[Illustration: FIG. 22. Norham. Nottingham.]
NORHAM, Northumberland (Fig. 22).--The first castle here was built by Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham, in the reign of William Rufus. It was built to defend Northumberland against the incursions of the Scots, and we are expressly told that no castle had existed there previously.[520] This first castle, which we may certainly assume to have been of earth and wood, was destroyed by the Scots in 1138, and there does not seem to have been any stone castle until the time of Bishop Puiset or Pudsey, who built the present keep by command of King Henry II.[521] Mr Clark tried hard to find some work of Flambard's in this tower, but found it difficult, and was driven back on the rather lame assumption that "the lapse of forty [really fifty at least] years had not materially changed the style of architecture then in use."[522] In fact, the Norman parts of this keep show no work so early as the 11th century, but are advanced in style, for not only was the basement vaulted, but the first floor also. The simple explanation is that Flambard threw up the large square motte on which the keep now stands, and provided it with the usual wooden defences. It also had a strong tower, but almost certainly a wooden one; hence it was easily destroyed by the Scots when once taken.[523] The motte was probably lowered to some extent when the stone keep was built. It stands on a high bank overlooking the Tweed, and is separated from its bailey by a deep ditch. The bailey may be described as a segment of a circle; its area is about 2 acres.
NORWICH (Fig. 23).--We find from Domesday Book that no less than 113 houses were destroyed for the site of this castle, a certain proof that the castle was new.[524] It is highly probable that it was outside the primitive defences of the town, at any rate in part. Norwich was built, partly on a peninsula formed by a double bend of the river Wensum, partly in a district lying south-west of this peninsula, and defended by a ridge of rising ground running in a north-easterly direction. The castle was placed on the edge of this ridge, and all the oldest part of the town, including the most ancient churches, lies to the east of it.[525] In the conjectural map of Norwich in 1100, given in Woodward's _History of Norwich Castle_,[526] the street called Burg Street divides the Old Burg on the east from the New Burg on the west; this street runs along a ridge which traverses the neck of the peninsula from south-west to north-east, and on the northern end of this ridge the castle stands.[527] There can be little doubt that this street marks the line of the _burh_ or enclosing bank by which the primitive town of Norwich was defended.[528] A clear proof of this lies in the fact that the castle of Norwich was anciently not in the jurisdiction of the city, but in that of the county; the citizens had no authority over the houses lying beyond the castle ditches until it was expressly granted to them by Edward III.[529] The mediæval walls of Norwich, vastly extending the borders of the city, were not built till Henry III.'s reign.[530]