Castle Aching

[Loconuts]

A structure similar to that of Corfe Castle in Dorset would fit on that mound and look impressive. A lot of Castles fell into disuse after the Civil War and the invention of artillery. Others were converted into grand houses over the years. Many disused Castles were robbed of their stone by the locals to build their dwellings.

[Nearholmer]

Edwardian

 

I wish I'd bought that book, the cover of which shows the castle and village, because, apparently, it contains an entire series of paintings, depicting the development of the archetypal English village, and the artist was from ....... Norfolk.

 

It seems to be quite a readily available book, so you might be able to nab a copy reasonably cheap.

 

Another, probably irrelevant, thought, is that Ireland is a good place to look for small castles,more like large defended manor houses, both Norman and later, many of which are surprisingly little-changed. They are so widespread, that you can buy a refurbished and habitable one for about the price of a large house, and there are still a few slightly tumbledown ones that are for sale at the price of, say, a four-bedroomed house in England. There was one for sale for at least ten years that I know of, and when I go over to Ireland at the end of May, I shall have a look and see if it still is ......, nobody would buy it, because it needed so much work, and was subject to multifarious schedulings as an ancient monument, so it basically sat there, slowly being destroyed by tree growth.

 

Kevin

[Shadow]

Arundel Castle is another example. And it's built by the Duke of Norfolk!

 

 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arundel_Castle_-_motte_and_quadrangle,_England_(18_April_2006).jpg#mw-jump-to-license

[Edwardian]

More good thoughts.

 

Arundel is another useful precedent for a stone keep on what must surely be an artificial mound.

 

Unfortunately, I am unlikely to procure a copy of Story of an English Village prior to finalising the design, though I will happily read it ex post facto if I find one.  I am glad to see the author was from Norfolk.  The cover illustration has a Norfolk feel.  But for the church being situated some distance from the village centre, it could very well be an illustration of Castle Aching!

 

Corfe and Clifford's Tower, York:

[nick_bastable]

a few options here  https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/the-story-of-an-english-village/author/goodall-john-s/

 

Nick

[Edwardian]

This exercise proves the danger of embarking upon construction upon the basis of a strong, but when it comes down to it, hard to pin down, mental image without adequate research and without any planning whatsoever!

 

Mind you, you could say that about the whole layout.

 

Right, going off for a re-design ...

 

Before I do, my thoughts are now these:

 

There are 3 issues to consider:

 

Bon Motte?

 

I conclude that I am happy with the size and shape of the mound.  The largest Norfolk motte was, I think, Thetford (see post 3193).  It never supported a stone keep.  I have found that it rose 82' from the bailey, so 328mm.  I would look for something a little lower and, in theory, more stable.  My hill is no more than 230mm from the level of its bailey, and, although this is distorted by perspective modelling, which means the top of the hill is at a smaller scale than the bottom, I do not think my motte is likely to match Thetford's, so is probably well within the range of prototype sizes.

 

Keep looking?

 

I have stuck to the plan to have a single tower-like structure or Keep, rather than an enceinte design (à la Totnes). It will be Norman and rectangular.  I have an idea of both the scale and the degree of perspective.  I need to settle on a design.

 

Drawing the Curtain?

 

I dug out my 2010 snaps of Castle Acre.  Castle Acre has a curtain wall quite high up the mound.  My photographs reminded me of the fact that the ruined wall varies considerably in height. This may soften the dominance of a higher wall.  If the wall is higher, trees growing on the lower slopes will be in front of it, not behind it as with the lower wall.  This should break up the view of the wall.

 

The intention is to mock up walls at the present planned height and to do so higher up in order to judge which looks best.

 

 

  

 

 

[Shadow]

More good thoughts.

 

Arundel is another useful precedent for a stone keep on what must surely be an artificial mound.

 

.......

 

Not artificial, just built on top of a mole hill, that's all. Some big moles down this way! 

[Nearholmer]

Isn't Arundel heavily reconstructed, rather than original?

 

Anyway, it is huge ..... it really dominates the surrounding area, certainly over a field of about 270 degrees, and probably the full 360 historically, when the hills behind were less wooded.

 

I'm with Phil that Lewes is a good Sussex example, and they have a jolly good model of the entire town, with castle, in the museum at the gatehouse, its like a giant CA, with son et lumiere, because it is used in an audio visual presentation about the history.

 

Hastings, of course, is the granddaddy, because Will the Conk built his first timber stockade and keep there within weeks of landing - IIRC (and it was a long time ago!) he had the site defended before the Battle at Battle, which means within less than a month of landing. Methinks someone must have reconnoitred in advance to pick the site.

 

Pevensey dates from the weeks after the invasion, too, but my memory of it is that it doesn't have a pronounced motte. I think it was effectively an island in a marsh, so was naturally defensible without a 'lump', but I may be wrong.

