The internal arrangement of the donjon at Colchester in ... · Mr. Wheeley, beginning in 1683, to raze the tower to the ground for its stone. How-ever, he found that the effort required

The Castle Studies Group Journal No 23: 2009-10178

The internal arrangement of the donjon at Colchester in Essex: a reconsideration

The Castle Studies Group Journal No 23: 2009-10 179

The internal arrangement of the donjonat Colchester in Essex: a reconsiderationPamela MarshallImpressive in size, the great tower atColchester represents one of the more enig-matic early donjons extant in the BritishIsles, for its early history, development anddesign are not entirely typical. While Wil-liam the Conqueror instigated its buildingaround 1074 to 1076, only the ground floorwas completed, leaving the structure in anarchitectural state of limbo. A quarter of acentury passed before Henry I granted thecastle by charter to his steward Eudo, aman who had close personal connectionswith Colchester, and who may have over-seen the earlier phase of building on behalfof the former king. It is likely that Eudocompleted the Conqueror’s unfinishedwork on his own account, and it was notuntil his death in 1120 that the castle re-turned to royal ownership.1 For the purpos-es of this article and in the interests ofsimplicity I shall divide the constructionregimes into just two phases, the first sub-divided, described as Phases Ia, Ib andPhase II.2

The problems attendant on anyinterpretation of this building are wellknown and can be summarised as follows.In the first place, the donjon is much largerthan any other,3 which certainly accountsfor some of the peculiarities in its plan. Itssize, 46m by 33.5m can be attributed to adesire to re-use the podium of the RomanTemple of Claudius as a foundation for thedonjon.4 Without doubt this decision repre-sents more than simply a labour-savingdevice, for the deliberate exploitation ofRoman connotations in both architectureand place for propaganda purposes hasbeen noted here, as elsewhere.5 Indeed, thisseems to have been a trend already preva-lent in early eleventh-century France.6There are also indications that the templesite at Colchester had devolved into anAnglo-Saxon villa regalis by the tenth

century,7 which would only have acted asanother propaganda spur to the Normans tobuild a castle there, underlining continuityof authority. Roman building material wasliberally used in the construction of thedonjon, though it has to be borne in mindthat the dearth of good building stone in theregion, combined with a copious source ofrecyclable Roman ruins, would naturallyencourage such a course of action evenwithout the added advantage of any sym-bolic connotations.

The second peculiarity of the don-jon surrounds the lengthy building break,clearly evidenced by crenellations fossil-ised within the walls at the top of basementlevel (Phase Ia).8 Arguments that this wasenvisaged as a temporary measure are cer-tainly justified,9 but resumption of theplanned upper stories was delayed by abouttwenty years, which is an unusually longhiatus. Corner turrets were built, doubtlessto give the half-finished structure a betterlook (Phase Ib) but the upper levels of thebuilding were not added until c.1101(Phase II).10 This means that, although thetower and its plan were started under Wil-liam I, it was not brought to fruition untilthe reign of Henry I, by which time somedevelopments were emerging in donjondesign.

The third problem is the absenceof all but a trace of the fabric above the firstfloor, due to a determined attempt by oneMr. Wheeley, beginning in 1683, to razethe tower to the ground for its stone. How-ever, he found that the effort required totake down any solid walls in the structuremade the enterprise economically unviableand it was given up as hopeless within afew years, though not, unfortunately, be-fore demolition of the upper storey hadbeen achieved and other damage inflicted:“The tops of the towers and walls wereforced down with screws or blown up withgunpowder …... but [since] the profit didnot answer the charge of further demolition



he [Wheeley] was forced to desist.” 11

Subsequent alterations were made to thesurviving two floors when the S part wasused as a prison and later a museum, whilethe N part remains a ruinous shell.12 Nev-ertheless, we have reasonably good evi-dence for the basement and first floor andthe trace of the second floor has left enoughto reconstruct certain key features, notably

the location of a chapel in the SE corner, thepresence of mural galleries on all sides andthe continuation of the stairs in both of theW turrets. It is therefore possible to draw alikely reconstruction of the final form of thebuilding from the surviving evidence, espe-cially taking into account parallels with oth-er plans.

