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Sunday, January 20, 2019

Hedingham Castle Fact Sheet with Virtual Tour Link.


King Henry I granted the land at Hedingham to Aubrey (Alberic) de Vere about 1106,  the year King ‘Henry I made him Lord Great Chamberlain of England,… to hold “to himself and his heirs, with all dignities and privileges thereunto belonging.”’[1]  Prior to the invasion of William the Conqueror (King William I), in 1066, Hedingham was possessed by Uluuinus, a Saxon of great note.[2] Aubrey crowned the top of the central hill with a timber fortification.[1] 

The hill is surrounded by a ditch likely corresponding initially to a moat.  The summit of the hill is 27 feet above the bottom of an encircling ditch on the N. side, 34 feet on the W. side, and 38 feet on the S. side.[3]  The ditch is about 90 feet wide.  

The keep was enclosed in an inner bailey.  An outer bailey lay to the N.E. and originally had a draw bridge connecting it with the inner bailey.[3]  A gateway tower rose where the bridge was lowered from the foot of the inner bailey.[4]


Aubrey II, son of Aubrey I, built the present keep between 1130-40, after having returned from serving in the first crusade.[5]

The keep measures 58ft. 3ins. north to south and 52ft. 6ins. east to west.[6]

The external walls are 11ft. thick, excepting the eastern, which is 12ft. 6ins.[3]  They are constructed of flint rubble set in limestone mortar and faced, on the exterior, with thick slabs of oolite limestone from Barnack, Northamptonshire, some 60 miles distant.[7]

The total height is 85 ft.[3]

The modern entrance to the keep is on the first floor by way of a stone stair, discharging through the W. wall, where a fore-building used to stand.[8]  The floor is entirely occupied by the great hall or audience chamber, of dimensions 38ft. 3ins. by 31ft. and 27ft.[9], spanned by a Norman arch 21ft. high at the bottom at the center of the room and a ceiling 28ft. high.[10]

The angle turrets, like the main walls of the keep, were originally crowned by battlements but these have been pulled down in order to scavenge the stone, thus depriving the keep of about nine feet of its original height. Behind this parapet, which was 2ft. thick, was a broad paved walk about five and a half feet wide which, passing through arched openings in the return faces of the turrets, enabled a sentry to follow a continuous walk.[11]


The son of Aubrey II was a Crusader like his father, but, unlike him, was a partizan of the Empress Matilda, who, after his father’s death, confirmed him in his English possessions and granted him the reversion of the Oxford earldom, which his male descendants continued to hold until the death of the eighteenth earl in 1625.[5]

A chest was purchased from a local tradesman by the Conservative member of Parliament, and then owner of Hedingham Castle, Mr. Lewis Ashurst Majendie (d. 1885), and placed in the banqueting hall of the Castle. It was supposed by antiquaries to have been the muniment chest of the De Vere Earls.[12]  In the chest would have been many if not all of the family’s most valuable papers.

The keep was pressed into military service as a signaling station during World War I.  The inhabitants set fire to the lead roof destroying it entirely.  The interior of the entire keep was gutted, in consequence.  It is said that valuable furniture and many family possessions stored for safety in the basement chambers were incinerated.  The fate of the muniment chest is not clear.  

Thankfully, the De Vere family muster rolls for the soldiers it provided King Henry V, for the Agincourt campaign, headed by senior pikeman, Edmund Folstolf, as well as many other of the family’s valuable papers, were in safe keeping elsewhere in various historical collections.[13]

H.M.S. Hedingham Castle (K529) was the name of a “castle class” British warship launched on October 30, 1944.  It was decommissioned, after World War II, in 1945.





[1] Tipping, H. Avery.  English Homes, Period 1, Volume 1. 2.
[2] Ranger, H.  Castle Hedingham: Its History & Associations. 7.
[3] An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 1, pp 47-61.  https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/essex/vol1/pp47-61
[4] Armyne, Israel.  1592 Survey.  Gentleman’s Magazine Library (1893).  English Topography, Part IV.  128.  Tipping, 1.
[5] Tipping, 2.
[6] Ibid. 5.
[7] Various.  See bibliography.
[8] The first floor by the British and European term refers to what Americans call the “second floor”.  It refers to the first floor above the ground.
[9] Tipping, 8.
[10] Ranger, 18.
[11] Tipping, 9
[12] Ranger, 15.
[13] See my Edward de Vere was Shakespeare: at long last the proof.  159.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/1543136257/  Citing Nicolas, Sir Harris, History of the battle of Agincourt, and of the expedition of Henry V.  (London: Johnson and Co., 1832).  339.


Also at Virtual Grub Street:
  • The King's Esnecce.  January 13, 2019.  “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
  • Connections: Henry II, Toulouse, 1159.  November 27, 2018.  “Once he became Chancellor, Becket never looked back.  He abandoned his duties as Archdeacon and preaching duties attached to his other positions.  He outfitted a lavish  household and lived like a secular lord.”
  • Medieval Scavagers: First, what they were not. November 18, 2018. ‘The fact that the professor quoted Riley — regardless that neither he nor Riley were able to give a single citation to support their claim — began a now venerated commonplace that Medieval “Scavagers” began by collecting the English tax called the “Scavage”.’
  • Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
  • Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.


 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

We may take special note of that senior pikeman--Folstolf!--known to Henry V!