11th Century AD (Post Norman) Welsh Fortified Manor House Illustrations?

[carlos marighela]

Motte and bailey buildings are a product of the Normans, the very words motte and bailey proclaim that. They were a fortification specific to the warfare being waged along the Norman borders on the continent and then imported to Britain with the Norman invasion in the mid to late 11thC.

I suspect you are looking for something that doesn't really exist, at least before the Norman invasion, not in England and even less likely in Wales. The adoption of Anglo-Saxon architectural forms being much more likely due to the lengthy nature of contact. So halls and outbuildings within an enclosure of some sort seems possible. Saxon fortification proper centered on the burhs or fortified towns.

[modelwarrior]

Motte and bailey buildings are a product of the Normans, the very words motte and bailey proclaim that. They were a fortification specific to the warfare being waged along the Norman borders on the continent and then imported to Britain with the Norman invasion in the mid to late 11thC.

I suspect you are looking for something that doesn't really exist, at least before the Norman invasion, not in England and even less likely in Wales. The adoption of Anglo-Saxon architectural forms being much more likely due to the lengthy nature of contact. So halls and outbuildings within an enclosure of some sort seems possible. Saxon fortification proper centered on the burhs or fortified towns.

I agree. The Welsh only had hillforts before the Norman invasion. Biggest were at Dinas Powys,Castel Y Bere and Dolwyddelan.
 The artist impression shows it was not much of a fort in the modern sense.

[jon_1066]

I'd agree that a high medieval hall is probably not going to work for something set 300 years before.  So either screw history and go with what looks good or go down the round houses with a palisade route - mostly to stop cattle getting out rather than nasty Normans getting in. 

I don't think anyone would bat an eye lid at a typical iron age round house type settlement.  The great advantage of that is that it will be good for 1000 years of historical gaming.

[Atheling]

I agree. The Welsh only had hillforts before the Norman invasion. Biggest were at Dinas Powys,Castel Y Bere and Dolwyddelan.
 The artist impression shows it was not much of a fort in the modern sense.

I am not asking about High Medieval halls- please read the title of the post.

I'm asking about the 11th CE  . I'll change the title of the post and add, "Post Norman".

[jon_1066]

I am not asking about High Medieval halls- please read the title of the post.

I'm asking about the 11th CE  . I'll change the title of the post and add, "Post Norman".

I don’t know of any castle like structure erected by the Welsh, which makes sense as they didn’t need them to protect them from unfriendly natives.  I don’t think a fortified hall existed in the time frame you are looking at except those built by the Normans.

edit - the post you responded to on page 1 as what you were looking for showed a high medieval hall (14-15th Century).

[modelwarrior]

I am not asking about High Medieval halls- please read the title of the post.

I'm asking about the 11th CE  . I'll change the title of the post and add, "Post Norman".

Hmmm, I wasnt talking about Medieval halls to be honest and yes I did read the title. All I was saying is that during the period of time you have asked about(11th Century) the Welsh just had hillforts. They were mostly built on old Iron age or Bronze age sites and were very basic. Everything was enclosed within that site including anything that can be loosely described as a manor,hall fort etc etc. As mentioned I dont think anything solid(as we think of a fortified manor or whatever) existed until much later. Hope it helps.

[modelwarrior]

I have found this link helpful:

https://gatehouse-gazetteer.info/distrib.html

Under the listings tab on the left you can see information on each site. If you click on the Welsh tab it tells you what the site was(e.g. fortified manor) and a link to more information. Alot of these links provide a lot of info and pictures. Good luck.

[Dice Roller]

Here is an illustration taken from Osprey's 'Fortifications in Wessex 800-1066' and I'd say it's bang on the money for what you need.

[carlos marighela]

I am not asking about High Medieval halls- please read the title of the post.

I'm asking about the 11th CE  . I'll change the title of the post and add, "Post Norman".

So we are all on the same page. You mean a structure built by the Welsh, in Wales, sometime between say 1066 and 1099?

Well, that rules out the 12th/13thC Time Team illustration. It likely eliminates modern reconstructions of 12thC structures. There is no known architectual record of a native copy of a motte and bailey castle In Wales and we know that the Saxons tended to fortify their population centres rather than sprinkling little forts across the landscape.

So that leaves us with the historical record of, albeit later, writers who discuss the existing native style of architecture, including that of senior nobility or a notion that such a structure might be a copy of the neighbouring Anglo-Saxon culture or some combination of the two.

[Atheling]

Here is an illustration taken from Osprey's 'Fortifications in Wessex 800-1066' and I'd say it's bang on the money for what you need.

That's more like it. in my estimation, these minor fortifications would have spread beyond the "English" border and be acceptable for what I have in mind.

Watch this space- well, another thread but you know what I mean.

[Galtisant]

It may also be worth looking at Stansted Mountfitchet Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stansted_Mountfitchet_Castle).

[Atheling]

It may also be worth looking at Stansted Mountfitchet Castle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stansted_Mountfitchet_Castle).

Thanks Galtisant, I've got a small collection o9f pictures from the Stansted Mountfitchet "castle".

[trev]

Here are some more details on the Welsh system

State of Welsh Castles Pre-1066

Prior to the arrival of the Normans, castles in Wales were typically basic constructions consisting of earthworks and timber palisades. While they provided strongholds in times of warfare between competing Welsh kingdoms, these castles featured limited stonework and displayed little technological sophistication or advancement. The modest nature of early Welsh castles reflected the decentralized and sporadic political structure of the region, which contained many small warring kingdoms rather than a unified Welsh realm.

