Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/295

 Bridgenorth, Oldbury, and Qttatford. 273 descended, in the seventh generation, Margaret de Mowbray, who married Sir Robert Howard, whence comes the Duke of Norfolk, the present owner of Bramber Castle. The barony is in abeyance. Probably, with the failure of the elder male line of De Braose, the castle ceased to be a residence, but in 1644 it was strong enough to be held by Captain James Temple, for the king, against a strong Parliamentary party, and it was probably in consequence that the keep was blown up, and the castle reduced to its present condition. There is an engraving by Hollar, taken 150 years ago, representing it very much as it now is. Another branch of the family of De Braose rose to the rank of Barons of Parliament, and held large Sussex possessions. The last male of this cadet branch, De Braose of Chesworth and East Grinsted, died in the reign of Richard II. Bramber is, like Pontefract, Lewes, and Dudley, an example of a natural hill, scarped and defended by art, and crowned with an artificial mound ; but, unlike those castles, it has both a mound and rectangular keep, a rare combination, found also at Guildford and Christchurch. A rectangular keep upon a natural isolated hill, unaccompanied by a mound, though not usual, is not unknown. Examples of it are seen at Hedingham, Corfe, and Bridgenorth. At Bramber, as indeed is the case in many other sites of early fortresses, the original earthworks have survived the Norman additions, and remain pretty much as they must have existed before the Conquest. BRIDGENORTH, OLDBURY, AND QUATFORD, IN SHROPSHIRE. HE river Severn, in its course from Shrewsbury to Worcester, J_ passes for several miles down a deep and rugged ravine, within or near to which lie the populous districts of Coalbrook Dale, Iron Bridge, Coal Port, and Broseley, early seats of the iron manu- facture, and evidences of the wealth, though scarcely in harmony with the natural beauty, of the country. The ravine commences a little below the ivy-covered ruins of Buildwas Abbey, and termi- nates twenty to twenty-five miles lower down, about Bewdley and Stourbridge, where it opens out into a valley of a soft and smiHng character. About half-way down, between Pendlestone rock and the incoming of the Worf, the Severn receives upon its right bank the waters from a short but deep and broad valley, which descends obliquely from the north-west, and between which and the main valley intervenes the point of a steep and narrow ridge of rock, rising about 200 feet T