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PEAK-PENWORTHAM

183

The value of the manor had risen since the Conquest, and William Peverel had doubled the number of ploughs in the demesne. The castle only remained in the hands of the Peverels for two generations, and was then forfeited to the crown. The manor was only a small one; and the site of the castle was probably chosen for its natural advantages and for the facility of hunting in the Peak Forest.

Penwortham, Lancashire (Fig. 24).—“ King Edward held Peneverdant. There are two carucates of land there, and they used to pay ten pence. Now there is a castle there, and there are two ploughs in the demesne, and six burghers, and three radmen, and eight villeins, and four cowherds. Amongst them all they have four ploughs. There is half a fishery there. There is wood and hawk's eyries, as in King Edward's time. It is worth £3." The very great rise in value in this manor shows that some great change had taken place since the Norman Conquest. This change was the building of a castle. The modo of Domesday always expresses a contrast with King Edward's time, and clearly tells us here that Penwortham Castle was new. It lay in the extensive lands between the Ribble and the Mersey, which were part of the Conqueror's enfeoffment of Roger the Poitevin, third son of Earl Roger de Montgomeri.' Since Penwortham is mentioned as demesne, and no insertions for repairs, and may have come from the oratory in the N.E. angle, or from some of the ruined windows and doorways. The sums entered to this castle between the years 1172 and 1176 are less than half the cost of Scarborough keep, and do not appear adequate, though the keep was a small one. But there is some reason to think that the cost of castles was occasionally defrayed in part from sources not entered in the Pipe Rolls. Ibi 2 carucatæ terræ et reddebant 10 denarios. Modo est ibi castellum. . . . Valent 3 libras. D. B., i., 270. 2 We need not resort to any fanciful British origins of the name Peneverdant, as it is clearly the effort of a Norman scribe to write down the unpronounceable English name Penwortham, 3 See ante, under Clitheroe.

1 Rex E. tenuit Peneverdant.

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under-tenant is spoken of, we may perhaps assume that this castle, which was the head of a barony, was built by Roger himself. He did not hold it long, as he forfeited all his estates in 1102. At a later period, though we have not been able to trace when, the manor of Penwortham passed into the hands of the monks of Evesham, to whom the church had already been granted, at the end of the Conqueror's reign.' Probably it is because the castle thus passed into the hands of the church that it never developed into a stone castle, like Clitheroe. The seat of the barony was transferred elsewhere, and probably the timbers of the castle were used in the monastic buildings of Penwortham Priory.

The excavations which were made here in 1856 proved conclusively that there were no stone foundations on the Castle Hill at Penwortham.2 These excavations revealed the singular fact that the Norman had thrown up his motte on the site of a British or Romano-British hut, without even being aware of it, since the ruins of the hut were buried 5 feet deep and covered by a grass-grown surface, on which the Norman had laid a rude pavement of boulders before piling his motte.3

1 Mr Halton's book (Documents relating to the Priory of Penwortham) throws no light on this point.

2 Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, vol. ix., 1856-1857, paper on "The Castle Hill of Penwortham," by the Rev. W. Thornber; Hardwick's History of Preston, pp. 103-11.

3 In a paper published in the Trans. Soc. Ant. Scot. for 1900, on "AngloSaxon Burhs and Early Norman Castles," the present writer was misled into the statement that this hut was the remains of the cellar of the Norman bretasche. A subsequent study of Mr Hardwick's more lucid account of the excavations showed that this was an error. There were two pavements of boulders, one on the natural surface of the hill, on which the hut had been built, the other 5 feet above it, and 12 feet below the present surface. The hut appeared to have been circular, with wattled walls and a thatched roof. Several objects were found in its remains, and were pronounced to be Roman or Romano-British. The upper pavement would probably be the flooring of a Norman keep.

PENWORTHAM-PETERBOROUGH

185

Among the objects found in the excavations was a Norman prick spur, a conclusive proof of the Norman origin of the motte.1 No remains appear to have been found of the Norman wooden keep; but this would be accounted for by the theory suggested above.

Penwortham is a double motte, the artificial hill rising on the back of a natural hill, which has been isolated from its continuing ridge by an artificial ditch cut through it. The double hill rises out of a bailey court which is rudely square, but whose shape is determined by the ground, which forms a headland running out into the Ribble. The whole area cannot certainly be ascertained. There was a ferry at this point in Norman times. The castle defends the mouth

of the Ribble and overlooks the town of Preston.

Penwortham was certainly not the caput of a large soke in Saxon times, as it was only a berewick of Blackburn, in which hundred it lay. It was the Norman who first made it the seat of a barony.

