Lancaster Castle

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Lancaster Castle

Lancashire


Lancaster Castle seen from the Ashton Memorial
Type: Castle
Location
Grid reference: SD473619
Location: 54°2’59"N, 2°48’20"W
Town: Lancaster
History
Information
Owned by: Duchy of Lancaster
Website: lancastercastle.org

Lancaster Castle is a mediæval castle in Lancaster, the county town of Lancashire. Its early history is unclear, but may have been founded in the 11th century on the site of a Roman fort overlooking a crossing of the River Lune.

In 1164, the Honour of Lancaster, including the castle, came under royal control. In 1322 and 1389 Scottish armies invaded England, progressing as far as Lancaster and damaging the castle. It was not to see military action again though until the Civil War.

The castle was first used as a prison in 1196 although this aspect became more important during the Civil War. The castle buildings are owned by the Duchy of Lancaster, which leases part of the structure to Lancashire County Council to operate a Crown Court in part of the building. Until 2011, the majority of the buildings were leased to the Ministry of Justice as Her Majesty's Prison Lancaster, whereafter the Castle was returned to the Duchy's control.

Background

In AD 79, a Roman fort was built at Lancaster on a hill commanding a crossing over the River Lune.[1][2] Little is known about Lancaster between the end of the Roman occupation in the early 5th century and the Norman Conquest in the late 11th century. The layout of the town was influenced by the Roman fort and the associated civilian settlement; the main road through the town was the route that led east from the fort.[3]

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, Lancaster was part of the Earldom of Northumbria and claimed by the kings of England and Scotland. In 1092, William II established a permanent border with Scotland further to the north by capturing Carlisle. It is generally thought that Lancaster Castle was founded in the 1090s on the site of the Roman fort in a strategic location.[2] The castle is the oldest standing building in Lancaster and one of the most important. The history of the structure is uncertain. This is partly due to its former use as a prison, which has prevented extensive archaeological investigation[4]

History

Foundation

Watercolour by Thomas Hearne, 1778

No records survice, but it is believed that Roger de Poitou, who commanded the Honour of Lancaster, built the first castle: if so, the structure would have been built of timber, probably incorporating the earthworks of the Roman fort into its defences. The form of the original castle is unknown. There is no trace of a motte, so it may have been a ringwork[5] – a circular defended enclosure.[6]

Roger de Poitou fled England in 1102 after participating in a failed rebellion against the new king, Henry I, and so the king confiscated the Honour of Lancaster, which included the castle. The Honour changed hands several times. Henry granted it to Stephen of Blois, his nephew and later king. When the Anarchy erupted in 1139 – a civil war between Stephen and Empress Matilda for the English throne – the area was in turmoil. Stephen secured his northern frontier by allowing David I of Scotland to occupy the Honour in 1141.[7] It is possible that David refortified the castle at this time. Due to a lack of investigation, there is little evidence to suggest additions to Lancaster in the mid-12th century. However, the uncertain construction date of the keep means that the King of Scotland could have been responsible for building it.[8] The treaty which ended the Anarchy in 1153 gave the succession to Matilda's son Henry and required the King of Scotland to relinquish the Honour of Lancaster, which passed to William I, Count of Boulogne, Stephen's son. After William's death in 1164, the Honour of Lancaster again came under royal control.[7]

The first record of Lancaster Castle's being used as a prison is in 1196, although the role became much more important after the Civil War. In the late 12th or early 13th century, the timber castle was rebuilt in stone.[9] The Pipe Rollsrecord that King John spent over £630 on digging a ditch outside the south and west walls, and for the construction of "the King's lodgings". This probably referred to what is now known as Adrian's Tower.[9] His successor, Henry III also spent large sums on Lancaster: £200 in 1243 and £250 in 1254 for work on the gatehouse and creating a stone curtain wall.[9]

14th and 15th centuries

Prisoners enter the gatehouse (19th-century painting)

For the next 150 years, there is no record of building work, although accounts are incomplete. The Well Tower is thought to date from the early 14th century. If there was no work on the castle, this may indicate that it was not important enough to warrant expenditure beyond upkeep, as Lancaster was not near a border. Though the region was generally peaceful, Scots invaded in 1322 and in 1389, reaching Lancaster and damaging the castle.[9] The holdings of the Duchy of Lancaster extended beyond the county, and Lancaster was not especially important. However, when Henry Duke of Lancaster ascended the throne as King Henry IV in 1399, he almost immediately began adding the monumental gatehouse.[10] A further devastation of the town would have been an embarrassment for the new king; his expensive programme of building at the castle helped protect against this. The gatehouse Henry replaced was probably a simple structure, no more than a passage between two towers, but once complete, it rivalled the keep as the strongest part of the castle.[10] Records show that between 1402 and 1422, the year Henry IV died, over £2,500 was spent on building work. While most of this sum would have been spent on the gatehouse, some may have been used to make alterations to the top storey of the keep.[11] Since then, the castle has remained in the ownership of the Crown.[12] After the Scottish invasion of 1389 though, Lancaster saw no further military action until the Civil War.

