Fortification in Manorland (1st Division)

The fosse around the keep, which had been kept open since the first ring-work had been built in 1172, was filled in with re-deposited boulder clay, mixed with kitchen refuse in the NW quadrant, towards the end of the thirteenth century. Coins and pottery suggest this occurred 1280-1300 (Hayden 2011, 193-5), but it is likely to have happened in conjunction with the construction of a protective masonry forework replacing the small earlier court and bridge around the entrance to the keep. Roger Mortimer, the first Earl of Marsh, succeeded to the de Geneville liberty in 1308 and was energetic in securing both the town and castle. On coin evidence he probably undertook the building of this forework, but the sub-division of the third Level of the keep, and the first version of the great hall in the N angle of the ward was more likely to have been the work of his predecessor, Geoffrey. The forework is a rectangular area (dims c. 17.5m N-S; c. 15m E-W) defined by masonry walls with circular towers at every angle except the SW where the W wall abutted the N tower of the keep. The NE tower is no longer extant, and the entrance was in the W wall with a causeway across the remnant of the ring-work fosse at NW. Although only the basal courses of the walls survive a stone stairs added to the inner face of the N wall provides an estimated internal H (c. 2.2m) for the parapet of the wall. The E wall was thicker (Wth 2.2m) and had four embrasures with simple lights. This wall was integral to a stable (ME036-048083-) with a wide entrance (Wth 1.7m) in the N wall. A N-S line of posts set on pad-stones divided the interior of the stable and further posts at the SW angle created four stalls or hitching-posts with a rudimentary drainage gully. (Hayden 2011, 219-28) Fifteenth century developments included the building of a new base (dims 6m N-S; 4.5m E-W) for the entrance stairs to the keep that necessitated the rebuilding of the W wall of the stable. This in turn led to the establishment of new stalls that had hitching posts set into the W wall and a new drain. A ‘washhouse’ was built between this base for the stairs and the N tower of the keep in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. It was accessed by a doorway broken through from the N tower, and this weakening of its structure may have let to the collapse of that tower. The washhouse floor sloped down to the N and had a fine stone-built drain that exited the forework at the NE angle where the corner tower had been removed. This drain probably exited through the curtain wall by the same exit as the overflow from the well (ME036-048084-). After the drain was built a new stone surface was laid in the forework. (Hayden 2011, 238-44) It is not known absolutely when the forework went out of use, but a late medieval or post-medieval building, utilising the W wall of the forework as its E wall was constructed, went out of use, and had its materials robbed before the collapse of the N tower of the keep sealed all the forework area. The forework entrance was blocked by this structure, so the forework and its stable would have been ruinous at the time of its construction. The collapse of the N tower probably happened in the early eighteenth century as late seventeenth coins underlay the collapse and eighteenth century material lay over it (ibid. 283). (Hayden 2011, 246-8) Compiled by: Michael Moore See the attached views of the forework under excavation: _1 from S; _2 from N Date of upload: 11 July, 2019