PETERBOROUGH.-The chronicler, Hugh Candidus, tells us that Abbot Thorold, the Norman abbot whom William I. appointed to the ancient minster of Peterborough, built a castle close to the church, “which in these days is called Mount Torold." This mount is

1 Mr Roach Smith pronounced this spur to be Norman. As its evidence is so important, it is to be regretted that its position was not more accurately observed. It was found in the lowest stratum of the remains, but Mr Hardwick says: "As it was not observed until thrown to the surface, a possibility remained that it might have fallen from the level of the upper boulder pavement, 5 feet higher." We may regard this possibility as a certainty, if the lower hut was really British.

2 Mr Willoughby Gardner says the castle commands a ford, to which the ancient sunk road leads. Victoria Hist. of Lancashire, vol. ii.

3 Hugh Candidus, Canob. Burg. Historia, in Sparke's Scriptores, p. 63. This passage was kindly pointed out to me by Mr Round. Hugh lived in Henry III.'s reign, but he must have had the more ancient records of the monastery at his disposal.

still existing, but it has lost its ancient name, and is now called Tout Hill. It stands in the Deanery garden, and has probably been largely ransacked for garden soil, as it has a decayed and shapeless look. Still, it is a venerable relic of Norman aggression, well authenticated.

PEVENSEY, Sussex (Fig. 24).—The Roman castrum of Pevensey (still so striking in its remains) was an inhabited town at the date of the Norman Conquest, and was an important port.1 After taking possession of the castrum, William I. drew a strong bank across its eastern end, and placed a castle in the area thus isolated. This first castle was probably entirely of wood, as there was a wooden palicium on the bank as late as the reign of Henry II. But if a wooden keep was built at first, it was very soon superseded by one of stone. The remains of this keep have recently been excavated by Mr Harold Sands and Mr Montgomerie, and show it to have been a most remarkable building (see Chapter XII., p. 355)—in all probability one of the few 11th century keeps in England. We may perhaps attribute this distinction to the fact that no less a man than the Conqueror's half-brother, the Count of Mortain, was made the guardian of this important port.

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1 Domesday Book mentions that the value of the burgus had greatly risen. It was one of the burhs mentioned in the Burghal Hidage.

Pipe Roll, 1187-1188. William of Jumièges says, "Statim firmissimo vallo castrum condidit, probisque militibus commisit." VII., 34. Wace professes to give the account of an eye-witness, who saw the timber for the castle landed from the ships, and the ditch dug. But Wace was not a contemporary, and as he has made the mistake of making William land at Pevensey instead of Hastings, his evidence is questionable. Roman de Rou, p. 293 (Andresen's edition).

3 The ruins of this keep, until 1908, were buried under so large a mound of earth and rubbish that Mr G. T. Clark mistook it for a motte, and the present writer was equally misled. It ought to be stated, before the date of this keep is finally settled, that the Gesta Stephani speaks of this castle as "editissimo aggere sublatum." P. 106. ▲ Ibid.

PEVENSEY-PONTEFRACT

187

Pevensey is mentioned as a port in the Close Rolls of Henry III.'s reign, and was one of the important waterways to the Continent.1 As has been already noted, the establishment of the castle was followed by the usual rise in the value of the burgus. The area of the castle

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PONTEFRACT, Yorkshire (Fig. 26).-This castle is not spoken of in Domesday by its French name, but there can be no doubt that it is "the Castle of Ilbert' which is twice mentioned and several times alluded to in the Clamores, or disputed claims, which are enrolled at the end of the list of lands in Yorkshire belonging to the tenants-in-chief." The existence of Ilbert's castle at Pontefract in the 11th century is made certain by a charter (only an early copy of which is now extant) in the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster, in which William Rufus at his accession regrants to Ilbert de Lacy "the custom of the castelry of his castle, as he had it in the Conqueror's days and in those of the bishop of Bayeux." As Mr Holmes remarks, this carries us back to four years before the compilation of Domesday Book, since Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, whom William had left as regent during his absence in Normandy, was arrested and imprisoned in 1082.5

Pontefract is called Kirkby in some of the earlier charters, and this was evidently the English (or rather the Danish) name of the place. It lay within the manor of Tateshall, which is supposed to be the same as Tanshelf, a name still preserved in the neighbourhood

1 Close Rolls, i., 631a. 3 D. B., i., 373b.

2 D. B., i., 20b.

+ Cited in Holmes' History of Pontefract, p. 62.

5 Another charter, which is a confirmation by the second Ilbert de Lacy of the ecclesiastical gifts of Ilbert I. and Robert his son, states that the Chapel of St Clement in the castle of Pontefract was founded by Ilbert I. in the reign of William II. Mon. Ang., v., 128.

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