Figure 1: Floor plans of the White Tower, London


0m 10m


It has been assumed thatColchester, built for the samepatron and initially in progressat the same time, would basical-ly have followed the plan at theWhite Tower, comprising twofull floors above the basement.13

It will be argued here that thepolite accommodation as finallybuilt comprised an aisled Hallapproached through a waitingroom and rising through two sto-reys; that there was an audiencechamber and private bedcham-ber at the same level as the Hall;that at top floor level a gallerygave access to a chapel and tochambers placed over the small-er rooms below.

At Colchester the SEcell is, in plan, pretty much areplica of the White Tower de-sign, with a protruding apse forthe vaulted chapel envisaged onthe top floor and two vaultedstories below this to support itsstructure (compare Figure 1 andFigure 2). The chapel was almost certainlydesigned to stand proud of the roofline, asin the original White Tower arrangement.14

However, the scale of the enterprise madeany further reproduction of the White Tow-er plan problematical and there were boundto be differences from the outset. In thefirst place, the basement floor was not setat ground level, as was normal, being al-ready raised some 3m by the re-use of thetemple podium. More importantly, the sizeof the building required two spine walls,structurally necessary because of a roofspan that needed a triple pile rather than themore common dual pile plan (see Figure 2).

This left a long central cell that wasdifficult to light. In addition, the scale ofthe building did not lend itself to accom-modating one hall through its immenselength, as was normal. So the spine wallsdid not even run the full length of the

building, with a lateral cross-wall andchambers across the whole width of the Ssection; at the White Tower this occurredonly where the chapel cell was situated.Even the cross-wall was not straightfor-ward, for the chambers differed in size, sotheir N walls dog-legged to accommodatethe layout of the first floor. Despite theoutline footprints of Colchester and theWhite Tower having been so celebrated fortheir similarity,15 it must have been clear toits builders that Colchester could not sim-ply reproduce the Conqueror’s other greatdonjon on this particular site. The layout ofthe basement reflects this from the verystart and even more essential differencesemerged in the finished plan, delayed bytwo decades. By the time building resumedc.1101, work on Henry I’s great tower atNorwich was advancing, marked by a de-termined change of plan over that envis-

Figure 2 Colchester: Ground floor plan



aged by the architects of its instigator,William Rufus.16 There are signs of cross-fertilization between Henry’s modifiedplan for Norwich and a revised plan forColchester, which probably veered closerto the contemporary royal model than thatwhich the Conqueror’s master masons hadhad in mind.

Analysis of the Plan: Ground Floor (SeePlan: Figure 2)

Although circumstances led to its constitut-ing the entire accommodation throughoutPhase I (c. 1074-1101, the poor provisionof lighting, no more than ventilation loops,shows that the vast majority of the groundfloor space was envisaged, as was normal,as a basement designed mainly for storage.The survival of the ground floor plan fortu-nately provides us with the basis for suppo-sition about the arrangement of the lostsuperstructure, where the polite accommo-dation was located.

There were a total of six cells atbasement level: three long rectangles in theN section to support a triple-piled roof andthree smaller ones in the S section. Theroofing of the building must have beenmore complicated than at the White Tower,with a second set of pitched roofs acrossthe S section. It is possible that the middlesection on the S side was roofed in con-junction with the chapel while the western-most one had its own small roof that couldhave been pitched, or perhaps more proba-bly pyramidal. The roof as a whole wouldhave required a complicated system of gut-ters, which could easily have accommodat-ed a cistern for water collection.

