Editing Colchester Castle (section)

== Construction ==
The attribution of the castle as a royal foundation is based on a charter of [[Henry I of England|Henry I]] dated 1101, granting the town and castle of Colchester to [[Eudo Dapifer]] "as my father had them and my brother and myself", Henry's father and brother being [[William I of England|William I]], "William the Conqueror", and [[William II of England|William II]], "William Rufus".{{sfn|Goodall|2011|p=79}} The somewhat unreliable ''Colchester Chronicle'', written in the late 13th century, credits Eudo with the construction of the castle and gives a commencement date of 1076. The design of the castle has been associated with [[Gundulf of Rochester]] purely on the basis of the similarities between Colchester and the [[White Tower (Tower of London)|White Tower]] at the [[Tower of London]]; however, both keeps also resemble the much earlier example at [[Château d'Ivry-la-Bataille]] in [[Upper Normandy]].{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=371}}

=== Construction of the keep ===

At one and a half times the size of the ground plan of the White Tower,{{sfn|Creighton|2002|p=150}} Colchester's [[keep]] of {{convert|152|×|112|ft}} has the largest area of any medieval tower built in Britain or in Europe.{{sfn|Hull|2006|p=101}}{{sfn|Friar|2003|p=16}}{{sfn|MS|2011|loc=History}} The enormous size of the keep was dictated by the decision to use the masonry base or [[podium#in architecture|podium]] of the [[Temple of Claudius, Colchester|Temple of Claudius]], built between AD 49 and 60, which was the largest [[Roman temple]] in Britain. The site is on high ground at the western end of the walled town and at the time of the [[Norman Conquest]], a Saxon chapel and other buildings which may have constituted a [[royal vill]] lay close by the ruins of the temple. The obvious motive for reusing this site was the ready made foundations and the availability of Roman building materials in an area without any naturally occurring stone.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=369}} Another factor may have been that the Normans like to see themselves as imperial successors to the Romans, William being frequently compared by his biographer, [[William of Poitiers]], to [[Julius Caesar]] and his barons to the [[Roman Senate]].{{sfn|Morris|2012|p=54}} The ''Colchester Chronicle'' described the temple site as a palace built by the mythical Roman-era [[King Coel]]; either way, it was providing a provenance for the Norman occupiers as the inheritors of a heroic past.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=369}} Siting the castle so close to the centre of the town makes Colchester the exception to the rule that Norman castles were built as a part of the town's external defences, with access to open countryside.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=380}}

The initial preparation of the site involved the demolition of surviving superstructure of the Roman temple, resulting in a layer of mortar rubble at the Norman ground level. The walls of the keep sit on narrow foundation trenches filled with rubble and mortar, and directly abut the edge of the Roman podium, except in the south where they are set back to avoid the original temple steps and to facilitate the digging of a well. The walls are made of coursed rubble, including [[septaria]] and [[Roman brick]] robbed from nearby ruins. [[Ashlar]] dressings are of [[Barnack#Barnack stone|Barnack]] and other stone, as well as Roman tile and brick.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=371}} A large [[apse]] projects from the south-east corner, resembling [[St John's Chapel, London|St John's Chapel]] in the White Tower but there is no firm evidence that a similar chapel ever existed at Colchester.{{sfn|Crummy|1994|p=6}} It has been speculated that an apse was added to the Temple of Claudius in the 4th century during a putative conversion to a Christian church and that the Normans followed this outline.{{sfn|Crummy|1994|p=4}} The keep was divided internally by a wall running from north to south; a second dividing wall was added to the larger eastern section at a later date.{{sfn|Cooper|1994|pp=241–248}}

[[File:Colchester Castle outworks plan 1916.png|thumb|left|A plan of Colchester Castle published in 1916 showing the surviving bailey earthworks in relation to the keep.]]
Initially, the keep was only built to the height of the first floor; remnants of the [[crenellation]]s which surmounted this first phase can still be seen in the exterior walls. It seems likely that either a financial or military crisis dictated that the partly completed keep had to be made defensible. A Danish raid in support of the [[Revolt of the Earls]] in 1075 or the [[Canute IV of Denmark#Aborted attempt on England|threatened invasion by Canute IV]] in 1085 have both have been suggested as possible causes. Another theory is that only a single-story structure was originally intended.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=370}} The keep today has only two storeys; the original height is unknown because of demolition work carried out in the late 17th century. In 1882, [[J. Horace Round]] proposed that, like the White Tower, Colchester would have had four storeys, with a double-height great hall and chapel. This view was widely accepted throughout most of the 20th century. More recently, researchers have supported a three-storey model and some of the latest work suggests that there may have only ever been two storeys.{{sfn|Davies|2016|pp=3–20}}

This is based on pre-demolition depictions of the castle, which despite errors and inconsistencies, all show the squat profile evident today rather than an immensely tall three- or four-storey tower, also the short time frame in which demolition can have occurred, and finally analysis of various surviving internal details which suggest that, unlike the White Tower, the great hall was on the first floor.{{sfn|Davies|2016|pp=3–20}} Further uncertainty surrounds the position of the original entrance; the current main doorway in the southwestern tower dates from the second phase of construction which saw the addition of the first floor and staircases. Architectural features suggest that this second phase was undertaken after about 1100, probably by Eudo following the charter of 1101.{{sfn|Radford|2013|pp=371, 374}} In the mid-13th century, a masonry [[barbican]] was built adjacent to the south-west tower to protect the main doorway,{{sfn|Radford|2013|pp=378–379}} replacing an earlier forebuilding.{{sfn|Cooper|1994|pp=241–248}}

=== Construction of the bailey ===
[[File:Sunken garden north of castle - geograph.org.uk - 545325.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.4|The northern ditch and rampart of the upper bailey, which were heavily landscaped in the 18th and 19th centuries.]]
The defences of the [[Bailey (castle)|bailey]] consisted principally of a large earthen [[rampart (fortification)|rampart]] and [[Ditch (fortification)|ditch]] surrounding the keep, the northern section of which survives but was heavily landscaped in the 19th century. Archaeological evidence has found that these embankments were thrown up over the remains of the Roman wall of the temple precinct and on the northern side were probably constructed at the same time as the first phase of the keep. The rampart to the north-east was {{convert|28.5|m}} wide by {{convert|4|m}} high.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=373}} The southern embankment seems to have been completed during the second phase of keep construction around 1100.{{sfn|Radford|2013|pp=377–378}} Inside the bailey, a late Anglo-Saxon chapel stood close to the southern edge of the keep and a domestic hall to the southeast of, and aligned with the chapel, were both retained during the first phase of keep construction.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=373}}

The chapel was rebuilt during the second phase and the hall had a large fireplace added at around the same time.{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=375}} A weak lower or [[lower bailey|"nether" bailey]] was formed by two less substantial bank-and-ditch barriers which extended northwards as far as the town walls. This may be the "new bailey" mentioned in 1173, or perhaps the masonry walls of the main or [[Upper bailey|"upper" bailey]] which were in place by 1182. No trace of the stone walls has been found, which suggests that were located at the top of the rampart. A twin-towered [[gatehouse]] gave access to the bailey in its southwest corner, probably built at the same time as the bailey walls,{{sfn|Radford|2013|p=379}} although there is no mention of it until the 1240s; it was approached by a bridge over the ditch. A [[palisade]], presumably part of the nether bailey defences, blew down in 1218 and again in 1237, and further repairs to it were needed in 1275–76.{{sfn|Cooper|1994|pp=241–248}}