Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (reading books for 4 year olds txt) 📕

a people in the most primitive state of society.

The most perfect specimen is that upon the island of Mousa, near

to the mainland of Zetland, which is probably in the same state

as when inhabited.

It is a single round tower, the wall curving in slightly, and

then turning outward again in the form of a dice-box, so that the

defenders on the top might the better protect the base. It is

formed of rough stones, selected with care, and laid in courses

or circles, with much compactness, but without cement of any

kind. The tower has never, to appearance, had roofing of any

sort; a fire was made in the centre of the space which it

encloses, and originally the building was probably little more

than a wall drawn as a sort of screen around the great council

fire of the tribe. But, although the means or ingenuity of the

builders did not extend so far as to provide a roof, they

supplied the want by constructing apartments in the interior of

the walls of the tower itself. The circumvallation formed a

double enclosure, the inner side of which was, in fact, two feet

or three feet distant from the other, and connected by a

concentric range of long flat stones, thus forming a series of

concentric rings or stories of various heights, rising to the top

of the tower. Each of these stories or galleries has four

windows, facing directly to the points of the compass, and rising

of course regularly above each other. These four perpendicular

ranges of windows admitted air, and, the fire being kindled,

heat, or smoke at least, to each of the galleries. The access

from gallery to gallery is equally primitive. A path, on the

principle of an inclined plane, turns round and round the

building like a screw, and gives access to the different stories,

intersecting each of them in its turn, and thus gradually rising

to the top of the wall of the tower. On the outside there are no

windows; and I may add, that an enclosure of a square, or

sometimes a round form, gave the inhabitants of the Burgh an

opportunity to secure any sheep or cattle which they might

possess.

Such is the general architecture of that very early period when

the Northmen swept the seas, and brought to their rude houses,

such as I have described them, the plunder of polished nations.

In Zetland there are several scores of these Burghs, occupying in

every case, capes, headlands, islets, and similar places of

advantage singularly well chosen. I remember the remains of one

upon an island in a small lake near Lerwick, which at high tide

communicates with the sea, the access to which is very ingenious,

by means of a causeway or dike, about three or four inches under

the surface of the water. This causeway makes a sharp angle in

its approach to the Burgh. The inhabitants, doubtless, were well

acquainted with this, but strangers, who might approach in a

hostile manner, and were ignorant of the curve of the causeway,

would probably plunge into the lake, which is six or seven feet

in depth at the least. This must have been the device of some

Vauban or Cohorn of those early times.

The style of these buildings evinces that the architect possessed

neither the art of using lime or cement of any kind, nor the

skill to throw an arch, construct a roof, or erect a stair; and

yet, with all this ignorance, showed great ingenuity in selecting

the situation of Burghs, and regulating the access to them, as

well as neatness and regularity in the erection, since the

buildings themselves show a style of advance in the arts scarcely

consistent with the ignorance of so many of the principal

branches of architectural knowledge.

I have always thought, that one of the most curious and valuable

objects of antiquaries has been to trace the progress of society,

by the efforts made in early ages to improve the rudeness of

their first expedients, until they either approach excellence,

or, as is more frequently the case, are supplied by new and

fundamental discoveries, which supersede both the earlier and

ruder system, and the improvements which have been ingrafted

upon it. For example, if we conceive the recent discovery of

gas to be so much improved and adapted to domestic use, as to

supersede all other modes of producing domestic light; we can

already suppose, some centuries afterwards, the heads of a whole

Society of Antiquaries half turned by the discovery of a pair of

patent snuffers, and by the learned theories which would be

brought forward to account for the form and purpose of so

singular an implement.

Following some such principle, I am inclined to regard the

singular Castle of Coningsburgh---I mean the Saxon part of it

---as a step in advance from the rude architecture, if it

deserves the name, which must have been common to the Saxons as

to other Northmen. The builders had attained the art of using

cement, and of roofing a building,---great improvements on the

original Burgh. But in the round keep, a shape only seen in the

most ancient castles---the chambers excavated in the thickness of

the walls and buttresses---the difficulty by which access is

gained from one story to those above it, Coningsburgh still

retains the simplicity of its origin, and shows by what slow

degrees man proceeded from occupying such rude and inconvenient

lodgings, as were afforded by the galleries of the Castle of

Mousa, to the more splendid accommodations of the Norman castles,

with all their stern and Gothic graces.