The SE cell of the ground floorwas determined by the shape of the chapeland, like its counterpart on the next floor,was vaulted in preparation for the ultimatethrust of the chapel vaults. A second barrel-vaulted cell, with equally thick walls, wasplaced immediately to the W, so that theground floor potentially had two enclosedrooms that would have been particularly

secure, possibly envisaged as strong-rooms.The N wall of the central cell was deliber-ately set proud of the line of its SE counter-part, while the N wall of the next cell to theW was set back again. Thus a salient cornerprotruded into the westernmost of the longnorthern cells, made more pronounced bythe position of the westernmost spine,which does not align with the W wall of thevaulted central cell on the S side. This ar-rangement of supporting walls is very sig-nificant in interpreting the first floor.

In the N section of building the Espine wall still stands but the W one wasdemolished by Wheeley. Where this joinedthe N wall of the donjon, however, there isno scarring on the lower 2m, suggestingthat it was an arcade rather than a solid wall.This would also account for this being theonly wall at basement level that Wheelermanaged to demolish.17 The interpretationof the first floor works best with the wallabove also reconstructed as an open arcade.Superimposed arcades instead of a centralspine were used at Beaugency (Loiret) asearly as c.1015.18 Other examples of the useof short arcades as supporting members inbasements are known from Ivry-la-Bataille(Eure) c.100019 and Nogent-le-Rotrou(Eure-et-Loir) c.1005-1028).20 At Norwich,c.1100, a revision of the original plan incor-porated the use of an arcade in thebasement21 and this may have been directlyinfluenced by Colchester.

An outstanding departure from theWhite Tower plan is that the entrance waslocated on the ground floor although, be-cause of the height of the temple podium,this was well above natural ground level.The main door, at the W end of the S wall,was reworked in Phase II22 and its elaboratedecoration reflects architectural fashion atthat time23 (Figure 3).

Nevertheless, scholarly opinionagrees the doorway had been in this posi-tion from the start. It was widened to com-plement a new forebuilding belonging to



Phase II, an improvement upon an elev-enth-century timber original, both foundby excavation.24 The new doorway incor-porated a portcullis, for which a recess wasprovided in the Phase II chamber above.This is another departure from the WhiteTower plan, where defences were incon-spicuous. However, the Colchester door-way does resemble the entrance to theTower in being very grand in its dimen-sions. It led into an entrance vestibule inthe SE corner where there is a semi-circu-lar niche in the wall, which may have beena place for a guard to stand; such niches areapparent in the great tower at Norwich.25

No doubt anyone of status would havebeen ushered straight up to the first floorvia a wide spiral stair in the SW turret offthis vestibule.26 The stair shows signs ofreworking during resumption of the worksin Phase II, at the same time that the door-way was widened.27

First Floor (See Plan: Figure 4)

As one would expect, all the windows onthe first floor were larger than those in thebasement, denoting more polite use. Thearrangement of the S side of the first floorhas been partly obscured by modern altera-tion and use of the building. Nevertheless,the surviving evidence permits some recon-struction. The SW stair would have deposit-ed visitors into a room in the SW corner.While the equivalent space below is dividedinto two small cells, on the first floor it ismore likely that these two spaces were com-bined into a single chamber, as at present.At basement level the immediate entrancevestibule had no need to be large, but theroom above would have served as a check-ing-out area, waiting room and antecham-ber to the hall and was more likely to havebeen a reasonable size. The provision oftwo garderobes in the adjoining turretroom28 supports the interpretation of its use,for these facilities, often two, are commonly

Figure 3 Colchester: Main doorway in the S wall.



found associated with waiting rooms. Thewinding gear for the portcullis would havebeen on show in a recess in the S wall nextto the doorway and a much-altered recessin the S wall may represent the position ofa fireplace, flanked by two windows,29 aclassic Romanesque room arrangement.From the waiting room one entered thehall. There is evidence for a doorway in theNE corner, conveniently adjacent to asemicircular wall niche of the sort thatwould accommodate a sentry, also found inthe ground floor entrance vestibule.

