Reasons for Designation
A shell keep castle is a masonry enclosure, extending around the top of an
earlier motte or castle ringwork, and replacing the existing timber palisades;
there are a few cases where the wall is built lower down the slope or even at
the bottom. The enclosure is usually rounded or sub-rounded but other shapes
are also known. A shell keep is relatively small, normally between 15 and 25m
diameter, with few buildings, and perhaps one tower only, within its interior.
Shell keeps were built over a period of about 150 years, from not long after
the Norman Conquest until the mid-13th century; most were built in the 12th
century. They provided strongly fortified residences for the king or leading
families and occur in both urban and rural situations.
Shell keep castles are widely dispersed throughout England with a marked
concentration in the Welsh Marches. The distribution also extends into Wales
and to a lesser extent into Scotland. They are rare nationally with only 71
recorded examples. Considerable diversity of form is exhibited with no two
examples being exactly alike. Along with other castle types, they are major
medieval monument types which, belonging to the highest levels of society,
frequently acted as major administrative centres and formed the foci for
developing settlement patterns. Castles generally provide an emotive and
evocative link to the past and can provide a valuable education resource, both
with respect to medieval warfare and defence, and to wider aspects of medieval
society. All examples retaining significant remains of medieval date are
considered to be nationally important.
Carisbrooke Castle survives well as a good and well-known example of a shell
keep castle. The well preserved fortifications constructed by the Italian
military engineer Federigo Gianibelli in the late 16th century are a good
example of military defensive works of the period. The castle is justifiably
famous for its role in the detention of Charles I.
Burhs are fortified centres of early medieval date which served as defensive
refuges intended for the protection of road and river routes and river routes
and of the local population. Some also played a role in organised commercial
development and as administrative centres. Around 90 examples are recorded
nationally, most of which are concentrated in central and southern England.
This is the only example identified on the Isle of Wight.
Partial excavations at Carisbrooke between 1976-81 demonstrated the presence
of settlement remains predating the castle. The outer defences are of a type
analogous to burghal defences elsewhere, although there are no documentary
sources to confirm this interpretation, as the Isle of Wight was outside the
Burghal Hidage, a record of the burhs of Wessex, thought to have been compiled
by Alfred or Edward the Elder.
Details
The monument includes a shell keep castle and associated earthworks built on
the site of an earlier Saxon burh lying on the south west end of a long ridge
running north east to south west in the centre of the Isle of Wight. This high
ground has Lukely Brook on its west side and the headwaters of the River
Medina on its south and east. The castle is sited at a point where the ridge
terminates abruptly, the land dropping away precipitously on three sides.
The castle is stone built and roughly square in plan. In the north east corner
is a motte surmounted by a keep which is met by the curtain wall. The curtain
wall encloses the domestic buildings and half of the motte. Beyond the curtain
wall is a moat. On the internal side of the moat and on the bottom edge of the
motte are the half buried remains of the walls of the Saxon burh which pre-
dates the castle. Beyond the moat, on the east side of the castle, is the
barbican. Enclosing the moated castle and barbican is a ditch, with further
earthworks beyond this.
The castle can be divided into three parts: the keep, the domestic buildings
inside the castle walls and the buildings on the curtain wall and defences
beyond.
The keep, built shortly after 1100 by Richard de Redvers, is ascended by a
flight of steps. The walls of the keep today are lower than when they were
first built. The gateway to the keep was built c.1335. This gateway originally
had a portcullis, the groove for which can be seen in its outside arch. The
walls inside the keep are part of a 16th century modification, but there is a
14th century garderobe recessed into the outer wall. Also in the keep is the
first well dug in the castle. This well is 49m deep, and the impressions of
the timber support of the windlass can be seen in the nearby wall. The keep
was abandoned for living when its military use was ended.
The internal buildings of the castle include the area known as Carey's
Mansion, St Nicholas Chapel, the great hall and well-house. Carey's Mansion,
which runs parallel with the inside of the north curtain wall, contains the
earliest domestic quarters of the castle, so placed that the occupants could
easily escape into the keep in times of emergency. Within this building are
the remains of an oven and chimney and two windows of particular note. The
western window is known as Isabella de Fortibus's window and lay in her great
chamber. The eastern, barred window, lay in the room which was the last place
of captivity of Charles I prior to his removal to London and execution. The
chapel seen today dates from 1904 and was designed by Percy Stone, but is
built on a 14th century foundation on the site of the original chapel of 1070.
The great hall dates from the 13th century. The first improvement to the hall
was the fireplace on the ground floor built by William de Montacute c.1400.
George Carey, in the 16th century, added the porch and the upper floor, but in
making his changes to the great hall he badly damaged the chapel built by
Isabella de Fortibus in the south east corner of the hall. In the 18th century
the present staircase was inserted. Halfway up the steps a door leads into the
building called the Constable's Lodgings, rebuilt and extended by William de
Montacute in the 14th century. One of the rooms here is Charles I's
bedchamber, from which he first attempted to escape. The entire block formed
the suite of rooms occupied by Princess Beatrice as a summer residence from
1896. The great hall is now occupied by the Carisbrooke Castle Museum. Under
the great hall lies the room which now houses the boilerhouse; this room dates
from the 12th century.
