A Wander Around Newcastle Keep

Newcastle Keep

At the bottom of the Bigg Market (infamous local drinking area), looming 90 feet tall of worn stone,  lies the structure that gave Newcastle it's name. Actually, that's not true; It's the structure after the structure that gave Newcastle it's name but we'll come to that in a moment. The castle we see today is instantly recognisable to the cognoscenti as a quintessential Norman or Angevin keep, typical of the late eleventh or twelfth century. Here's a tip: If anyone ever shows you a picture of a keep like the one above and asks you which king was on the throne when it was built, say Henry II. You won't always be correct but it's surprising how often you will be. Anyway, on with the story.

Western View

Early Days
In the years immediately following the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest the north of England was a wild and unruly place, a disputed zone with the newcomers vying for control with displaced Anglo-Saxons and expansionist Scots. The situation boiled over in 1080 when William Walcher, Norman Earl of Northumbria and bishop of Durham was killed in a skirmish with a local mob. Retaliation was swift and brutal, carried out in the customary Norman fashion of fire and sword. As part of this subjugation program, Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, led a military expedition north to prevent Scottish intervention. On his return he built a fortress at the point where the Great North Road crosses the River Tyne. He chose an excellent site, protected by steep slopes to the east and south (The Romans thought so too, having built a settlement in the same place). This 'New Castle', built of earth and timber, would have been thrown up in a matter of weeks, no doubt with the help (willing or otherwise) of the local populace.

Commanding view from the battlements

Nothing now remains of this fortification so we can't say for sure what it looked like but typically such castles consisted of a timber palisade surrounded by a ditch. Housed within this protective perimeter would be the domestic and military buildings (watchtowers, kitchens, stables, living quarters etc) required for the castle to function. The net result is to allow a relatively small number of men to exercise control over a large area without having to worry too much about being murdered in their sleep. Such castles were a widespread feature of the occupation and it's very unlikely the conquest would have succeeded without them, given the interlopers were outnumbered by perhaps up to 100-1. The Norman knight in helmet and mail, sat astride his charger may have felt invincible in the day but the night belonged to the locals. And they were anything but happy.

Formidable as the earth and timber castle was it was not indestructible, being vulnerable to both fire and axe. Indeed the castle was captured in 1095/6 during a rebellion against William II by Robert Mowbray, 1st Earl of Northumberland, and had to be re-taken by siege. It was occupied again by David, king of Scotland, during the civil war (sometimes called 'the anarchy') between King Stephen and his cousin Matilda only to be surrendered after the two monarchs reached an agreement.

Set In Stone

The Black Gate with the keep in the background

The limitations of wooden defences were well known by the time the civil war was brought to a close by the accession of Henry II, and it was this most energetic of kings who (as hinted above) rebuilt the keep in stone between 1168 and 1178. It's believed the master mason and architect responsible for the project was Maurice 'the Engineer', who would later build the keep at Dover Castle. In the years that followed the keep was surrounded by a stone curtain wall and, finally, a barbican (later known as the Black Gate) was added to the Gatehouse in around 1250.

Fake!

The construction dates of the keep are interesting because in the years 1173 and 1174 the region was invaded by Scottish forces under their king, William the Lion, and it's tempting to speculate on how much disruption this may have caused to the building work. In particular I'm thinking here of the castle battlements, which are not what they seem to the casual observer. If the turrets appear to be in surprisingly good condition for 800 year old structures, that's because they're not 800 years old. They were added when the castle was given a makeover in the early 19th century and it's not known exactly what the original layout was. Drawings and paintings from before the makeover show a flat parapet, sometimes crenellated, but the raised corner turrets, a standard feature on keeps of the period are not present. Whether they ever existed in the first place is a mystery, though if they didn't, one possible cause could be that the completion was hurried after William The Lion's incursion and they simply never got round to finishing them. William, incidentally, got to inspect the castle personally, being brought as a prisoner after his capture at a battle outside Alnwick in 1174.

Polygonal Tower

Another oddity is the fact that three of the four corner towers are square yet the fourth is polygonal, for no obvious reason. The only similar setup I can think of is at Rochester Castle, which features three square and one round tower, but here the disparity is easily accounted for; the round tower at Rochester is a rebuild after the original was destroyed by undermining in a siege, a round design being adopted because they were better able to resist projectile strike than the earlier square type. Perhaps this evidence of technological enhancement is a clue to the mystery tower at Newcastle. An experiment in new building design and techniques? It's an intriguing thought.

How many doors?

If that isn't enough to get you thinking, a quick skirt around the rest of the exterior walls will surely have you scratching your head. Like most castles, windows and openings are relatively sparse, a few windows on the upper floors and narrow arrows slits lower down. No mystery here, this is obviously to prevent would-be aggressors from smashing there way in. So why are there large windows at ground level on the eastern side of the keep? Something that would take a couple of burly lads with axes about 30 seconds to break through doesn't fit in with the rest of the keep so what are they doing there? The obvious answer is that they weren't that big when the keep was built but were widened centuries later when security was less important. This is very possible but doesn't account for the door at (shock, horror!) ground level, just under the main entrance. This door has clearly been modified (check the bricked up arch) but it looks like there's been some sort of entrance there all along, which would severely compromise the defences. Come to think of it, why would you even want a second door right next to the main one?