HallOn the N side of the donjon the arrange-ment of supporting walls in the basementW of the solid E spine was deliberatelydisposed to create a narrow central section,even though it would have been easy toalign the W spine with the salient corner ofthe central vaulted cell in the basement,almost equalising the available space. Thisdeliberate division into a wider and smallerspace, added to the evidence for an arcadedspine at basement level, strongly argues fora hall with an aisle. This solution wouldalso solve the otherwise insurmountableproblem of lighting an enclosed central

Figure 4 Colchester: First floor plan



space. The doorway from the antechambershows that one entered through the aisle.As the S wall of the hall main section hasgone we cannot be sure that there was notanother doorway directly from the ante-chamber, but this is unlikely. As alreadynoted, the supporting basement wall wasdeliberately set back towards the S com-pared with its neighbouring cell where,again, the easy solution would have been tobuild the N wall of the basement S cells ina continuous line. This very deliberate lay-out at basement level was clearly part of thePhase I plan of William the Conqueror,designed to create a recess at the S end ofthe hall nave that is reminiscent of therecess at the S end of the first floor chamberon the E side at the White Tower (seeFigure 1, first floor). This looks like a placeto set a throne. Although there was a door-way in the comparable recess at the WhiteTower, this connected with a private, en-closed room beneath the chapel, a vaultedspace that may have provided a withdraw-ing room or dressing space for the king.The more public nature of the antechamberat Colchester, which formed part of theentry arrangement, is less likely to havebeen directly connected with the recess atthe high end of the hall. The general ar-rangement of entering the hall via the aisle,with the king’s throne set at the S end of anadjoining section of the hall beyond anarcade is a very close approximation to thesurviving arrangement of the second floorat Rochester, built a generation later. Oneyearns for Mr. Wheeley to have left thearcade, if only so that we could see whetherthere was a wider arch at the throne end, asis the case at Rochester, where the architec-tural detail strongly suggests ceremonialuse.30 The hall was lit by a series of pairedwindows along the W wall and four morein the N wall. There was most likely anoth-er set of windows set at a higher level inwall galleries (discussed below), anotherparallel with the ceremonial space at Roch-ester. The hall and its accompanying aisleformed such a vast space (approximately

29m long by 18m wide maximum) that itrequired two fireplaces, both set into the Wwall. The public nature of the room is un-derlined by the provision of two more gard-erobes in a turret at the NW angle.31

At the W end of the N wall was anexternal doorway to the hall; the marks ofsteps to reach it are visible on the exteriorN wall32 and it was overlooked by a protect-ing arrow-loop in the adjoining NWturret.33 However, this was never apparent-ly planned as a main entrance. It may havebeen envisaged as a private entrance for theuse of the lord: a comparable arrangementis found in the donjons at Loches (Indre-et-Loire), built 1013-35 for the count ofAnjou34 and at Beaugency (Loiretc.1015).35 The donjon at Falaise, built byHenry I c.1120 also had one of these ‘backdoors’ and this is likely to have been thedirect model for one at Norwich. Examplescarry on into the second half of the twelfthcentury, for example Semblençay (Indre-et-Loire).36 Frequently these doorways com-mand a view of the castle courtyard (as wasthe case at Colchester)37 or of the township(as at Norwich),38 often both. They mighthave been used as ‘appearance’ doorways,where the lord could make an appearance toa wider assembly than could be admitted tothe hall, either gathered in the courtyard oreven to be seen by the wider populace be-yond the castle walls. The presence of door-ways or large window openings innumerous Romanesque donjons attests tosuch usage, possibly originally inspired byCarolingian palace architecture and thepractice of kings at this period.39