 

 

K

 

PS: I just checked, and Pevensey was originally fortified by the Romans, who I don't think built mounds for keeps.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Poggy1165]

There are (or were) any number of stone 'keeps' on top of mounds, and the size of prototypes varied almost as much as railway stations. A lot were deliberately 'slighted' after the Civil War, not least because Parliament worked out from experience that a garrison within a defensive structure could be a right pain in the butt, and tie down more forces than you might think. Even guns were not necessarily decisive against them, and in any event carting large siege guns along the rather inadequate roads of the period was slow, tedious and expensive.

 

East Anglia virtually didn't have a Civil War, as practically everyone who was anyone in the area supported the Parliament. But you could still have a ruin. Many of these buildings were simply abandoned as obsolete and uncomfortable - which they were unless you were willing to spend ££££££s upgrading them - while others were slighted 'just in case' as a precautionary measure. The spirit of the times was against feudal relics.

 

So in summary, I think you can justify anything you want, although I should be inclined to portray a shattered ruin. Less likely to overpower the scene, apart from anything else.

[Shadow]

Went to Crawley Model Railway show today and saw "World's End". Mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Thought of CA castle and took the following:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also video on youtube :-

 

Edited April 23, 2017 by Shadow

[Compound2632]

I'm afraid I'm not entirely convinced by the World's End ruin - the way the dressed stone has survived around the rubble infill looks far too tidy. Once the castle was ruinous, I believe the dressed stone would be first to go - half the town will be built out of it - leaving just exposed infill as the standing remains. Judging by the photos, the surviving walls at Castle Acre were never faced with well-dressed stone, whereas from the reconstruction drawings maybe the keep was, which is why it isn't there any more...

 

Possibly I'm being overly influenced by urban monastic ruins such as Reading Abbey, where anything worth recycling was sold off pretty quickly after the dissolution at great profit to the crown or whoever the lucky grantee was.

[TheQ]

Here's a couple of pictures of knaresbourgh castle that world's end is based on.

 

A fair amount of dressed stone still in evidence...

[Nearholmer]

While we are castle spotting, I've got to get this one in, mainly because one of my brothers lives within sight of it: Rochester.

 

It's really late Norman, and really BIG, so not one for CA, but it, and the equally interesting Norman cathedral alongside seem to be much-forgotten, because they are in what is, being brutally honest, a fairly workaday location.

 

K

Edited April 23, 2017 by Nearholmer

[TheQ]

Strange you put your brother lives near Rochester, because the reason i know about Knaresbourgh, is, in moving the castle closer to the railway station on the world's end layout, they've missed out my brother's house from the layout.

[Donw]

Went to Crawley Model Railway show today and saw "World's End". Mentioned earlier in the thread.

 

Thought of CA castle and took the following:-

 

DSC00030_s.JPG

 

DSC00034_s.JPG

 

DSC00035_s.JPG

 

DSC00066_s.JPG

 

DSC00067_s.JPG

 

DSC00029_s.JPG

 

 

 

Also video on youtube :-

 

 

Don't show him that he'll have the village flattened and the station moved off baseboard so he can fit a battle scene in   

 

Don

[Donw]

Edwardian I think you know pretty well what you want so I think it best the rest of us stop putting forward ones that do not align with your thoughts. 

Don

[Edwardian]

Re dressed stone.  The curtain wall at Castle Acre, and the gateway modelled on Castle Aching are not dressed stone except for arches, window surrounds etc. The Keep, I suspect, would be similar in this regard to Castle Rising, where certain features, like buttresses, wear also dressed stone and the stuff between coarse and undressed (!).  My suspicion is that these areas were rendered and lime washed, making it mainly white originally (or pink with yellow spots, if the owner preferred).

 

I put one of my 1/100 scale Edwardian ladies at the top of the mound next to the card mock-up.  The effect looked spot on.  So the front of the Castle should be around 3mm to 1 foot scale.  

 

Though I want a slightly larger scale model of a smaller keep, I could not resist downloading this when I discovered it earlier today: https://www.ecardmodels.com/index.php/1-120-castle-rising-keep-paper-model.html

[Edwardian]

Edwardian I think you know pretty well what you want so I think it best the rest of us stop putting forward ones that do not align with your thoughts. 

Don

 

This exchange of ideas has very much clarified my thoughts.  Thanks to all.

 

I am close, I think, but I have yet to see if my current thoughts will work.  If not, back to the drawing board again!

[Compound2632]

Here's a couple of pictures of knaresbourgh castle that world's end is based on.castle1.jpgKnaresborough-Castle.jpgpete-w-knaresborough-castle.jpg

 

A fair amount of dressed stone still in evidence...

 

Fair enough - though I submit that there are bits of naked internal walling sticking out beyond the dressed stone in places. Please don't anyone think I'm knocking the skill and artistry that have gone into Worlds' End, just comparing it the evidence of my own limited experience.

Edited April 23, 2017 by Compound2632

[Edwardian]

I found a scaled ground plan of Castle Rising Keep.  Working off this and the downloaded kit, I was able to produce approximate dimensions to 3mm: 1 foot.

 

Castle Rising Keep has a main building and a fore-building containing the entrance. Ignoring the latter, I concentrated upon the long side of the main Keep.