Postern Door

It's quite common to have an alternative means of entrance/exit in a keep in case you need to make a quick getaway or mount a surprise sortie on your foe, but you wouldn't want it on the ground floor and you wouldn't want it next to the main door. Such doors were known as posterns or sally ports, and there's a prime candidate for one on the West wall, notably off the ground and accessible only by a ladder to make for easier defence. It's the sort of door you can imagine sneaking out of in the dead of night. So where does that leave our mystery door? To solve that riddle you have to see what's on the other side...

Main Entrance 

 The main entrance, as shown above, is up a steep set of stairs and through imposing wooden doors, framed by a battered looking round arch. Once inside, there's a door to access the keep on the left but this is a modern creation. Originally, you would have to ascend another set of stairs to reach the entrance proper. And quite an entrance it is, a set of double doors surrounded by ornate carvings and pillars that look too good to be true (you know what's coming next). Sadly, they are too good to be true, dating only from a reconstruction carried out by the famous Newcastle architect John Dobson in 1848. Fake it may be, but at least he was faithful, the round arch and chevron pattern being typical of the period.

The Garrison Room

Whichever entrance you use, once inside it's a veritable rabbit warren of chambers, staircases and passageways. The principal rooms have grand names such as King's Chamber, Queen's Chamber, Great Hall and Garrison Room but it's important to remember these are modern inventions. In particular, the ground floor 'Garrison Room' suggests it was used to house troops but there's no evidence this was the case. The most interesting feature of this room for me is the vaulted ceiling with ribs supported by a central column, the whole arrangement looking like a stone palm tree. Remarkably, the column also has a secondary, less obvious role, in that it contained a lead pipe through which water could be supplied from a well on the third level. A reliable source of clean water would be key to survival in the event of a siege and could make the difference between surrender and holding out.

The Chapel

On the same level as the Garrison Room is a chapel, and it's here we find the answers to the problems of the ground level door and large windows noted earlier. These days you can walk from the chapel to the rest of the keep without leaving the building, but that wasn't the case when first built. Thus the ground level door was required to access the chapel and if an enemy was to break through either here or through the large windows, so what? There was still a wall between them and the remainder of the keep. It's even possible that the chapel was deliberately provided with large windows and external doors in order to provide a soft target for a besieger to attack. Too late would they discover that their exertions availed them naught. The interior of the chapel has, like the entrance, been the subject of restoration work though they've made a pretty decent job, the arches and rib vaults make a nice comparison with the contemporary Durham Cathedral.


The next floor up features exhibition rooms and above this is possibly the most important room in the whole castle, appropriately called the Great Hall. It's the largest open space in the building and it's tempting to imagine what great meetings and ceremonies took place here. John Balliol, ill-fated King of Scots, supposedly swore fealty to Edward I in this hall on Boxing Day 1292. Within four years the agreement was in tatters, largely due to the English King's excessive demands, and Scotland formed the 'Auld Alliance' with France against England. In the long years of war that followed Newcastle became a vital strategic town, used as a mustering point for English armies campaigning in Scotland and playing host to the great and the good. Edwards II and III both stopped here on their way North and, less willingly, David II of Scotland came as a prisoner after the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346.

The Black Gate

The castle itself saw little action, far less than its wooden predecessor. This can be partly ascribed to the deterrent effect, stone walls twenty feet thick being sufficient to quench the fire in the boldest of hearts.  The army of William Wallace approached Newcastle during his invasion of 1297 but were repelled, possibly after a brief skirmish, and looked for easier targets elsewhere, such as Hexham Abbey. In addition, from about 1280 the town of Newcastle began to be enclosed in a new stone wall so after little more than a century the castle was effectively redundant. It was used as a prison and, reflecting its lack of importance, gradually allowed to fall into ruin. It would stare an enemy soldier in the face on precisely one more occasion...

The Civil War
During the civil wars of the seventeenth century Newcastle was a royalist town and the walls were surrounded by a Scottish army allied to the parliamentary side in 1644. The siege dragged on for months but eventually, the medieval walls proved no match for cannon fire and under-mining and the Scots broke through. Up until this point the castle had made use of its great height and strong foundations as an artillery platform - 'the enemy from the castle doth mightily annoy us with their great guns' - and now it was to perform one last service by being used as a final redoubt by the defenders. I would love to report that they held out long enough for help to arrive, like John Wayne in frills and a natty hat, but it wasn't to be. After four days the inhabitants were forced to surrender and, ignominiously, were almost lynched by a mob of townspeople who blamed them for the hardships the town had suffered.

Modern Times

A train scrapes past the keep

Having outlived and seen off disgruntled Saxons, invading Scots and humourless roundheads, it's ironic to think that the castle almost met its end at the hands of modernity, progress and the iron horse. Unbelievable as it sounds today, the fortress was almost demolished in the mid-nineteenth century to make way for a viaduct for the new fangled railway. Fortunately for us, reason prevailed and the track passed between the keep and the Black Gate. Phew!


In more recent times the castle has served as a museum and tourist attraction. For many years the Black gate was inaccessible to the general public but has itself been recently refurbished and opened up for viewing. I'm particularly proud of the fact that I play a very small part in the modern castle story as an event volunteer and steward. It's an honour to be associated with such a splendid building and always a pleasure to take part. Every time I visit I see something new.
The Castle is open every day between 10am and 5pm. For further details, see their excellent website

Icons old and new. The Keep and The Black Gate with the Tyne bridge and The Sage concert hall