ChambersA doorway in the N section of the E wall ofthe hall led into a long narrow space in theeasternmost cell (28m by 6m). It is possiblethat this was a complete withdrawing cham-ber but, despite this space being nowherenear as large as the adjoining hall, therewere two fireplaces. This, combined withthe proportions of the space, suggests that it



was divided into two rooms by a timberpartition to form an outer and inner cham-ber, for there is no second doorway.40 Thefirst room, connected immediately with thehall, would be more likely used as a with-drawing room for private audiences andtherefore is likely to be the larger. Thearrangement of hall and adjacent chamber,used at the White Tower, is commonlyfound in earlier donjons in France41 and itwas also adopted in Henry I’s donjons atNorwich and Falaise. Windows flanking afireplace seems to have been the preferredarrangement in contemporary survivingchambers, which gives a clue as to theposition of the partition (Figure 4). A divi-sion here would have given a room approx-imately 6m by15m, with four windows intotal. There was a vaulted mural chamber inthe adjoining NE turret42 but there were nogarderobes attached to the outer chamber,43

which may be another pointer to its use asa formal audience chamber.

The inner chamber thus recon-structed was smaller (approximately 6m by13m). Its fireplace was flanked by only one

window and the doorway into a gar-derobe, which also had a vaultedcloset;44 all of which suggests morepersonal use, a private chamber thatmay have been used as a bedchamberas well. There is some dispute con-cerning access to the heavily vaultedsub-chapel to the S of this chamber.The 1922 Royal Commission reportstates very clearly that it was ac-cessed from this chamber throughthe NW apsidal recess, the doorwayhaving a drawbar. The commission-ers asserted that another doorway inthe W wall of the vaulted room(marked as a dotted line in Figure 4)was a later insertion.45 Crummy, onthe other hand, took this last to beoriginal.46 On the whole, the evi-dence of the Royal Commission ismore convincing, especially themention of the drawbar. Access tothe vault from within the lord’s

chamber makes sense if it was used as asecure robing room or treasury, whereasthere can be no very obvious reason whythis secure space should have connecteddirectly with the waiting room.

Second Floor (see plan, Figure 5)

While evidence for the missing upper floorat Colchester becomes more fragmentary,some elements can be reconstructed withcertainty, including a chapel in the SE cor-ner. Its walls stand to a maximum of 1.2m,enough to show that they were thin by com-parison with the tower walls, maximisingon the space available. Plain internal re-sponds around the apse suggest a plan withaisles and an ambulatory, like St. John’schapel at the White Tower.47 In addition,there was a side chapel in a projecting Sturret. A gallery within the thickness of theremaining tower walls can also be safelyreconstructed, along with its turret accessesin the NW and SW corners. The gallerywindows on the reconstructed plan pro-posed here are, however, speculative,though based on parallels at Norwich and

Figure 5 Colchester: Second Floor or Gallery Level plan



Rochester. Similarly, the case for mezza-nine-level chambers will be argued here,though it cannot be proven conclusively.

Access to the second floor waspossible by either of the stairs in the turretson the W side. During Phase I, while workwas suspended on the upper floors and thebuilding was temporarily single storey, theNW turret had been raised as far as firstfloor level, where it would have led only tothe roof.48 Despite this, the turret wasequipped with two garderobes,49 presum-ably in readiness to serve the projected hall.It may be that this corner of the buildinghad advanced further than the rest, for evi-dence of the temporary crenellation isweakest in this corner, with no sign of it onthe S wall of the turret itself. When workresumed in Phase II the decision was madeto continue the stair upwards, an apparentchange to the old plan that involved theblocking of one of the garderobes.50

The mural gallery at second floorlevel has been taken as evidence that therewas another full storey,51 but this is notnecessarily so. The donjon was alreadymassive in scale and the king’s donjon atNorwich was setting a trend for a single,large storey above the basement with someadditional accommodation at mezzaninelevel. There, the principal floor was encir-cled by a gallery that overlooked the publicrooms and also gave access to the mezza-nine-level chambers. This formula maywell have been adopted at Colchester,where the gallery certainly led to the chapeland quite possibly to rooms over the ante-chamber on the S side and the chambersrange on the E side (Figure 5). The propor-tions of the hall are consistent with its hav-ing risen through the full height of the topstorey to the rafters, but the proportions ofthe waiting room and E side chamberswould suggest that they were single storeyrooms with extra chambers above. The Eside mezzanine chambers could each havebeen accessed independently, like the Wside chambers at Norwich;52 these are en-

