Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/220

 204 MedicBval Military Architecture. THE CASTLE OF BARNARD CASTLE. BARNARD, or Bernard's, Castle, so called from its founder, Bernard de Baliol, stands in a commanding position on the left bank of the Tees, here the boundary between Durham and Yorkshire. It is a large castle, and was long a very important one, both from its position on the frontier of the bishopric, and from the power of the great barons who built and maintained it. The castle crowns the summit of a steep and in part precipitous shelf of rock, which rises about loo feet above the river, and has a projecting shoulder, by means of which the north-western quarter of the fortress is protected naturally by a cliff The remainder of the area was covered by a deep and broad artificial ditch, now mostly filled up, Avhich intervened between the east and north sides of the castle and the contiguous town, to which it gave name, and the people of which, in the times when the castle was maintained, looked to its lords for protection. The north front of both town and castle received a further defence from the Percy beck, a stream which flows into the Tees about 450 yards higher up. The area of the castle, within the walls, is rather above 8 acres. In plan it is oblong, having four unequal sides, averaging about 293 yards north and south by 133 yards east and west. The east or town side, the longest, is slightly convex, and measures 336 yards ; the west, or that upon the river, 245 yards ; the north end, 160 yards ; and the south end, no yards. 'I'he Tees Bridge springs from the rocky bank, below the centre of the western front, and was commanded from the battlements. The area is divided into four wards, of which the "outer" covers rather more tlian its southern half, and the " town ward" about the eastern half of the remainder. The other, or north-western quarter, is again subdivided pretty equally into a " middle " ward, and a northern or " inner " ward. The whole area and the several wards are protec ttd, where necessary, by walls and ditches. The curtain along the cHff seems to have been a mere parapet, save where, as in the inner ward, it supported interior buildings. The walls generally vary up to 30 feet in height, and from 4 feet to 5 feet in thickness. The outer ditch of the place, also the town ditch, commenced in a deep ravine close north of the keep, and was carried along the north front, skirting what are called "the Flats"; thence along the east front, between the w^all and the town, and thence round the south end, and so beneath a part of the west front, until it is lost in the steep ground near the bridge, having been altogether nearly 700 yards in length. From this ditch branched a second, which traversed the place east and w^est, from the town ditch to the river bank, and which, placed to the south of a cross-wall, was the defence of the three northern w^rds from the outer ward.