Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem team
[Nottingham history]
- Brewhouse Yard
- caves
- Mortimer
- lace
- [Nottingham castle]
- Robin Hood
- Third Crusade
Nottingham Castle: a chronology
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Nottingham Castle in 1793 -- an engraving by J Walker from a painting by W Turner (the canal wasn't authorised until 1792!) |
1068
Two years after his victory at the battle of Hastings, William
the Conqueror orders the construction of a castle on top of the
39.62m (130 ft) rock. Probably a motte-and-bailey design, it has
a combination of earthwork and wooden palisade defences. Workers
have to cut deep into the rock to form defensive ditches.
1170s
Henry II begins to replace the wooden outer defences with stone
walls.
1194
Richard I captures the castle -- held by forces working for his
brother John -- after a three-day siege. Nottingham is one of
a series of fortresses that John had taken over illegally during
his regency. The constable leading John’s forces gives up after
the outer gates are burned down. Defeat for John shows just how
vulnerable the castle was to determined attack.
1216
By the time John dies, he has expanded the castle's defences to
cover an area much greater than the present outer limits. A few
years earlier, he hanged from its walls over 20 unfortunate Welsh
princes, hostage sons of rebel chieftains. John’s building work
is supervised by the sheriff of Nottingham, Philip Marc. An efficient
and ruthless administrator, not averse to a bit of extortion and
blackmail, he echoes the character of Robin Hood's legendary arch-rival. He organises the construction of a range
of siege engines for attacking enemy fortresses and defending
the castle, which at this time is an administrative and financial
centre as well as a military one.
1250-55
The present outer wall, including the gatehouse, is built by Henry
III as part of a major reconstruction programme.
1330
One October night, supporters of young Edward III break into the
keep -- through an underground passage still known as Mortimer's
Hole -- to arrest Roger Mortimer, Earl of March and lover of the king's mother Queen Isabella,
who both conspired in the murder of Edward II. Mortimer is taken
to London, where he is hanged, drawn and quartered.
1470s
Edward IV erects Richard's Tower and the ground floor of the royal
apartments (which are completed by Richard III). The latter are
built against the castle’s outer walls with the semi-octagonal
tower outside the wall's angle. With their rows of bay windows,
the apartments look like the horseshoe cloisters at Windsor. The
ground floor is made of stone, the upper of timber.
1485
The building work on the apartments has just been completed when
Richard III rides from Nottingham to meet Henry Tudor -- and death
-- at the battle of Bosworth Field.
1617
Working for Sir William Cavendish (later Duke of Newcastle), architect
John Smythson produces a plan for the castle that will become
the earliest surviving document to give a detailed layout, providing
important (and accurate) clues to the medieval construction.
1623
With the passing of feudalism, the castle becomes redundant as
far as the crown is concerned -- by the time James I ascends the
throne in 1603, it is a ruinous liability. So he grants it (with
the surrounding estate) to Francis, Earl of Rutland, the last
constable of the castle.
1642
Charles I raises his standard outside the castle wall on what
is now Standard Hill, in a bid to recruit local support. This
is the act that begins the English Civil War. However, the king
quickly retires and the castle is taken by Parliamentarians, with
Colonel John Hutchinson as governor.
1643
Royalists from Newark take control of Nottingham and briefly lay
unsuccessful siege to the castle, using the tower of St Nicholas's
Church as a vantage point from which to fire into the fortifications.
1651
After the Civil War, there is no love lost between Hutchinson
and Oliver Cromwell. When the latter is away in Scotland, the
governor gets Parliament's approval to remove the Nottingham garrison
and demolish the castle. It takes just six months for Major Poulson
(Hutchinson's successor) and his men to render it useless for
military purposes. When Cromwell returns south, he is 'heartily
vex'd' at the sight that greets him in Nottingham. The destruction
is completed by townspeople on the lookout for a ready supply
of building materials -- an ignominious end for a castle that
had overawed the Midlands for 600 years.
1674
Fourteen years after the Restoration, the site is bought by William
Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle, who begins building a residence
on the rock summit. He dies when the walls are only a metre high.
His son completes the job in 1678. The duke's architect is William
Marsh, the successor to John Smythson as architect of Bolsover
Castle, Derbyshire.
1831
The castle is gutted by fire in an attack by Reform Bill rioters
following the then Duke of Newcastle's opposition to parliamentary
reform. He later receives £20,000 government compensation after
claiming that the police and army should have stopped the mob.
He ploughs the money into building the nearby Park Estate.
1875
A roofless shell for four decades, the building is bought by the
Corporation and restored, with a remodelled interior, as the first
municipal museum outside London for fine and applied arts. It
is officially opened in 1878 by the Prince and Princess of Wales
(later Edward VII and Queen Alexandra).
1977 onwards
Archaeological excavations uncover the remains of a section of
the curtain wall between Richard's Tower and a round corner structure
now called the Black Tower. Archaeologists discover the ramparts
of very early earthworks and, 27.43m (90ft) down, a well in the
basement of Richard's Tower, the remains of an early 16th-century
wrought-iron breech-loading cannon and carriage, probably dumped
there when the castle's military use came to an end.
Nottingham Castle entrance in 1998