While Welsh castles before the 11th century AD could provide refuge during conflicts, they did not function as administrative hubs or centres of regional power projection. The Norman invaders identified this strategic weakness in Welsh fortifications, and implemented revolutionary new castle designs across Wales in the late 11th and 12th centuries AD to consolidate their occupation. The immense scale and sophistication of Norman Welsh castles would transform the strategic importance of these fortifications.
Welsh Castles Pre-1066

Here are some examples of Welsh castles that existed prior to the Norman Conquest of 1066:

    Dinefwr Castle – A large earth and timber castle near Llandeilo built in the 9th or 10th century by Rhodri the Great as a power base for Welsh rulers. It features earthwork walls and ditches.
    Wiston Castle – A motte and bailey castle with earthworks and wooden palisades constructed before 1066, located in Pembrokeshire. It was an early Welsh stronghold.
    Degannwy Castle – Located near Conwy, this early Welsh castle dated from around the 9th century featured multiple earthwork mounds and enclosures overlooking the Conwy River.
    Pen Dinas Hill Fort – Hill forts like this site at Aberystwyth offered defensible refuge. Pen Dinas contains multiple earthwork rings as a timber and earth fortification from around 800 BC.
    Castle Lyons – Situated in Pembrokeshire, archaeological evidence suggests simple timber fortifications existed here prior to 1066 before stone Norman structures later replaced them.
    Prestatyn Castle – Located in northeast Wales overlooking the Irish Sea, the Prestatyn Castle site features remains of defensive earthworks from Roman occupation and evidence of a timber fortification constructed around 900 AD. It was erected on the site of an old hillfort.

These examples show Welsh fortifications predating the Normans typically consisted of wood, earthworks and natural hills rather than stone. They emphasised defense rather than administrative functions in Wales’ ununified terrain. They offer a contrast to the later stone Norman castles.

https://historiesandcastles.com/wales/castles-of-wales/welsh-castle-related-articles/the-norman-conquest-and-its-impact-on-welsh-castles/

I'm not sure that the last bit is right, as the details below seems to be much more about accommodation and administration than defence.

Within each cantref or cwmwd there were lands set aside for the maintenance of the king, whoever he may be. Typically, there was a lowland arable tref or township and a highland waste area, good for hunting and summer pastures. The king’s townships were bond townships, the people bond servants of the king, farming his lands, providing resources in food and drink, and providing services to the court when the king was in residence and maintaining it when he wasn’t.

The lowland township associated with the llys, and likely located close to the royal enclosure, was called the maerdref. The maerdref included the homes of the bond villagers, and also other buildings to provide hospitality and lodgings for the large royal party.

The llys itself would be a gated enclosed space, likely protected with a ditch and palisade wall. At the gate was the Porter’s house. The Porter was not a member of the itinerant court, but lived in his house and protected the enclosure in the king’s absence. A gaol cell was also part of the gatehouse structure and part of the Porter’s responsibility. The gaol might hold criminals waiting on the king’s justice.

The Laws of Court specify the buildings that are to be constructed and maintained for the king’s use and it is probably this specificity that delayed the ability of the Welsh kings to adapt the traditions and build the defensive castles. In North Wales, (the Iorwerth version) the buildings listed in the laws were a hall, sleeping chamber, kitchen, stable, kennel-house, privy, kiln, shed and cow-house. In South Wales, the list included a chapel rather than a cow shed. There are variations that distinguish chamber from the sleeping house and mention is made of a beer-house and a food-house.

The main building within the llys was the king’s hall, his public feasting space and public audience chamber for justice and other court business. Also, within the llys enclosure was the king’s chamber, a complex of buildings to provide the private quarters for the king and his family, and other buildings to provide stabling for the royal family’s horses, and buildings to support the production of food, mead and beer, a privy, and a chapel.

The king’s warband could be as large as 120 mounted warriors. These men and their horses were not housed within the llys. Their sleeping quarters, and the stabling for their horses was in the nearby maerdref. The Laws also tell us that the king’s steward and his penteulu had their houses in the maerdref. The maerdref would also house the kiln, for parching the corn, near the threshing floor, and the barn for storing the king’s own grain as well as renders from the cwmwd.

This is a diagram of the hall and there is more detail as well.


https://alysmmontgomery.com/2024/03/07/a-welsh-kings-llys/

The above seems to be quoting or heavily sourcing from "A Welsh King and his Court" edited by T.M.Charles-Edwards, Morfydd E. Owen and Paul Russell University of Wales Press 2000

Which despite the slight mistake in the title must be this book here on Ama$on.

There is some discussion of the finding above in the document below and it goes into a lot of detail.  I haven't read it all yet but it seems like the description above is more certain than it perhaps it should be.

The llys
For the llys itself, the Book of Iorwerth identified seven buildings that would go to make up the court and would be built by the king’s bondmen: the hall, the sleeping chamber, the refectory, the kitchen, the brew-house, the stable and the privy. The list was ‘over-schematized’ as Glanville Jones himself put it (1989, 181), and other buildings went unmentioned, at least directly, in the law books and included a porter’s lodge, a mead chamber and the queen’s chamber, to which might be added a chapel which features in the South Wales law books. All these lay inside an enclosure. Outside it were the barn and the kiln, and according to the Book of Iorwerth these would be erected ‘on the maerdref’. Lawrence Butler has done his best to examine the descriptions of buildings given in the laws in relation to the material remains as revealed by archaeology (Butler 1987).

Still, it's probably definitive enough for our purposes.

https://www.walesher1974.org/herumd.php?group=CPAT&level=3&docid=301369150

Here are some other links I found too
https://www.castlewales.com/native.html
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/new-chronology-for-the-welsh-hillfort-of-dinas-powys/A2CF4608F2872218DBA2836C0138DD1B
https://neverncastle.wales/nevern-before-the-normans/

[Atheling]

Thank you Trev. There is certainly quite a bit to digest here