visaged as private spaces, probably bed-chambers. On the S side, the space over theantechamber to the Hall would be largeenough to be divided into two. The proxim-ity of this space to the chapel might suggestuse by the resident chaplain. Both Norwichand its derivative at Castle Rising had amezzanine- level chamber close to the cha-pel, thought to accommodate the priest, andeach also provided a room beside the cha-pel that was probably associated with it,perhaps a vestry.53 Two such chamberscould have been accommodated in the pro-posed mezzanine-level space at Colchester.

Drury attributed the Colchestergallery to the influence of the White Towerwhich, at the time he was writing, wasthought to have an internal gallery over-looking the upper section of the secondfloor.54 This is now known to have been anexternal feature, originally at the level ofthe gutters, which only opened on to theupper chambers after the roof was raised inc. 1490.55 The White Tower gallery ledonly to the triforium of the chapel (seeFigure 1 parapet level). The upper storeyarrangement at Colchester, put on hold fora couple of decades, benefited from animproved design. This gallery was built asa proper, internal feature and was also set atthe floor level of a second upper storey.Here it overlooked the extensive space ofthe dual-storeyed aisled hall as well as pro-viding convenient access to the aisles of thechapel rather than its triforium. Thus itcould work on a ceremonial level whilealso giving practical access to mezzanine-level chambers. Its inspiration is less likelyto be found in the White Tower than in amore contemporary model. Only threeEnglish great towers have true internal gal-leries: Norwich, Hedingham and Rochesterand the last two post-date Colchester.

Back in the 1070s the intentionmay have been to attempt a near twin to theWhite Tower but this was never going to beeasy and circumstances, very possibly ex-acerbated by difficulties encountered in



achieving a workable plan, prevented theprogress of the build. When it resumed itseems times were changing. Norwich pro-vided the inspiration for a the revised de-sign at Colchester: quite apart from thearchitectural parallels, the dating and closepersonal connections between Henry I andCount Eudo, and that Colchester was re-turned to royal ownership in 1120 addweight to this hypothesis. I would alsocontend that Colchester in its turn influ-enced the design at Rochester. Similaritiesbetween the Colchester hall arrangementand the layout of the ceremonial space onthe second floor at Rochester have alreadybeen alluded to and Rochester, too, wasgiven a gallery that overlooked the princi-pal floor. It may be that Norwich andColchester present us with a bridge be-tween the great Norman donjon prototypes,such as Rouen and Ivry that inspired theWhite Tower, and the next generation ofhigh status donjons.

Endnotes1 HKW I, 31; Drury 1982, 399-400

2 Ia relates to Phase VIIA in Paul Drury’sextensive report on the building and relatedexcavations published in ArchaeologicalJournal in 1982: his Phase VIIA2 will becalled Phase Ib here and his Phase VIIB,Phase II. For detailed analysis of the datingevidence see Drury 1982, 398-399.

3 For comparative plans of Colchesterand the White Tower, see HKW I, fig. 6;Drury 1982, Figure 40. For comparativeplans of major rectangular donjons seeMesqui1992, Figure 124.

4 Hull 1982, 319; Drury 1982, 391

5 Wheatley, 2004, 123-128. In relation toColchester in particular, see Wheatley2004, 41. For a comparable interpretationof re-used Roman materials in William’sdonjon at Chepstow, see Turner 2004, 254-257; Creighton 2002, 67; Wheatley 2004,128-129.

6 The symbolic connotation associatedwith the re-use of Roman building materialshas been noted, for example, at Langeais(Indre-et-Loire) c.1000; Impey and Lorans,1998, 25 and in the donjon at Mayenne(Mayenne) c. 900; Early 2002, 254.

