The Hawarden Visitors Hand-Book | Page 4

and Mary, afterwards Lady Lyttelton,
born July 22, 1813. He died in 1815 at the age of 35 years, and of his
children Mrs. Gladstone alone survives. Sir Stephen, the last Baronet,
died unmarried in 1874, surviving his brother the Rector only two years;
and the Lordship of the Manor, together, by a family arrangement, with
the estates, then devolved upon the present owner.
{Catherine Gladstone. Photographed by G. Watmough Webster,
Chester: p12.jpg}

The Old Castle.
The Ruins of Hawarden Castle occupy a lofty eminence, guarded on
the S. by a steep ravine, and on the other sides by artificial banks and
ditches, partly favoured by the formation of the ground. The space so

occupied measures about 150 yards in diameter. Upon the summit
stands the Keep, towering some 50 feet above the main ward, and some
200 feet above the bottom of the ravine.
"The place presents," says Mr. G. T. Clark, "in a remarkable degree the
features of a well-known class of earthworks found both in England
and in Normandy. This kind of fortification by mound, bank and ditch
was in use in the ninth, tenth, and even in the eleventh centuries, before
masonry was general. {13} The mound was crowned with a strong
circular house of timber, such as in the Bayeaux tapestry the soldiers
are attempting to set on fire. The Court below and the banks beyond the
ditches were fenced with palisades and defences of that character."
It was usual after the Conquest to replace these old fortifications with
the thick and massive masonry characteristic of Norman Architecture.
Hawarden, however, bears no marks of the Norman style though the
Keep is unusually substantial. It appears, according to the best
authorities, {14} to be the work of one period, and that, probably, the
close of the reign of Henry III. or the early part of that of Edward I.
Hence Roger Fitzvalence, the first possessor after the Conquest, and the
Montalts, who held it by Seneschalship to Hugh Lupus, must have been
content to allow the old defences to remain, as any masonry
constructed by them could scarcely have been so entirely removed as to
show no trace of the style prevalent at the time.
The Keep is circular, 61 feet in diameter, and originally about 40 feet
high. The wall is 15 feet thick at the base, and 13 feet at the level of the
rampart walk--dimensions of unusual solidity even at the Norman
period, and rare indeed in England under Henry III. or the Edwards.
The battlements have been replaced by a modern wall, but the junction
with the old work may be readily detected. In the Keep were two
floors--the lower, no doubt, a store room without fire-place or seat--the
upper a state room lighted from three recesses and entered from the
portcullis chamber.
Next to this last is the Chapel, or rather Sacrarium, with a cinquefoil-
headed doorway, and a small recess for a piscina, with a projecting
bracket and fluted foot. Against the West wall is a stone bench, and

above it a rude squint through which the elevation of the Host could be
seen from the adjoining window recess. Of the two windows, one is
square, the other lancet-headed. The altar is modern. There is a mural
gallery in the thickness of the wall running round nearly the whole
circle of the Keep, and with remarkably strong vaulting.
Descending from the Keep and inclosing the space below, were two
walls or curtains, as they are technically called. That on the N. side, 7
feet thick and 25 feet high, is still tolerably perfect, and within it lay the
way between the Keep and the main ward. Of the South curtain only a
fragment remains attached to the Keep.
The entrance to the court-yard--now the so-called bowling-green--was
on the N. side. On the South side, on the first floor (the basement being
probably a cellar), was the Hall, 30 feet high from its timber floor to the
wall plate. Two lofty windows remain and traces of a third, and
between them are the plain chamfered corbel whence sprung the open
roof. Below the hall is seen a small ambry or cupboard in the wall.
Outside the curtain on the East side, where the visitor ascends to the
Courtyard, are remains of a kitchen and other offices with apartments
over, resting upon the scarp of the ditch.
From the N.E. angle of the curtain projects a spur work protected by
two curtains, one of which, 4 feet thick and 24 feet high, only remains,
with a shouldered postern door opening on the scarp of the ditch at its
junction with the main curtain. This spur work was the entrance to the
Castle, and contains a deep pit, now called the Dungeon, and a