wales, so that
Caerphilly sank
to a position of the second rank. The attacks it suffered were not
launched by
Welshmen against the English, but in the hurly-burly of rebellion and
civil
war. The plan
of
Caerphilly is difficult to describe, owing to its complexity and its
refinements. Its gravel peninsula projected eastward into a swamp
shaped not
unlike a horseshoe, and divided the low ground into two parts. The
damming of
two rivulets turned the swamp into a lake, and the peninsula, by two
cross-cuts, became two islands. The inmost island, facing the arch of
the
horseshoe, held the main buildings of the castle. Between the castle
and the
root of the peninsula, and connected with them by drawbridges, was
formed a
horn-work or platform, its banks surrounded by ramparts. But the main
approach
to the castle was from the east, and the whole eastern side of the lake
was
protected by a long straight curtain wall, equally a barbican and a
fortified
dam upon which the lake system depended. This east front was an
impregnable
defence. It had towers at either end, those on the south across the
rivulet to
form a tête-du-pont. It was defended by bastions and buttresses, by a
strong
gatehouse, and by a broad moat along its front. Before the gatehouse,
in the
middle of the moat, was a stone pier; and the two sections of the
drawbridge
met and rested upon this. The gatehouse gave access to the platform
behind the
eastern curtain wall, and from there to the castle buildings was a
third
drawbridge. In addition to these defences, there was a thin tongue of
land
curving from the hornwork towards the east front, with which it was
brought
into connection by a wall. The defences of Caerphilly, then, consisted of an outer moat and outer wall, a north and south lake, an inner moat, the hornwork, and the two wards of the actual castle buildings. In addition, to the north of the castle is a well-defended redoubt, but this must date from the Stuart wars. The details of Caerphilly’s fortifications were well thought out. The castle mill was on the platform behind the east front, and in the middle ward was a large water tank, probably used as a vivarium for the supply of fish. CARPHILLY CASTLE. The
eastern or
Grand Front of Caerphilly was, in itself, a very complete line of
defence. The
end towers prevented it from being outflanked, and protected that part
of the
curtain which controlled the river waters flowing through it. The
gatehouse
controlled the whole line, while the pier before it did duty as a
barbican. But
in addition, the wall 20 ft. high and 6 ft. thick, which connected the
bank of
the inner moat with the eastern front, also cut the latter into two
halves at a
point just north of the gatehouse. If either end of the eastern front
were
captured, the rest could hold out by itself. This division of the front
allowed
also for a narrow postern at that point, to which entrance could only
be gained
by boat. The
eastern front
and its system of defence is generally taken as the outer ward of the
castle.
The middle ward — the outer ward of the castle buildings — was
surrounded by a
low wall with bastions at the angles. It possessed its own turreted
gatehouses,
east and west, and the kitchens were housed in a tower in this ward,
adjacent
to the south wall of the inner ward where the hall was situated. The inner
ward was
surrounded by a lofty curtain wall with four corner towers, and again
two
strong gatehouses gave access to it. Against the south side were the
hall, a
beautiful building in the decorated style, attributed to Hugh le
Despenser,
which is one of the better preserved parts of the castle; and at either
end of
the hall were the chapel and the dwelling apartments. The
striking
feature of Caerphilly was the provision for easy egress, but formidable
obstacles were thrown in the way of any one seeking to effect an
entrance.
While an enemy was attacking the main gateway in the eastern front, he
could
easily be taken in the rear by a party from the western gateway or from
the
postern in the tête-du-pont. It cannot
be said
that all this castle was built at one time, but it is obvious that it
was
constructed according to the original plan. Probably the military parts
of the
castle buildings were first completed, but the architects must have
provided
for the defences on the eastern front and the horn-work, or else the
position
would have been untenable. The complicated system of defence is a
single whole,
probably the product of one mind. Caerphilly
had no
great part in history, partly because it was not the seat of a feudal
barony,
but merely an appendage to the lords of Cardiff. Through marriage the
castle came
into the hands of the Despensers; during 1326 King Edward II, fleeing
from the
Queen and her confederates, was twice at Caerphilly, which was
afterwards
besieged by Isabel, as we learn from a pardon made out to John de
Felton for
withstanding the Queen and Prince Edward at the castle of “Kerfilly.”
But any
historical references to the castle are incidental. In some way it was
connected with Owen Glendower at a later period; a royal writ, on the
one hand,
commits Caerphilly to the keeping of Constantia, Lady de Despenser, for
the
suppression of Glen dower; but, on the other hand, tradition (though
wrongly)
attributes the famous leaning tower of the inner ward to the period
when
Glendower held and destroyed the castle. Leland, in
his
Itinerary, speaks of “Caerfilly Castelle sette amonge marsches, wher be
walles
of a wonderful thickness and tower kept up for prisoners. . . .” The
destruction of
Caerphilly was already begun when Leland wrote, and the story of its
spoliation, so far as it can be pieced together, is a parable of how
closely
the lives of men are connected with the buildings they erect. About
three-quarters of a mile from the castle is the ruin of a manor house,
the
Ffanvawr, of which now only the outer walls and a dovecote remain; but
much of the
hewn stone built into its walls is obviously from the castle. The manor
house
was built in Tudor times, and it belonged to the family of Lewis, whose
ancestors had been the native lords of Senghennydd long before
Caerphilly
Castle was built. And there is a document dating from the time of Henry
VIII
giving to the family of Lewis the right “to take out and carie awaie
from the
within namyd castle of Caerfilley suche and so many of the stones
thereof as
... shall seeme convenient and mete for the necessearie buildings of
the saide
Thomas Lewys at his house called the Vann.” So we may
suppose
that the old enemies of Caerphilly at last despoiled it. They took away
the
fireplaces and the woodwork, the lead and iron, they threw down the
towers with
gunpowder and dislodged their stones, for the building of a peaceful
manor
house where the old Welsh family would live when the Marcher lords were
the
forgotten enemies of the past. There is almost a touch of Russian
fatalism in
the rivalry of these stone buildings, both now broken and in decay. |