When was Newcastle Castle built?
In this blog post, our team member Daniel has a look at the surprisingly complicated answer to a seemingly simple question…
When was Newcastle Castle Built?
While this may seem like a simple question, the answer is somewhat more complicated. The site that plays host to the castle which gives our city its name has had an interesting and varied history of the years. So let’s have a look back and examine it, leading up to the castle which stands to this day.
A reconstruction of the Roman bridge over the Tyne by Judith Dobie
What Have the Romans Ever Done For Us?
Without getting too much into aqueducts and roads, the Romans did of course leave a built legacy in the North East which is still around, at least partly: Hadrian’s Wall. At one time, this marked the border between the ‘civilised’ realm of the Romans and the lands of the ‘barbarians’ further North. The largest intact parts of the wall are further out in the countryside, but parts of it can be found within Newcastle too.
What does this have to do with our castle? Simple: the Romans built it! Well, not quite. They didn’t build a castle, but they did build a fort where the castle stands, around 122AD when Hadrian’s Wall was built. Along with the wall itself, there was also a road which reached the Tyne River from the south. The point where the road met the river was overlooked by a hill, providing an ideal vantage point looking south across the river to what we know today as Gateshead. With a keen eye for important strategic points, the Romans constructed a fort on this hill overlooking the bridge they built across the Tyne. It was named Pons Aelius- ‘pons’ being the Latin word for ‘bridge’. Aelius was the name of the Emperor Hadrian’s family, so it translates as ‘Hadrian’s Bridge’.
Sadly, we don’t know a whole lot about the fort itself, other than a few details. We don’t even know if it was attached to Hadrian’s Wall or if it was built apart from it. The foundations of some of the buildings are marked on the ground outside the Castle Keep with cobblestones. The cobbles mark the locations of buildings like the Headquarters building and the granaries, which by and large line up with their locations in other forts of the same design. Most Roman forts followed very similar designs. After all, if it works well, why change it up? We don’t know if it ever saw any action or how long it operated for, but it seems to have fallen into disuse sometime after the Romans left Britain in around 400AD.
A sketch of the possible layout of the Norman Motte and Bailey by John Nolan
Saxon Settlement and Not-So-Nice Normans
After the Romans scarpered off back home, native Britons were left to fend for themselves as the infrastructure and apparatus of the Empire fell apart. Consequently, we don’t know much about the area of Newcastle during the Anglo-Saxon era. There are two accounts that speak of some kind of settlement nearby. One by Bede, referring to an ‘Ad Murum’ (On The Wall) 12 miles from the sea, which could have been where Newcastle is. Another was by a chronicler that called it ‘Monkchester’, due to there being a monastery settlement on the site. However, both of these references can only be speculatively linked to Newcastle, and there is no solid evidence for the name of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Newcastle.
However, we do have evidence of life taking place on the site, displayed in an ironic fashion: a high degree of death. During archaeological excavations of the site between 1977 and 1992, 660 burials of men, women and children were uncovered north and west of where the castle stands. They were dated between 600 and 1200AD. The foundations of a building were also discovered, located north of the Castle, under the railway bridge. Though there was no monastery, this appears to be evidence of a cemetery and church on the site of the former fort. Any settlement connected to the church has left no evidence behind, as it was almost certainly built entirely of timber. It stayed in use until the Normans invaded.
This is where we start to catch up to actual construction of a castle. One way the Normans maintained control over Britain was the construction of castles throughout the country. Their placement ensured that any local resistance could be swiftly crushed. To facilitate this, William of Normandy sent his son to the area in 1080AD to deal with raids being carried out by the Scots. He apparently wasn’t in good standing with his father, as he was named Robert Curthose (French for ‘short trousers’). He had a castle constructed where the fort and cemetery stood, naming it ‘Novum Castrum Super Tynam’ in Latin. Translated, it means ‘New Castle upon the Tyne’. Along with the site being strategically sound, constructing it over a cemetery could also be seen as a power play.
This early Norman castle would have constructed of timber, and as a result, very few remains of it still exist. It is most probable that it was a ‘motte and bailey’ castle - an artificial hill with a wooden tower built atop it. The Roman Bridge was still present nearby, so it allowed the Normans to exert control over one of the only crossings. As a well-defended location at a major crossing point, it also became a good spot for settlement and trade. It saw action a few times, including an attack from King William II in 1095 after it was seized by the Earl of Northumberland, who had rebelled against him. King David I of Scotland also took the castle by force between the 1130s and 1140s, making it his capital for a time.
A reconstruction of the Keep by artist Geoff Laws
We Built This Castle of Rock and Stone
Constructing any kind of building from wood has its upsides and downsides. On the upside, it’s readily available and easy to work with. On the other hand, it doesn’t last very long and over time, it will eventually rot away. Crowned in 1154, King Henry II decided to rectify this issue. After a period of civil war which had ravaged most of the North and saw it fall into Scottish hands, he set about reasserting control over the country. In 1168, he commissioned the wooden castle to be rebuilt in stone. He assigned the task of building it to Maurice the Engineer (also responsible for building Henry’s castle in Dover) and it cost £1,144 overall. This included a curtain wall surrounding the castle, two main gates facing north and west, two postern gates to the east and south and the great tower. The latter is what we know today as the Castle Keep. If the castle came under attack, the tower was the final place of refuge, as well as representing royal authority in the area. You only need to stand beneath its shadow to get this impression.
Additional constructions were made during the 1200s. A separate building known as the Great Hall was built by King John. This is where food was prepared for those in the castle, including a kitchen, wine buttery, and pantry. There was also an impressive dining hall for feasts and a royal bedchamber, since the great tower itself wasn’t built for comfortable living. A North Gate was constructed between 1247 and 1250, which served as the main entrance through the curtain wall. It was deliberately narrow in build, restricting the possible number of enemy soldiers that could get inside and was defended by a portcullis, main gate, guard rooms, a pair of murder holes (through which the defenders threw down hazardous objects) and a dry moat (a ditch surrounding the wall). Today, this building is known as the Black Gate.
At the end of the 1200s, the castle became a major staging area for launching invasions into Scotland or to counter any invasions from across the border. During this time, a series of long wars between England and Scotland began. Indeed, Edward III (1312-1377) came to Newcastle at least five times to gather his forces and even his wife, Philippa, had a go of it. Her army would defeat the Scots at Neville’s Cross in 1346. The town of Newcastle also grew in wealth, exporting in wool, leather, and coal. The merchants requested from the King the right to raise taxes to build a wall around the town to protect from Scottish incursion and it was completed by 1350. After this, it became the main defence for Newcastle, and the Castle fell out of use as a fortress, though it was still used as a prison and for general administration by the local Sheriff.
Today, the Black Gate and the Castle Keep still stand, following some reconstruction and restoration over the years. The Great Hall is long gone. Parts of the curtain wall are left, but not much. This is by no means an extensive overview of the castle’s history, but it remains a monument to what could be considered the beginning of Newcastle’s history. Stay tuned for more or come by to see for yourself!