The well in the courtyard was dug in the early 12th century. The original
well in the keep was unreliable, indeed the defenders ran out of water when
the castle was besieged by King Stephen in 1136 forcing Baldwin de Redvers to
surrender the castle. There has been a well-house and treadwheel over the well
since 1291. The present structure dates from 1587, and the treadwheel inside
the well-house was also installed during the reconstruction of this date. The
16th century officers' block on the east side of the courtyard is now totally
renovated inside. On the south side of the courtyard lies the entrance to a
subterranean room which was the gunpowder room and later became the ice house.
The defences of the castle include the curtain wall itself, a gatehouse on the
north west side of the curtain wall, towers on the south west and south east
corners, the moat and the defences beyond the moat.
The castle is approached via a red brick bridge over a ditch which was created
as part of the artillery defences built between 1597 and 1600. The gatehouse
has been altered over the centuries. The front, with its drum towers, was
built c.1335 in front of an earlier gateway, but the upper parts of the towers
with their gunports and machicolations over the gate date to c.1470. In the
gateway itself are three portcullis grooves, the position of each showing the
growth of the gateway. The curtain wall stands to c.3m high with a turf bank
1m high on its top. The corner towers on the curtain wall were strengthened to
take cannon in the 16th century. These towers were built around the outer face
of the original Norman towers.
On the south side of the motte is a narrow gateway, or postern, in the curtain
wall. This was constructed in the 16th century to allow access to the
fortifications of the same date on the east side of the castle. These
fortifications beyond the curtain wall were built by the Italian military
engineer Federigo Gianibelli between 1597 and 1600 as a defence against
artillery. He built a set of earth ramparts and four bulwarks, one on each
corner of the fortification, which were used as forward defensive positions
for artillery. The moat, beyond the earthworks, is c.4m deep, 3m wide at the
bottom and c.10m wide at the top. Outside the moat on the eastern and southern
sides are redoubts, and c.80m to the east of the moat is a ditch c.3m wide at
the bottom, c.10m wide at the top and c.2m deep, which is thought to be
associated with the defence of the Saxon burh.
None of the cannon on display are historically associated with the castle. The
iron cannon on the outer defences are naval pieces given in the early years of
the 20th century. A 16th century parish cannon can be seen in the entrance to
the museum, and there is a battery of small saluting cannon on a grass bank
near the well-house.
Prior to the building of the castle, the site was occupied by a Saxon
settlement about which very little is known. It has been suggested by
Dr C Young, who conducted excavations of the site from 1976-81, that the outer
defences are of a form which would be compatible with the burghal defences
recorded elsewhere. As the Isle of Wight was outside the Burghal Hidage (a
record of Wessex burhs), there are no contemporary documentary records.
William the Conqueror gave the burh to his kinsman William Fitzosbern, who
started to turn it into a castle by building a campaign fort in one corner.
The Fitzosberns lost the castle after an unsuccessful rebellion in 1078. Their
successors, the de Redvers, held it for nearly 200 years until 1293. It was
they who built much of the castle that one sees today. The first Richard de
Redvers constructed the motte and bailey, and the stone walls were added by
1136. The last of the de Redvers, Isabella de Fortibus, also added to the
castle buildings. She was an innovator, one of the first in England to use
glass for windows. In addition to the small chapel she constructed adjoining
the great hall, she had a window seat constructed in the north wall of her
private chamber, which can still be seen today. King Edward I purchased the
castle from Isabella on the day she died.
The castle experienced military action only twice: in 1146 it was besieged and
taken by King Stephen; and during the Hundred Years War, in 1377, the French
unsuccessfully besieged it. After the Wars of the Roses the title of the Lord
or Captain of the Castle was dropped in favour of Governor. Queen Elizabeth I
appointed her cousin George Carey, second Lord of Hunsdon, as governor. Carey
took up the post in 1582 and set about improving the defences of the castle
because of the threat from Spain. In addition to this he adapted the great
hall and built a mansion next to it.
Carey's alterations were the last major changes made to Carisbrooke. The long
royal association was broken during the Civil War when Parliament appointed
the Earl of Pembroke as governor in place of the royalist Earl of Portland.
Here Charles I and two of his children, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Henry,
were imprisoned during the Civil Wars. Charles attempted, unsuccessfully, to
escape just prior to his removal to London and execution in 1649. The castle
continued to be kept in repair as a military defence until the 18th century
but played no further part in national history. By the early 19th century it
was in a bad state of repair but was restored `in a somewhat too liberal
spirit' according to a historian in 1856.
Excavations by Dr C Young established the Saxon presence on the site with
a find of three Saxon burials in the bailey or ward of the castle. Grave goods
dated the burials to the sixth century and included glassware, bowls, a
bronze bucket and a fine drinking horn.
Much of the castle is Listed Grade I. Specifically the walls of the castle are
Listed, as are the gate and gatehouse and all internal buildings.
The following are excluded from the scheduling: the concrete plinth and seat
outside the south west corner of the outer moat; the metal railing around the
car park and the tarmac surface of the car park and coach park; post and wire
fences, gates, gateposts, aluminium rails, modern stone walls, metal sign
posts and traffic lights with their supporting electrics on the edge of the
protected area and within it; telegraph poles and supports; the modern
fittings in the officers' block; modern timber buildings in the courtyard; the
modern toilet block and cafe; the boiler and service pipes; the modern
dividing breeze block walls in the boilerhouse; the electrical fittings in the
boiler room and adjoining store room; modern fixtures and fittings in the
Governor's Residence, and the cannon, although the ground beneath all of these
features is included, as is the subsurface gunpowder magazine and ice house.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