 

This is flanked by corner towers, between which are 4 bays, divided by narrow buttresses.  The two outer bays are slightly wider than that the two inner.

 

Now Castle Aching does not need anything quite so grand, so I set about producing a version with 3 bays, rather than 4, and using the slightly narrower width of the middle bays. The mock up is non-ruined and ruination will reduce and vary the height.

 

This produced a very large keep, judging from the paper mock-up.  Next I added some random paper offcuts to see what impression a curtain wall set high would have.

 

My conclusion is that I am like the curtain wall in its new position.  The proportions of the keep are not too bad, not as shocking as I thought, but I will make some changes to make it a little smaller ...

 

To those who fear it dominates the village, I refer them to Sir Hugh Fitz Aching, who had it built during the Twelfth Century: "Dominate? Isn't that rather the point?!?"

Edited April 23, 2017 by Edwardian

[Edwardian]

After my experiment in the posy above, I thought that a square keep, such as I had originally envisaged, would be the next thing to try.

 

Parishioners may recall that I said a few post back that I had shrunk my original template to 80% and was very happy with the result (left-hand mock up in Post 3194).  They may also recall I said that it would be a little wider than seen in the photograph, as, as could be seen from the base, it had little corner towers to add.

 

Finally, patient readers might recall that I said I was discarding it because it was a 14th design and I essentially wanted a Norman version.

 

Well, things have almost come full circle.

 

I took may paper mock-up and reduced it by one bay.  I then checked it against the base for my original tower and found it was exactly the same width!

 

It is higher, of course.  Ruination has now reduced the height somewhat, but I think there is a little more to come off.

 

Nearly there ...

Edited April 23, 2017 by Edwardian

[Nearholmer]

Forgetting for a moment that this is a model castle, and thinking about it as a composition, I think your keep might need to drop its left shoulder, and gain the flagpole that I mentioned before, and you might need to sweep the curtain wall the other way.

 

That gives a set of diagonals going bottom left, to top right, the 'leader' being the slope of the motte.

 

I actually think that, compositionally, you could do with losing a bit of the RH side of the motte from the field of view, too, because it gives a diagonal that detracts from the other one, but that might be a step too far, so perhaps a couple of big trees there, the trunk of one of them being on or very near to the 'eye stop line'.

 

K

Edited April 23, 2017 by Nearholmer

[Compound2632]

Forgetting for a moment that this is a model castle, and thinking about it as a composition, I think your keep might need to drop its left shoulder, and gain the flagpole that I mentioned before, and you might need to sweep the curtain wall the other way.

 

That gives a set of diagonals going bottom left, to top right, the 'leader' being the slope of the motte.

 

I actually think that, compositionally, you could do with losing a bit of the RH side of the motte from the field of view, too, because it gives a diagonal that detracts from the other one, but that might be a step too far, so perhaps a couple of big trees there, the trunk of one of them being on or very near to the 'eye stop line'.

 

K

 

"He talked of fore-grounds, distances, and second distances - side-screens and perspectives - lights and shades; - and Catherine was so hopeful a scholar, that ... she voluntarily rejected the whole of Castle Aching, as unworthy to make part of a landscape." - Nearholmer Abbey, by the author of Mansfield Parkway etc. (London: John Murray, 1818). 

[phil_sutters]

You are only going for a simple castle as you can't face keeping up with neighbours' ornate Tudor manor house. This would need a heap of 3D printing!

http://thesteepletimes.com/a-dazzling-manor/

 

Having never come across this 'publication' before I had to poke about in it a bit - under the tab 'Wire' I found this entry, for the famed BROADMOOR Hotel resort in El Paso . http://thesteepletimes.com/the-skys-the-limit/

I assume that they raised the A to differentiate it from the UK's establishment of the same name.

 

Oh and I have just noticed a castle more in your style but not perhaps in your pocket money range http://thesteepletimes.com/a-homely-castle/

Edited April 23, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Edwardian]

Forgetting for a moment that this is a model castle, and thinking about it as a composition, I think your keep might need to drop its left shoulder, and gain the flagpole that I mentioned before, and you might need to sweep the curtain wall the other way.

 

That gives a set of diagonals going bottom left, to top right, the 'leader' being the slope of the motte.

 

I actually think that, compositionally, you could do with losing a bit of the RH side of the motte from the field of view, too, because it gives a diagonal that detracts from the other one, but that might be a step too far, so perhaps a couple of big trees there, the trunk of one of them being on or very near to the 'eye stop line'.

 

K

 

Some good points there, Kevin.

 

The paper curtain wall was just to judge the height, so there will be walling on the right side as well. 

 

Another factor that will effect the composition will be the continuation of Bailey Street around the rest of the base of the mound. 

 

Trees are planned for the left and right edges of the mound.

 

I am minded to drop the height of the centre of the keep, and drop the left-hand tower, too. 

 

BTW, the figure atop the mound is 1/100.  About half way down I'll position a couple of 1/87 (HO) figures.  The base will be 1/76.

 

Thank you all for the recent contributions on castles; they have been extremely useful, not to say interesting.