TRANSACTIONS

OF THE

Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion.

SESSION 1898-99.

EARLY FORTIFICATIONS IN WALES,'

BY

THE REV. S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

A FEATURE of no ordinary interest, alike in Wales, Cornwall, and Devon, in Scotland and Ireland, is the stone castles, fortresses constructed of stone uncut and not set in mortar, that are there found, and that, in common, possess characteristics seemingly indicating that they were the work of one people.

It is, of course, possible, that various peoples at very different periods may have constructed defences of a similar description, and we must not hastily conclude a common origin when we find that these fortresses have features of great similarity. Nothing but pick and spade can settle the question as to the epoch at which they were erected, and even that will not tell us who were the people who constructed them.

1 Read before the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion at 20, Hanover Square, on Thursday, the 26th of January, 1899; Chairman, Mr. Edward Laws, F.S.A.

B

The camps that are everywhere so numerous in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales demand a much closer scrutiny than has been accorded to them hitherto.

Those in Scotland have, indeed, been taken in hand in a manner truly scientific, and that quite recently, by Mr. Christison; but he has not been able to do more than record the situations and their shapes and characteristics; he has not been able to excavate them; and till this has been done, these interesting monuments of a remote past remain mysterious, they have not yielded up the secret of their origin.

However, the work accomplished by him has been most valuable. The forts have been catalogued, classified, and planned. This, in itself, is an achievement, the more important as these earthworks are being gradually destroyed by the plougher and the quarryman.

It may be said-Why re-plan when the Ordnance Survey has been made, and we have on the sheets issued by the Survey all that we require? But, unfortunately, the Government did not employ the men most qualified to plan antiquities, and my own experience assures me that in a number of instances the plans given on the 6in. and 26in. scales are not altogether to be trusted. Camps of great importance are incompletely given, and some are inaccurately recorded. This likewise has been Mr. Christison's experience in Scotland. He says:" Unfortunately, in the occasional unreliability of the plans themselves, I soon discovered that while some left nothing to be desired in point of accuracy and fulness of detail, as far as the smallness of the scale permitted, others were evidently either defective or erroneous, while in not a few instances I found only "site of a fort" marked, where the remains were quite as substantial as in cases in which plans were given.

"This inequality in the work was due to the abandonment of the original design to combine a special archæological survey, by enlisting the aid of experts, with the general one of the country-a combination actually started in Ireland, but relinquished almost at once.

It was also unfortunate that the routine of the service removed officers who, by the interest they felt in the work and by practice, had attained special skill in planning these remains, to make room for novices who had no sooner gone through the same apprenticeship, than they also had to go."

But this is not all. The original maps, as drawn by the surveyors, would perhaps shew a much better plan than has been actually published. This is due to the drawings having been gone over by officers after the plans had been made, who struck out a quantity of detail as unimportant, because they themselves were indifferent to matters of archæological interest.

I had an opportunity of seeing some of these original drawings with reference to remains of considerable value from an antiquarian point of view, which I asked the Ordnance officer to insert in a new edition. The officer most readily and graciously sent down a surveyor to plan what was desired, when to our mutual surprise we found that this had been done with conscientious accuracy on the occasion of the survey, but had been subsequently cut out by the revisers.

The result of this unfortunate condition of affairs is that the planning of the fortified strongholds, which might have been well done at the outset, has now to be undertaken again; and that, unhappily, it is never quite safe to trust the Ordnance Survey where it indicates the presence of a camp, but each must be separately visited, and investigated, to ascertain whether planned correctly, or

whether incompletely mapped. I may notice a very important camp, or pair of camps, in my own immediate neighbourhood, the site, as I hold, of the great battle of Gavulford, fought between the Britons and Saxons in 823. It is on the side of the highway from Okehampton to Launceston. Here some of the most characteristic features are entirely omitted. But let us now address ourselves to the different kinds of fortifications of an early date to be found in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall and Devon.

1. There are the camps that are rectangular, or approximately so, and which have been attributed to the Romans. These shall not detain us.

2. There are those which consist of a tump or mound, sometimes wholly artificial, usually natural, and adapted by art, and in connection with this is a base-court, quadrilateral usually, but not so invariably. This was the Saxon type-possibly also that of the Northmen. The Normans adopted it from the Merovingians, whose type was identical with that of the Saxons. The classic passage descriptive of these is in the life of St. John of Terouanne, by Colmieu, in the eleventh century, which though often quoted, I will venture to quote again.

"It was customary for the rich men and nobles of these parts, because their chief occupation is the carrying on of feuds, in order that they may be safe from their enemies, and may have greater power for either conquering their equals, or oppressing their inferiors, to heap up a mound of earth as high as they are able, and to dig round it a broad, open, and deep ditch, and to girdle the whole upper edge of the mound, instead of a wall, with a barrier of wooden planks, stoutly fastened together, and set round with numerous turrets. Within was constructed a house, or rather a citadel, commanding the whole, so that the

gate of entry could alone be approached by means of a bridge, which, springing from the counterscarp of the ditch, was gradually raised as it advanced, supported by sets of piers, two, or even three, trussed on each side over convenient spans, crossing the ditch with a managed ascent, so as to reach the upper level of the mound, landing on its edge on a level at the threshold of the gate.'

A very good idea of such a camp and fort may be derived from the representation of the fortifications of Dinan in the Bayeux tapestry.

In France the mottes abound on which the wooden donjons of the Merovingian chiefs were planted about; but in many cases the rampart of the base-court has disappeared. In Wales there are numerous motes. A capital example, with its base-court, is near St. David's, above the Alun ravine, opposite the mill. This has been planned for the Archæologia Cambrensis. The general opinion, which I do not share, is that the mote is of a different age, and is of a different character from the rudely quadrilateral camp. I hold that in this we have a typical fortification of the Saxon, perhaps also Danish, period and mode of construction.

In England there are many examples, as Plympton in Devon, Launceston Castle, Windsor, Norwich and Ely. In Ireland they are also found in large numbers; so also in Scotland. All apparently belong to the same period, and all are probably the work of Danish and Saxon invaders.

In Ireland they are called motes; not so in England, where they are termed burhs. Of those in Ireland, Thomas Wright, in the first half of last century, says, that "mounds simple, or trenched, or with base-courts, are common all along the English Pale, and even as far as the N.E. sea, but chiefly near the N.E. coast."

Louthiana, 1748.