IntroductIon

tim craven

IT ALL STARTED WHEN I READ MARC MoRRIS’S excellent book on King Edward i a few years ago. `is prompted a summer holiday in Snowdonia planned specifically to see his world-class, big-four castles (Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech and Beaumaris). `e expedition rekindled my boyhood love of exploring castles and first sight of Conwy Castle was a jaw-dropping moment that remains vivid in my memory. Its powerful and brooding presence dominates a stunning location and the others were equally impressive. `e nearby native castles, though sited in strong, strategic places and appearing utterly romantic are puny by comparison, emphasising the unstoppable brute force of Edward i’s military campaigns in Wales. `ese relics of a long distant age still possess an intangible and potent force.

Later I related these experiences to the celebrated artist Graham Arnold who has long employed castles in his paintings and he announced that he would like to paint another one. Immediately I thought – perhaps I could paint a castle and because my mind works that way – is there an exhibition? For a long time though I believed that the subject was too specialist, too boys-own to enjoy universal appeal, but gradually, through sharing these ideas with friends and other artists I realised how wrong I was. `e resulting exhibition that accompanies this publication is the first major artistic project of its kind in recent times, relating the story of the castle from early times until the present through historic and contemporary paintings, prints and drawings. History is entwined with art.

Everyone it seems, loves castles. `ey exhibit an exceptional visual wow factor. No wonder Disneyland’s brand image is a fairy-tale castle, the associations are magical and exciting. Steeped in history and legend, many of these extraordinary buildings exude a compelling and dramatic magnetism. `ey are the stuf of knights in shining armour, derring-do, highborn heroines and deep scary dungeons. Part of the fabric of our land, they conjure up a past of high adventure and royal intrigue that we can only imagine. A chasm of understanding though now exists between their original functions and our present perception of castles as tourist attractions, leisure amenities and picnic-sites.

Castle visiting is more popular than ever and is big business. English Heritage manage around 400 sites of which 90 are castles and attract over 4 million visitors each year. We expect as standard, certainly for the larger castles, a visitor centre, shop and café, and our experience is carefully orchestrated with audio guides and text panels. `e souvenir guide books relate how castles were rediscovered in the late eighteenth century after more than a century of neglect and ruination, by antiquarians, poets and – artists.

Turner and Constable, Britain’s greatest artists, Girtin, de Loutherbourg, Cotman, Ibbetson, Sandby, varley and many others travelled to castles throughout Britain in the search of the Picturesque and to make paintings as they were popular and sold well. Turner in particular painted many, he loved them. His Royal Academy diploma painting was Dolbadarn Castle, bigged-up to catch the eye. Castles were the perfect subject for the pre-eminent, high Romantic Movement of the early nineteenth century that embraced the heroic past. Artists are even part of the castle story, for the subsequent and related Gothic Revival architecture spawned a new wave of castle building and restoration such as Castell Coch in South Wales. Edwin Lutyens’s famous Castle Drogo, perched high on the edge of Dartmoor, was built in the early twentieth century, and in the 1940s, Neo-Romantic artists such as John Piper and John Minton returned again to the subject.

Why were, and are, castles so attractive to artists? `ey are unusual and fascinating buildings, of irregular, strange shapes; they are full of mystery, history and association. Castles have become ruinous and their relationship with encroaching nature is an especially rich, visual seam for artists to mine. Wigmore Castle near Ludlow for instance, the home of the once mighty Mortimers, is managed by English Heritage especially as a nature reserve and the tumble-down walls and towers are so enmeshed in vegetation that it is hard to work out what the castle might have looked like. Perhaps the supreme reason for the attraction is that, as Norman Ackroyd ra pointed out to me, they were built in the most spectacular and dominant locations, and so have been irresistible to artists in search of an eye-catching composition. Castles were always meant to be highly visible. Dryslwyn Castle for example, due east and close to Carmarthen, sits on a most impressive, craq hilltop and perfectly commands the beautiful Tywi valley below. When castles were upgraded with the newest military features by later kings and barons, they rarely needed to be re-sited as

the Normans had always chosen the best possible sites – so good was their military knowhow and eye for country. Most castles therefore have been much modified over the years and are an amalgam of architecture of diferent ages.

As this exhibition illustrates, castles are also usually surrounded by hills, trees and water, all proper ingredients for an enticing pictorial drama:

`e diferent combinations of the ruined towers of the castle with the fine trees immediately surrounding it, and with those of the foreground ofered a succession of the richest and most beautiful compositions. sir richard grenville, 1801

Water especially was an essential part of a castle’s entity and survival plan and it is worth expanding upon this vital relationship for a singular insight into a castle’s modus operandi. Now, there is nothing more enchanting and evocative than a moated medieval castle, but the present romance is far from the historic reality. Castles could be fearsome places and moats were stinking, death-trap sewers, the daily receptacle for the castle toilets (garderobe) and other nasty detritus. `e term moat derives from motte, the Norman word for a mound – the common early castle design being the motte-and-bailey. Initially the ditches were dry, but if the ground was low and marshy as at Berkhamstead, then they would fill with mud and water and their defensive properties were soon recognised and exploited; they could be designed with steep sides and filled with pointed wooden stakes. Roads were often so poor that the best way to transport goods was by river and coast. Castles such as Kidwelly and Bramber were sited at estuaries and river crossings to control access. others were built by the sea to ensure water-borne re-supply during sieges as at Harlech.