7 Drury 1982, 390

8 Ibid. 393.

9 Ibid. 393

10 Ibid. 306

11 Morant, 1768, 7-8

12 RCHM Essex, vol. III, 1922, 50

13 Brown 1976, 66; Drury 1982, 393 and400

14 Drury 1982, 395

15 HKW I, 31 and fig. 6; Brown 1976, 66;Mesqui 1992, 116, 126

16 For alternative interpretations of thedevelopment of the great tower at Norwich,see Drury 2002 and Dixon & Marshall 2002.

17 Crummy 1981, 80 and fig. 67; Drury1982, 395

18 For plans of Beaugency see Valery-Radot, 1930 and Mataouchek 2004.

19 Impey 2002, 193

20 Chatelain 1973, 129 and Planche VII

21 Dixon and Marshall 2002, 236

22 M.R.Hull in Drury et al, 1982, 322

23 Zarnecki quoted by Crummy, 1981, 80

24 Drury 1982, 315 and Fig 2; 396

25 Dixon & Marshall 2002, 237-238.

26 A stairway situated immediately adja-cent to an entrance and leading to a moreimportant social space on an upper floor isa common feature of donjon design. Moreusually, however, the formal entrance is atfirst floor level and the adjacent stair ispositioned to allow unimpeded access forfavoured visitors to a superior set of roomson the second floor. For an early example



and explanation of this point see Loches(Indre-et-Loire), built c.1013-35; Marshall2002, 143-145. Later examples includeRichmond (Yorkshire), Hedingham (Es-sex), Rochester (Kent), amongst many oth-ers.

27 Hull, 1982, 322

28 Ibid. 320-321

29 Crummy 1981, 80 There was certainlya fireplace in this position by the late fif-teenth or early sixteenth century; RCHMEssex, iii, 1922, 54

30 Marshall 2002i, 145-149; Goodall2006.

31 Hull 321. One of these was subse-quently blocked in association with carry-ing the staircase up to the second floor.

32 RCHM Essex, vol. iii, 1922, 51

33 Hull 1982, 321-322

34 Mesqui 1998, 95

35 Marshall (2006), unpublished PhDthesis, 295

36 Ibid, 93

37 Drury 1982, Figure 38

38 Marshall 2002, 150

39 For appearance doorways and theirpossible Carolingian origins see Marshall2006.

40 A strikingly similar room arrange-ment is found in the great tower at Nor-ham in its second phase (c.1160). Dixonand Marshall, 1993, 419-423.

41 Early examples can be cited at May-enne (Mayenne), Loches (Indre-et-Loire),Beaugency (Loiret), amongst others.

42 RHCM Essex, vol. iii, 1922, 51

43 Hull 1982, 322

44 RHCM Essex, vol. iii, 1922, 51

45 Ibid., 51-54

46 Crummy 1981, 80, quoting H. Jenkins,Colchester Castle: the templed citadel,1869, 59-61. Crummy reported being ableto see evidence of the doorway behind amuseum case, but this does not preclude itsbeing a later alteration.

47 RCHM Essex vol. iii, 1922, 54.

48 Hull was fairly confident that firstfloor level in the turret belonged to PhaseIb. Hull, 1982, 321.

49 Ibid.

50 Hull 1982, 321. The building surveyon the SW transept at Ely Cathedral, con-temporary with the work at Colchester,showed a marked tendency to build up thecorners first at each level. Fearn et al 1995

51 Drury 1982, 395. Drury notes thatmural galleries are only found on the topfloor, citing various examples, includingRochester, with Hedingham as an excep-tion. In fact Rochester is the only exception.

52 Dixon & Marshall 2002, 237-238

53 Allen Brown, 1978, 54-55

54 Brown and Curnow 1984, 66 andFigure 3.

55 Impey et al 2009.

BibliographyBrown R.A. (1976), English Castles, Lon-don.

Brown R. A. (1987), Castle Rising Castle,English Heritage, London.