A survey in 1578 led to repairs to the keep costing £235. With the threat of a Spanish invasion]], the castle was strengthened in 1585.[11] After Elizabeth I was excommunicated in 1570, Romanist priests were immediately suspect as agents of an enemy and many were arrested for high treason: any discovered in Lancashire were taken to Lancaster Castle for trial.[13] The notorious trial of the Pendle witches took place at Lancaster Castle in 1612.[14]

Civil War

At the outbreak of the Civil War Lancaster was lightly garrisoned. A small Parliamentarian force captured the castle in February 1643, established a garrison and set about building earthworks around the approaches to the town. In response, the Royalists dispatched an army to retake Lancaster. The outer defences fell in March; a siege of the castle lasted just two days as Parliamentarian reinforcements were heading to Lancaster from Preston. The Royalists unsuccessfully tried to recapture Lancaster in April and again in June; the town and castle remained under Parliament's control until the end of the war. Orders were given that "all the walls about [Lancaster Castle] should be thrown down".[12] The instruction was not followed, and in August 1648 the town withstood a siege from the Royalist Duke of Hamilton who led an army south from Scotland. King Charles was executed in January 1649 and shortly after Parliament again ordered the slighting of the castle, apart from buildings necessary for administration and use as a county gaol.

The monarchy was restored in 1660, and Charles II visited Lancaster that year on 12 August, and released all the prisoners held in the castle. Lancashire's High Sheriff and Justices of the Peace petitioned the king to repair the castle. The buildings were surveyed and repair work estimated at £1,957.[15] After the slighting of the castle, including the demolition of the Well Tower, it was militarily redundant.[16]

Gaol

The Shire Hall

In 1554, the Proestant martyrGeorge Marsh was held at the castle before standing trial at Chester Cathedral.[17] Some Quakers, including in 1660 George Fox, were held at the castle for being politically dangerous.[13] County gaols, such as this one, were intended to hold prisoners for short periods immediately before trial. The castle also served as a debtors' prison. In the 18th century it became more common for county gaols to hold longer-term prisoners; as a result they began to suffer from overcrowding.[18]

Prison reformer John Howard (1726–1790) visited Lancaster in 1776 and noted the conditions in the prison. His efforts to instigate reform led to prisoners in gaols throughout the country being separated by gender and category of their crime. Improvements were also made to sanitation; in the 18th century more people died from gaol fever than by hanging. In the last two decades of the century, around £30,000 was spent rebuilding Lancaster's county gaol.[19] Architect Thomas Harrison was commissioned to complete the work. Under his auspices, the Gaoler's House was built in 1788 in a Gothic style. Separate prisons were built for men and women.[20] The Shire Hall and Crown Court were complete by 1798. Harrison had to divide his time between Lancaster and designing and building Chester Castle's Shire Hall and Courts; work at Lancaster slowed, partly because of dwindling funds due to war with France, and Harrison was released from the work as the Justices of the Peace felt it was taking too long. The artist Robert Freebairn was paid £500 to paint twelve watercolours of the work in 1800 to be presented to the Duke of Lancaster, King George III.[21] In 1802 the castle received more funding and Joseph Gandy was commissioned to complete the interiors of the Shire Hall and Crown Court.[22]

"Hanging Corner" – the site of public executions until 1865

Those sentenced to death at the castle were usually taken to Lancaster Moor, near where the Ashton Memorial now stands, to be hanged. After the Georgian remodelling of the castle, it was decided it would be more convenient to perform executions nearer the castle. The spot chosen became known as Hanging Corner. Lancaster gained a reputation as the court that sentenced more people to death than any other in the land: this is partly because until 1835 Lancaster Castle was the only Assize Court in the entire county and covered rapidly growing industrial centres including Manchester and Liverpool.[23] Between 1782 and 1865, around 265 people were hanged at Lancaster; the executions were frequently attended by thousands of people crowded into the churchyard. After 1868 public executions were ended by law, and executions were performed inside the castle, at first from the Chapel steps, then later in a purpose-built execution shed, on the inside wall of Hanging Corner. This shed remained until the mid-20th Century, allegedly still containing the Gallows. The last execution at Lancaster took place in 1910.[24] The prison closed in 1916 due to a national decrease in the number of prisoners, although for part of the First World War it held German prisoners of war.

The rear of the castle and the adjacent Priory

Between 1931 and 1937 the castle was used by the county council to train police officers. Lancaster was once again designated for use as a prison from 1954 onwards when the council leased the castle to the Home Office. The last Assizes were held at Lancaster in 1972. As the court and prison were so close, and contained within the castle walls, Lancaster was used for high-security trials.[25]

The castle formally opened as a prison in 1955, and also hosted the Crown Court. The prison closed in 2011, but the Crown Court to sit at the castle. While access to the keep, towers, battlements and dungeons is currently denied to visitors, the castle operates limited guided tours seven days a week. The Castle Courtyard opened to the public 7 days a week in May 2013 and now has a café, and regular events now take place every month.

