Conisbrough
Castle - Doncaster, South Yorkshire (EH)
One day at dawn in 1811, the author Sir Walter Scott saw
Conisbrough Castle from the mail-coach taking him from Scotland to London. Although at
that time neglected and hung about with ivy, still the cylindrical keep made such an
impression on his romantic imagination that it became the backdrop to Ivanhoe, one
of his most popular novels. A chapel set into one of the supporting buttresses was used
for the scene in which the supposedly dead Saxon lord, Athelstane, revives. The site of
the castle has now also been revived and the Norman keep, 90 feet of white ashlar, gives an
immediate sense of strength and power even today.
The site, which once belonged to Harold, the last Saxon
king, was given by William the Conqueror to one of his chief supporters, William de
Warren. The surviving stone castle was probably built by Hamelin Plantagenet, half-brother
of Henry II, between 1180 and 1190. He also built elsewhere, for example at Castle
Acre in Norfolk. In 1347, the castle came into the possession of the
house of York, and became royal with the family in 1461. Its survival is no doubt partly
due to the fact that it was more or less ruinous by Tudor times, and thus not garrisoned
in the civil war a century later.
Although parts of the curtain walls and towers
remain and there is a substantial part of the double-angled barbican, the
centre of attraction is undoubtedly the keep, which looks solid and impregnable even
today. It's circular form, splayed at the bottom and supported all round by six huge
buttresses, is unique in Britain. The semi-hexagonal buttresses are solid masonry, except
for the chapel, where the Norman carvings around the door, window and ribs of the vault
can still be admired. The first floor entrance to the keep is now reached by a modern
walkway, but was once protected by a gap between the stone stairs and the doorway. The
holes for the pins which held the drawbridge that bridged the gap are still
visible. Above
the main doorway is a stone lintel assembled from several pieces of cut stone, a feature
which is repeated over the fireplaces inside the keep. Although attractive, this is not a
strong structure and so there is an arch in the masonry above the doorway to reduce the
weight on the lintel. Echoing the arch is the window above and you can also see the
quatrefoil chapel window, with a circle of studs.
Inside the keep there are four floors and a wall walk at the top. The wooden floors are
supported by slight offsets, making them progressively slightly larger as you ascend the
floors. The principle chamber is at the top, with a handsome fireplace dominating the
room. At roof level there is a dovecote, an oven and two water tanks built into the tops
of the buttresses.