Brown R. A. and Curnow P. E. (1984), TheTower of London, HMSO, London.

Chatelain A. (1973), Donjons Romans desPays d'Ouest, Paris.

Creighton O. H. (2002), Castles and Land-scapes, Equinox, London.

Crummy P. (1981), Aspects of Anglo-Sax-on and Norman Colchester, CBA, London.

Dixon P. W., and Marshall P. E., (1993),‘The Great Tower in the 12th Century: the



case of Norham Castle’, in Arch. J. 150,410-432.

Dixon P. W. and Marshall P. E. (2002),Norwich Castle and its Analogues’ in TheSeigneurial Residence in Europe ADc.800-1600, ed. G. Meirion-Jones, E. Im-pey and M Jones, BAR International Series1088, Oxford, 235-243.

Drury P. J. (1982), ‘Aspects of the originsand development of Colchester Castle’Arch. Jour. 139, 302-419.

Drury P. J., (2002), ‘Norwich CastleKeep’, in The Seigneurial Residence inEurope AD c.800-1600, ed. G. Meirion-Jones et al (above)

Early R. (2002), ‘Le Château deMayenne: les témoins archéologiques del’évolution d’un centre de pouvoir entre leXe et le XIIe siècle’, Château Gaillard, 20,Caen, 247-262.

Fearn K., Marshall P. E. and Simpson W.G. (1995), The South-West Transept of ElyCathedral: Archaeological Interpretationand Site Archive. Unpublished report forthe Dean and Chapter and English Heritage.

Goodall J. A. A. (2006), ‘The great towerof Rochester Castle’ in Medieval Art, Ar-chitecture and Archaeology at Rochester,BAA Transactions 28, 265-299, ManeyPublishing, Leeds.

HKW History of the King’s Works (Brown,Colvin and Taylor, 1963)

Hull M.R. (1982) ‘Observations on theKeep’ in Drury 1982, 317-323.

Impey E. (2002), The turris famosa at Ivry-la-Bataille, Normandy in The SeigneurialResidence in Europe AD c.800-1600, ed.G. Meirion-Jones, E. Impey and M Jones,BAR International Series 1088, Oxford,189-210.

Impey E. and Lorans E. (1998), ‘Le donjonde Langeais et son environnement’, Deuxdonjons construits autour l’an mil en Tou-

raine, Societe Francaise d’Archeologie, 9-59.

Impey E. and Parnell G. (2000), The Towerof London: the Official Illustrated History,Merrell, London, in association with His-toric Royal Palaces.

Impey et al (2009), The White Tower, YaleUniversity Press.

Marshall P. E. (2002) ‘The CeremonialFunction of the Donjon’ in Château Gail-lard 20, Caen, 141-151.

Marshall, P. E (2006) Magna Turris: Astudy of the development, planning and useof social space in donjons of the eleventhand twelfth centuries located in the geo-graphical territories of the Norman andAngevin kings of England, unpublishedPhD thesis, University of Nottingham,2006.

Mataouchek V. (2004), ‘Beaugency, laTour César’, in Lumières de l’an mil enOrléanais, Brepols, Turnhout.

Mesqui J. (1991-1993a), Chateaux et En-ceintes de la France Medieval, 1 and 2,Paris.

Morant, P. (1768), The History and Antiq-uities of the County of Essex, T. Osborne etal, London

RHMC Royal Commission on HistoricMonuments Essex, vol.3, 1922.

Turner R. C. (2004), ‘The Great Tower,Chepstow Castle, Wales’ in Antiquaries’Journal 84, 223-318.

Vallery-Radot J. (1930), 'Beaugency - ledonjon' in Congrés Archéologique deFrance, 93, 341-351.

Wheatley A. (2004), The Idea of the Castlein Medieval England, York MedievalPress, York.


Documents

The internal arrangement of the donjon at Colchester in ... · Mr. Wheeley, beginning in 1683, to raze the tower to the ground for its stone. How-ever, he found that the effort required