Exeter Castle
Despite its checkered history, Exeter preserves many relics of its medieval past. Even its city wall has managed to survive for the most part and the bombing revealed stretches, which had been concealed behind houses for centuries. It is nearly two miles long, but with frequent small gaps and little parapet to walk along it is not a particularly rewarding circuit.
The Roman and medieval city occupied a near-rectangular area, today bounded by Northernhay, Eastgate, Southernhay and West Street. Like most other Romano-British cities, Exeter was first enclosed by a stonewall in the third century. The Roman plinth and regularly coursed masonry can be seen in many places – it is unusual for so much Roman work to survive.
The castle of Exeter, often called Rougemont Castle from the red sandstone knell on which it was built, occupies the northern corner of the city’s defenses. William I founded it straight after the capitulation. The square bailey is protected by the city wall on two sides. Towards the town there is a strong rampart topped by the ruins of a curtain. Towers mark the junctions between the city wall and the curtain wall and there is a half-round bastion, Athelstan’s Tower, on the northeast wall.
Herringbone masonry is visible in places and the well-preserved gatehouse is almost certainly a relic of the Conqueror’s time. Two triangular-headed windows above the blocked outer archway and another facing the bailey indicate its antiquity. They suggest Anglo-Saxon work, the only plausible explanation being that English masons were employed and continued to build in their traditional style.
The short barbican, with its tall arch, is contemporary with the rest of the gatehouse and thus the oldest in England. Exeter is one of those early Norman castles which put the emphasis upon a strong gatehouse instead of a keep.
Goodrich Castle
Goodrich Castle is the most splendid in the county of Herefordshire and one of the best examples of English military architecture. It is still impressive despite its ruinous state. The castle is perched on a rocky spur above the River Wye, four miles southwest of Ross-on-Wye.
Godric’s Castle – no doubt named after Godric Mappestone, who held the land nearby – is first recorded in 1101. Nothing is left of Godric’s stronghold but within the bailey, very close to the later curtain, rises a well-preserved though relatively small Norman keep. Henry II took over the castle and the keep is generally attributed to him, but the royal accounts record very little expenditure here.
The keep is a tall, square tower with pilaster buttresses and Norman windows. The original first floor entrance was later converted into a window, a new doorway being inserted immediately below.
Strangely enough, the existing curtain and corner towers are not the first on the site. King John granted Goodrich to the mighty William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and a stone enclosure followed. Some of his masonry is embedded in the present east curtain and the foundations of a round tower underlie the present southwest tower.
A later Earl of Pembroke, William de Valence, tore this structure down and erected his own. His building here is contemporary and comparable with the Edwardian castles of Wales. Such a castle is a rarity in England. It is square in plan, the more vulnerable south and east sides being protected by a wide, rock-cut ditch. A thick curtain surrounds the bailey, with massive round towers at three corners and a gatehouse occupying the fourth. Each tower rises from a solid square base, which sinks back into the cylinder in pyramid fashion. Forming spurs. The spurs projecting from the southeast tower are particularly high.