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NORWICH

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investigations, is entirely artificial; it was originally square, and had "a prodigious large and deep ditch around it." The fancy of the antiquary Wilkins that the motte was the centre of two concentric outworks & was completely disproved by Mr Harrod, who showed that the original castle was a motte with one of the ordinary half-moon baileys attached. Another ward, called the Castle Meadow, was probably added at a later date. The magnificent keep which now stands on the motte is undoubtedly a work of the 12th century. The castle which Emma, wife of Earl Ralf Guader, defended against the Conqueror after the celebrated bride-ale of Norwich was almost certainly a wooden structure. As late as the year 1172 the bailey was still defended by a wooden stockade and wooden bretasches; and even in 1225 the stockade had not been replaced by a stone wall."

Norwich was a royal castle, and consequently always in the hands of the sheriff; it was never the property of the Bigods." As the fable that extensive lands belonging to the monastery of Ely were held on the tenure of castle guard at Norwich before the Conquest is repeated by all the local historians, it is worth while

1 Arch. Journ., xlvi., 445.

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2 Kirkpatrick's Notes of Norwich Castle, written about 1725. He states that the angles of the motte had been spoilt, and much of it fallen away. 3 Archæologia, vol. xii.

4 Mr Hartshorne thought it was built between 1120 and 1125. Arch. Journ., xlvi., 260. It is certainly not as late as Henry II.'s reign, or the accounts for it would appear in the Pipe Rolls.

6 Pipe Rolls, 19 Henry II., p. 117. In reparatione pontis lapidei et palicii et 3 bretascharum in eodem castello, 20l. 4s. 8d.

6 Close Rolls, ii., 22. Order that the palicium of Norwich Castle, which has fallen down and is threatened with ruin, be repaired.

7 Kirkpatrick, Notes on Norwich Castle.

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Except Kirkpatrick, who shows a judicious scepticism on the subject. Ibid., p. 248.

swept away, but the one round tower which still remains as part of the defences of the inner bailey, looks as though it might be of the time of Henry II. This bailey is semicircular; the whole original castle covers only 1 acres. A very much larger bailey was added afterwards, probably in John's reign. Probably this later bailey was at first enclosed with a bank and stockade, and this stockade may be the palitium of which there are notices in the records of Henry III. and Edward I. The main gateway of this bailey, which still remains, is probably of Edward I. or Edward II.'s reign.

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The castle of Nottingham was the most important one in the Midlands, and William of Newburgh speaks of it as "so well defended by nature and art that it appears impregnable." The value of the town had risen from £18 to £30 at the time of the Survey.5

OKEHAMPTON, Devon (Fig. 24).—Baldwin de Molis, Sheriff of Devon, held the manor of Okehampton at the time of the Survey, and had a castle there." On a hill in the valley of the Okement River

1 This is rendered probable by a writ of Henry III.'s reign, ordering that half a mark is to be paid annually to Isolde de Gray for the land which she had lost in King John's time "per incrementum forinseci ballii Castri de Notinge." Close Rolls, i., 508.

2 Close Rolls, i., 548b. "Videat quid et quantum mæremii opus fuerit ad barbecanas et palitia ipsius castri reparanda" (1223). Close Rolls, i., 531b Timber ordered for the repair of the bridges, bretasches, and palicium gardini (1223). Cal. of Close Rolls, 1286, p. 390: Constable is to have timber to repair the weir of the mill, and the palings of the court of the castle. Nottingham was one of eight castles in which John had baths put up. Rot. Misæ., 7 John.

3 The murage of the town of Nottingham was assigned "to the repair of the outer bailey of the castle there" in 1288. Patent Rolls, Edward I., i., 308.

♦ Chapter xlii.

5 D. B., i., 280.

"Ipse Baldwinus vicecomes tenet de Rege Ochementone, et ibi sedet castellum." D. B., i., 105b, 2.

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to note that the charters of Henry I. setting the convent free from this service, make no allusion to any such ancient date for it,' and that the tenure of castle guard is completely unknown to the Anglo-Saxon laws. The area of the inner bailey is 34 acres, and that of the outer, 4 acres. The value of Norwich had greatly risen since the Conquest.2

NOTTINGHAM (Fig. 22).-This important castle is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that William I. built the castle at Nottingham in 1067, on his way to repress the first insurrection in Yorkshire. Ordericus, repeating this statement, adds that he committed it to the keeping of William Peverel. The castle was placed on a lofty headland at some distance from the Danish borough, and between the two arose the Norman borough which is mentioned in Domesday Book as the novus burgus. The two upper wards of the present castle probably represent William's plan. The upper ward forms a natural motte of rock, as it is 15 feet higher than the bailey attached to it, and has been separated from it by a ditch cut across the rocky headland, which can still be traced below the modern house which now stands on the motte. Such a site was not only treated as a motte, but was actually called by that name, as we read of the mota of Nottingham Castle in the Pipe Rolls of both John's and Richard I.'s reigns.

Mr Clark published a bird's-eye view of Nottingham Castle in his Medieval Military Architecture, about which he only stated that it was taken from the Illustrated London News. It does not agree with the

1 Mon. Ang., i., 482.

3 Ordericus, ii., 184.

2 D. B., ii., 117.

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