Nottingham Castle
Nottingham Castle is the premier royal fortress in the Midlands - more so since a rebuilding project in the 1170s and 1180s has replaced the curtain walls of the upper and middle baileys in stone, and seen the contruction of a great stone keep.
Nottingham Castle stands on a large sandstone crag on the western side of Nottingham, guarding the stratgic crossing of the river Trent which allows access to York and northern England east of the Pennines.
Tourism
Nottingham Castle was slighted (pulled down) in the 17th century following the Civil War, when it was a Royalist stronghold. In the 1670s WIlliam Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, ordered a mansion built on the site. That mansion was burnt down in 1831 and replaced by an art gallery and museum in the 1870s. Nottingham Castle today therefore bears little resemblance to the medieval castle.
Fortunately the Tudor antiquary John Leland visited Nottingham Castle in 1537, before the medieval castle was destroyed. Although the castle he saw had extensive addtions from the reigns of Kings Henry III, Edward III and Edward IV, the core of the upper and middle baileys was completed by the end of the reign of Henry II.
I have modernised the English of Leland's description. You can find his original text here.
The castle of Nottingham stands on a rocky hill on the west side of the town, and the Leen river goes by the base of the cliff. There is a great likelihood that the castle was built of stones taken out of the rock and the great dtiches within it.
The bailey is large and appropriately strong. And there is a stately bridge there with pillars bearing beasts and giants over the ditch into the second ward, the gate of which is exceedingly strong with towers and portculisses.
Much of the part of the west side of this inner ward, such as the hall and other things, are in ruins. The east side is strong and well towered, and so is the south side.
But the most beautiful part, and elegant for lodging, is on the north side, where Edward IV began a sumptuous piece of stonework, of which he finished one excellent, a goodly tower of three storeys, and brought up the other part likewise from the foundation with stone and marvellously fair windows to align the first solar for chambers, and then finished.
Then King Richard [II] and his brother as I heard forced up upon that work another timber loft, making round windows also of timber to the proportion of the aforesaid windows of stone, a good foundation for the new windows, so that certainly this north part is an exceedingly fair peice of work.
The dungeon of keep of this castle stands at the south-east, and is exceedingly strong by nature and by work. There is a fair old chapel and a well of great depth. And there is a spiral staircase with a turret over it, where the keepers of the castle say Edward III's band came up thorugh the rock and took the Earl Mortimer prisoner. There is yet a fair stair to go down by the rock to the river Leen.
There are diverse buildings between this dungeon and the inner court of the castle, and there is a stairway down into the ground where Davy King of Scots [David II, son of King Robert the Bruce, reigned 1329 to 1371], as the castellans say, was kept a prisoner.
I marked three chapels in the castle, and three wells.
Comments