Layout

Lancaster's gatehouse in 1905
The gatehouse today

The keep is the oldest part of the castle. It is uncertain when the keep was built, although it probably dates to the 12th century[8] when it was the residence for the lord the constable of the castle. In the event of an assault, the keep formed the last line of defence. It is 65 feet high with four storeys; each floor divided into two rooms. The outer wall is ten feet thick; along the exterior are buttresses at each corner and in the middle of each wall. Like most Norman keeps, Lancaster's would have been entered at first floor level.[26] The mediæval hall stood south-west of the keep and was dismantled in 1796 during the remodelling of the castle.[21] The late 18th- early 19th-century Shire Hall next to the keep is a large ten-side room.[22]

In the south-west corner of the castle is a cylindrical tower named Adrian's Tower from the popular legend that it was built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian. The tower was, however, built in the early 13th century, probably during the reign of King John. Although the exterior was refaced in the 18th century, mediæval stonework is visible in the interior.[9]

The main entrance is through a 65-foot high gatehouse built at the start of the 15th century. It was instigated by King Henry IV, although legend attributes the work to John of Gaunt,[27] Duke of Lancaster from 1362 to his death in 1399.[28] Two semi-octagonal towers flank a passageway protected by a portcullis. Battlements project over the gatehouse, and would have allowed defenders to rain missiles on attackers immediately below. Above the gate is a niche which would originally have contained a statue of a saint, flanked by a coat of arms of the kings of England. Because of the legend, a statue of John of Gaunt was placed in the empty niche in the 19th century.[27] Three storeys high, the apartment on the ground floor would probably have been used by the Constable of the castle; the two floors above had three rooms each. After the Civil War, most of the gatehouse rooms were filled with debtors.[11] The sophistication of the gatehouse prompted John Champness, who wrote Lancaster Castle: A Brief History, to remark "it is perhaps the finest of its date and type in England".[27]

During the Roman era in the 4th century,[29] the fort was surrounded by the "Wery Wall" which is believed to translate as the 'green wall'.[30] The wall, described as being a ten-foot thick 'indestructible mass' with a defensive ditch,[29][30] now only remains visible on the east slope of Castle Hill. In his book The Historic Lands of England', Sir Bernard Burke suggests the wall may have been visible in more places 100 years prior to his writing in 1849.[31] However, it is unclear where the wall would have been. The remaining Wery Wall measures 13ft x 10ft x 10ft and consists of only rubble due to the facing stones having been reused elsewhere.

An interior view of Lancaster Castle in 1824, pen and ink drawing by J. Weetman. The keep is right of centre.

Outside links

 ("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Lancaster Castle)

References

  1. ↑ Shotter 2001, p. 3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Champness 1993, p. 1
  3. ↑ White 2001, p. 33
  4. ↑ White 2001, p. 42
  5. ↑ White 2001, pp. 42–44
  6. ↑ Friar 2003, p. 246
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Champness 1993, p. 3
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 White 2001, p. 44
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Champness, p6
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Champness 1993, pp. 7–9
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Champness 1993, p. 10
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Champness 1993, p. 11
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Champness 1993, p. 17
  14. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 15
  15. ↑ Champness 1993, pp. 11–13
  16. ↑ Champness, p14
  17. ↑ Foxe's Book of Martyrs by John Foxe
  18. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 22
  19. ↑ Champness 1993, pp. 23–25
  20. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 27
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Champness 1993, p. 29
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Champness 1993, p. 30
  23. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 34
  24. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 35
  25. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 40
  26. ↑ Champness 1993, p. 5
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 Champness 1993, p. 9
  28. ↑ Walker 2004
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 National Heritage List 1020668: Ancient Monuments: Part of a Roman fort and its associated vicus and remains of a pre-Conquest monastery and a Benedictine priory on Castle Hill
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Fleury, Cross (1891). Time-honoured Lancaster. Eaton & Bulfilld Printers. pp. 68–69. 
  31. ↑ Burke, Sir Bernard (1849). "Lancaster Castle". The Historic Lands of England, Volume 2. E. Churton. pp. 84. 
  • Allen Brown, Reginald (1976) [1954], Allen Brown's English Castles, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, ISBN 1-84383-069-8 
  • Cathcart King, D. J. (1983), Castellarium Anglicanum: An Index and Bibliography of the Castles in England, Wales and the Islands. Volume I, New York: Kraus International Publications, ISBN 0-527-50110-7 
  • Champness, John (1993), Lancaster Castle: A Brief History, Lancashire County Books, ISBN 1-871236-26-6 
  • McNeill, Tom (1992), English Heritage Book of Castles, London: English Heritage and B. T. Batsford, ISBN 0-7134-7025-9 
  • Shotter, David (2001), "Roman Lancaster: Site and Settlement", A History of Lancaster, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 3–32, ISBN 0-7486-1466-4 
  • Walker, Simon (2004), "John (John of Gaunt), duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancaster", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14843 
  • White, Andrew (2001), "Continuity, Charter, Castle and County Town, 400–1500", A History of Lancaster, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 33–72, ISBN 0-7486-1466-4 
  • Robinson, John Martin (December 9, 2015). "Georgian Justice: Lancaster Castle, Lancashire, The Property of the Duchy of Lancaster". Country Life. 
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