ANCIENT CASTLES AND FORTIFICATIONS OF THE BRITONS. and sometimes with stone; and it appears from what have been found in their sepulchres, that they had hatchets made of stone. The Britons also, as we have already seen, had their celts of flint as well as of brass; but the metal must have been best adapted to their purposes, as it required less labour to bring it to the perfection they required. For the loop-hole or ring, no better use has been assigned, than that it was intended to receive a line, through which the weapon might be recovered when it had once been thrown. This, it must be confessed, is an ingenious conjecture; but it is hardly sufficient to induce us to admire the contrivance. The plain fact seems to be, that these celts were British weapons, but the particular use of them appears to be nearly unknown. SECTION X. Memorials of the Ancient Britons still remaining, in the ruins of their Castles and Fortifications. As the ancient Britons were a stern and warlike race, we may naturally suppose that they were not more ready to invent weapons to commence an attack upon their enemies, than they were careful to provide for their own safety, by erecting strong, if not invulnerable fortifications. This conclusion might be drawn from their general character, even if no memorials of their military architecture had escaped the ravages of invaders, and the wastes of time. of invaders, and the wastes of time. But it so happens, that the ruins of many ancient fortifications still remain in Cornwall, to exhibit an appearance which points us back to the builders of them, through the long series of perhaps nearly two thousand years. Among these ancient fortifications, the old castle which stands upon Carnbre Hill, near Redruth, may be considered as bearing the most indubitable marks of British origin. This venerable structure stands on a rocky knoll, at the eastern end of this elevated range. Its foundation is laid on an irregular ledge of tremendous rocks, which seem to have been thrown into a state of wild disorder, by some violent convulsion of nature. As these rocks are not contiguous, nor equal to one another in their respective heights, the architect who began the building, instead of reducing the highest, or filling up the interstices between them and the lowest with other rocks, permitted them to retain their native irregularity; and, in order to procure a proper support for the wall which he intended to raise, turned arches from rock to rock, leaving the ground floor within as rough and irregular as the natural crags on which the arches were turned, that DESCRIPTION OF THE ANCIENT CASTLE ON CARNBRE HILL, NEAR REDRUTH. still appear without. As the ledge of rocks on which the superstructure was raised, was rather narrow, the rooms, though purchased with incalculable labour, were neither large nor handsome; but they were calculated to lift their inhabitants to the storms, to ensure to them a free circulation of unpolluted air, and to furnish them with an extensive prospect of the country round. The walls as they still remain, have in one of the turrets, three stories of windows, and in another but one, which arises from the irregularity of the rocks on which the foundations of the building were laid. The walls are almost every where pierced by small loop-holes, which must have served the double purpose of enabling the defenders to discover an enemy from what quarter soever they came, to prepare for the attack, and to discharge their arrows, without having much to fear from the power of the assailants. To these original loop-holes some larger openings appear to have been made in more modern times, for the discharge of fire-arms, after these implements of destruction were invented. At the north-west end, the vestiges of some very ancient buildings still appear, but they are in a state of ruin. These in all probability were once connected with the castle, and they may be considered as belonging to the outworks of it. But they have fallen a prey to the corroding tooth of time, so that the vestiges which remain are scarcely sufficient to direct the eye over that line which the outworks once occupied. To these fortifications of art, the situation which they chose, added to the fortifications of nature. The enormous rocks which are scattered over the declivities of the hill, could not fail to retard the progress of an advancing army, and expose them to a considerable annoyance from the arrows of those who were safely lodged within the citadel. "This," says Dr. Borlase, " was certainly a British building, and erected in those uncultivated ages, when such rocky, hideous situations, were the choice of warlike, rough, and stern minds."* About three hundred yards to the west of this venerable pile, on a part of the hill that is still more elevated than that on which this antiquated building stands, some remains of an ancient circular fortification still appear. They present to the eye the ruins of a wall which was twenty feet wide, and no doubt was once equally high in proportion to its thickness. This part is now denominated The Old Castle. Dr. Borlase says, "That this was built by the ancient Britons, and as anciently as when Druidism was the established religion of Cornwall, I have great reason to think, because I find the large flat stones, which have most remarkable rock basons, (instruments probably of Druid superstition) entire, as if preserved out of devotion; whereas, if this wall had been built by Saxons, Danes, * Borlase's Antiquities, p. 351. SOUTH VIEW of CARN BRE with a diftant View of REDRUTH. edicated to the Right Honble Ford PDunstonville. Bry his Wed! All Serv. ffm Penalana SITUATION AND PECULIARITIES OF TINTAGEL, OR KING ARTHUR'S CASTLE. or even Christians, they would have been clove up, as being of the quoit or discus shape, and therefore commodious for the use of building. In the next place, I find that their wall does not cut or mangle any of their sacred circles, which are numerous here; whereas there is not that care taken of these places of devotion in the Danish fortifications."* That the castle at Tintagel, in the northern part of Cornwall, was originally a British fortress, is a fact which very few will presume to doubt; the evidences in favour of it being scarcely less convincing, than those which have induced us to ascribe to Carnbre a British origin. "Tintagel Castle," says Dr. Borlase," was built on a cape of land, the extremity of which was a peninsula, a very lofty hill. Where this peninsula joined the main land, there are the fortifications, partly on the peninsula and partly on the main. The remains here are not considerable. The ruins on the peninsula consist of a garreted wall, enclosing some buildings, among which there was a 'pretty chapel of St. Uliane, with a tomb on the left side, (standing in Leland's time) and men then alive remembered a postern door of iron.' Leland calls this, improperly, the dungeon, (for it is indeed only the walling of the base-court) and thinks the situation must have rendered it impregnable. The cliffs it must be owned are hideous, and not to be climbed without the utmost danger; but the ground was so badly chosen, the hill dipping so very quick, that every thing within the wall was exposed to a high hill over against, and scarcely an arrow's flight from it. On this hill, if the fortifications had been erected, although the inhabitants would have been exposed more to the weather, they would have had less to dread from an enemy, and this, in all works of such a nature, is primarily to be regarded."† Carew describes Tintagel, as "more famous for his antiquitie, than regardable for his present estate; and as abbutting into the sea, yet the ruins thereof argue it to have been once no unworthie dwelling for the Cornish princes. The cyment wherewith the stones were layd, resisteth the fretting furie of the weather better than themselves. Half the buildings were raysed on the continent and the other half on an island, continued together within men's remembrance, by a drawbridge, but now divorced by the downfalne steep cliffs, on the farther side, which though it shut out the sea from its wonted recourse, hath yet more strengthened the late island: for, in passing thither, you must first descend with a dangerous declining, and then make a worse ascent, by a path as every where narrow, so in many places through his steepnesse threatning the ruine of your life, with the failing of your * Borlase's Antiquities, p. 352. + Ibid. |