A most impressive engineering feat at Rhuddlan in the late 1270s was the diversion and canalisation of the River Clwyd for a distance of over two miles to provide a deep-water channel from the sea to the castle so that supplies could be easily shipped from the coast. If possible, castles were sited over springs or underground streams. often one of the most expensive features, wells were a vital source of water and were marvels of medieval engineering and they could take many years to sink to the water table. Some castles incorporated sophisticated piping systems and cisterns to draw water to upper floors. Any water supply though that could be tampered with from outside the castle would invariably be poisoned with a rotting corpse by besieging forces, in order to encourage an early garrison surrender. Fire was used with devastating success against castles (hence the term ‘with fire and sword’) and well-water was a vital countermeasure in addition to a drinking supply.

Moats also prevented undermining, one of the great fears of any castle garrison and famously used by King John at Rochester in 1215. Miners would dig a tunnel under the wall which was then collapsed bringing the masonry above down with it. Defenders would place wide bowls of water in strategic places and watch for any vibration on the surface that would indicate digging below. `e only answer was to countermine and meet the enemy threat underground – a dangerous and scary ploy that was used in desperation on occasion. A castle built upon rock, as at Conwy, was of course safe from this devious tactic. Among others, Caerphilly and Kenilworth Castles developed extensive water defences and became almost impregnable. Established as a motte-and-bailey by Henry i, Kenilworth was rebuilt by King John in 1200 on the side of a valley with a stream at its bottom. `is was ingeniously dammed in order to flood the entire valley and when the north-east walls were protected with a deep new moat, the castle became an island. It was tested in 1265 after the Battle of Evesham when Simon de Montford’s son, holed up in the castle, refused to submit to the King and the subsequent siege lasted from Easter until December. Prince Edward collected a variety of siege engines, including a great tower called Bear, and barges were sent down from Chester for deployment on the water. Abandoned by their allies and a lost cause, the starving garrison eventually surrendered on terms and were allowed to march out with full honours. `e defences though had survived everything the wealth of the kingdom could throw at them and had proved to be the business.

With the decline of the castle’s original dual function as both fortress and lordly residence from the fourteenth century onwards, the role of the moat changed and they were now employed largely for prestige purposes. Dunstanburgh Castle, famous for its last word in gatehouse-keep design, was originally surrounded by a network of artificial lakes, though these are not much in evidence today. Useful for keeping wildfowl and fish for the garrison, the predominant purpose of these bodies of water must have been for their outstanding visual impact rather than for defence. `e long and meandering pathway around the meres that lead up to the castle suggest that it was designed to exaggerate its appearance. `e multiple, mirror-like reflections of the magnificent and powerful architecture were supposed to overawe any visitor. At Bodiam too, where the castle dramatically rises from the middle of a wide moat, exactly the same efect is achieved. `e give-away here is that the moat edges are in-part banked up so that it could easily have been drained by any attacking force.

By the time of the Gothic Revival castles of the nineteenth century such as Eastnor, surrounding water, now usually a lake, was an entirely decorative feature but thanks to plumbing not quite so foul-smelling. `ese so-called castles can be frivolous, eccentric and even deluded; I well remember feeling distinctly short-changed when promised a trip to a castle as a boy, I was confronted by a big country house topped with feeble battlements. Restored castles too like Windsor or elements of Pembroke, Arundel and Caerphilly seem somehow unsatisfactory and almost fake. `ere is nothing to rival the physicality and raw environment of the real thing, however dilapidated. `e detective work required to read a ruined castle and understand how it functioned can be honed by lots of exploration. It can be addictive.

I hope that this exhibition will spark the imagination and encourage castle visiting. Look out for those small and often overlooked or fragmented architectural details that reveal the military and domestic conventions of the day and give insight into the ingenious medieval engineering achievements of the castle-builders. `ough we know few of their names today (Savoyard, Master James of St George was Edward i’s famed architect), we salute them with this exhibition.

William Wilson / Edinburgh / 1928 / etching / 131 x 165 mm Stuart Southall collection

sebastian pether (1790–1844) moonlight scene, southampton

oil on canvas / 1500 x 1980 mm Southampton Maritime and Local History Collection

Southampton Castle dominates this tranquil view of the town towards its southern and western walls. Constructed in the eleventh century, the original motte-and-bailey castle was rebuilt in stone and extended several times. `e Castle was at its strongest around 1400, the key to the defences of one of England’s richest and most important seaports. However, the castle fell into disuse during the fifteenth century as the defence of the town focused on the town walls, and the castle began to sufer from neglect. only fragments of the building exist today, including some of the wall foundations and a part of the Castle Hall and vault.