Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/85

 Castles at the Latter Part of the Twelfth Century. 69 inhabited, of Farnham, and Earl Warenne's castle on the hill at Reigate, of which some traces remain. Higher up the Thames were Windsor, Reading, Wallingford, and Oxford, all fortresses of high antiquity and of the first rank. Between the Thames and the sea-coast the country was well guarded, and the communications with Dover, Portsmouth, and South- ampton, so important to sovereigns with possessions on the Continent, rendered secure. Dover, called by William the Conqueror, according to Matthew Paris, " Clavis et repagu- lum," the key and bolt of the kingdom, was one of its oldest, largest, and strongest fortresses, and covered a nearly impregnable area of thirty-five acres. It crowned the crest of a chalk rock which seemed to rise out of the sea, and steep by nature was rendered still more so by art, and bore traces of Norman, English, Roman, and probably British occupation. Its well of water is particularly specified, according to M. Paris, in Harold's celebrated covenant with Duke William. Indeed, there seem to have been two wells in the keep, besides another, no doubt that of Harold, in the outer ward, probably a Roman work. The town also was walled. In the rear of Dover lay the city of Canterbury, mentioned in " Domesday " as fortified. It was strong to the landward, with a formidable bank and ditch, revetted by a Norman wall, and towards the water was covered by the marshes of the Stour, at one time navigable up to the quays of the ancient city. At one angle and just within the area, was a strong rectangular keep, a Norman addition, and near it was the Danejohn, a far older moated mound, older even than the bank and ditch of the city, which were laid out at an angle to include it. Near to Canterbury was Chilham, a Norman tower of peculiar form, on the site of a work burned by the Danes in 838-51 ; and at no great distance was Salt- wood, given to the see of Canterbury in 1036, and said to owe the formidable banks and ditches which still surround it to a son of Hengist. West of Dover William d'Abrincis had built the castle of Folkestone, now, with the cliff it stood upon, swallowed up by the sea. It was preceded by an earlier work in earth a little further inland ; Sandwich, one of the cinque ports, was also embanked and walled. Between Dover and London, upon the marshy windings of the upper Medway, stood the mound of Tonbridge, with its Norman walls and shell keep, a place of immense strength, and the subject of a long contest between the archbishops and the earls of the race of De Clare. Again, in the rear and upon the same road was the castle of Rochester sharing its defensive strength with the oldest tower of the contiguous