I am ignorant if these remarks are new, or if they will be

confirmed by closer examination; but I think, that, on a hasty

observation, Coningsburgh offers means of curious study to

those who may wish to trace the history of architecture back to

the times preceding the Norman Conquest.

It would be highly desirable that a cork model should be taken of

the Castle of Mousa, as it cannot be well understood by a plan.

The Castle of Coningsburgh is thus described:---

“The castle is large, the outer walls standing on a pleasant

ascent from the river, but much overtopt by a high hill, on which

the town stands, situated at the head of a rich and magnificent

vale, formed by an amphitheatre of woody hills, in which flows

the gentle Don. Near the castle is a barrow, said to be

Hengist’s tomb. The entrance is flanked to the left by a round

tower, with a sloping base, and there are several similar in the

outer wall the entrance has piers of a gate, and on the east side

the ditch and bank are double and very steep. On the top of the

churchyard wall is a tombstone, on which are cut in high relief,

two ravens, or such-like birds. On the south side of the

churchyard lies an ancient stone, ridged like a coffin, on which

is carved a man on horseback; and another man with a shield

encountering a vast winged serpent, and a man bearing a shield

behind him. It was probably one of the rude crosses not uncommon

in churchyards in this county. See it engraved on the plate of

crosses for this volume, plate 14. fig. 1. The name of

Coningsburgh, by which this castle goes in the old editions of

the Britannia, would lead one to suppose it the residence of the

Saxon kings. It afterwards belonged to King Harold. The

Conqueror bestowed it on William de Warren, with all its

privileges and jurisdiction, which are said to have extended over

twenty-eight towns. At the corner of the area, which is of an

irregular form, stands the great tower, or keep, placed on a

small hill of its own dimensions, on which lies six vast

projecting buttresses, ascending in a steep direction to prop and

support the building, and continued upwards up the side as

turrets. The tower within forms a complete circle, twenty-one

feet in diameter, the walls fourteen feet thick. The ascent into

the tower is by an exceeding deep flight of steep steps, four

feet and a half wide, on the south side leading to a low doorway,

over which is a circular arch crossed by a great transom stone.

Within this door is the staircase which ascends straight through

the thickness of the wall, not communicating with the room on the

first floor, in whose centre is the opening to the dungeon.

Neither of these lower rooms is lighted except from a hole in the

floor of the third story; the room in which, as well as in that

above it, is finished with compact smooth stonework, both having

chimney-pieces, with an arch resting on triple clustered pillars.

In the third story, or guard-chamber, is a small recess with a

loop-hole, probably a bedchamber, and in that floor above a niche

for a saint or holy-water pot. Mr. King imagines this a Saxon

castle of the first ages of the Heptarchy. Mr. Watson thus

describes it. From the first floor to the second story, (third

from the ground,) is a way by a stair in the wall five feet wide.

The next staircase is approached by a ladder, and ends at the

fourth story from the ground. Two yards from the door, at the

head of this stair, is an opening nearly east, accessible by

treading on the ledge of the wall, which diminishes eight inches

each story ; and this last opening leads into a room or chapel

ten feet by twelve, and fifteen or sixteen high, arched with

free-stone, and supported by small circular columns of the same,

the capitals and arches Saxon. It has an east window, and on

each side in the wall, about four feet from the ground, a stone

basin with a hole and iron pipe to convey the water into or

through the wall. This chapel is one of the buttresses, but no

sign of it without, for even the window, though large within, is

only a long narrow loop-hole, scarcely to be seen without. On

the left side of this chapel is a small oratory, eight by six in

the thickness of the wall, with a niche in the wall, and

enlightened by a like loop-hole. The fourth stair from the

ground, ten feet west from the chapel door, leads to the top of

the tower through the thickness of the wall, which at top is but

three yards. Each story is about fifteen feet high, so that the

tower will be seventy-five feet from the ground. The inside

forms a circle, whose diameter may be about twelve feet. The well

at the bottom of the dungeon is piled with stones.”---Gough’s

“Edition Of Camden’s Britannia”. Second Edition, vol. iii. p.

267.

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