Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/393

GUIDE TO THE CASTLE OF NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE. 369 provided us with materials, or because such a practice nusi:ht, by an un- friendly construction, be accounted as literary appropriation, but on account of the daily inconvenience which they must occasion, the hindrance to the free extension of intelligent research, which it should be the author's chief aim to stimulate. A Guide to the Castle of Newcastle-upon-Tyxe, illustrated with Plans, Sections, and numerous engravings on wood. Newcastle : E. and T. Bruce. London : Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 12mo. The publication of this creditable little work is a testimony of the in- creased interest felt by the inhabitants of Newcastle for their venerable castle, and it comes most opportunely in aid of the steps recently taken by the Antiquarian Society for its restoration. The author, the Rev. J. C. Bruce, has executed his task with praiseworthy research ; the plans and sections are reduced from the elaborate engravings published in the Ve- tusta Monuraenta ; it is further illustrated by numerous well-drawn cuts of details, and the printing of the pamphlet does great credit to the press of Messrs. T. and J. Hodgson. In a modest preface the author requests the communication of any addi- tional information, for the benefit of a future edition ; we propose therefore to make a few general remarks on the castle, and to correct one or two in- advertencies in his narrative. In the tirst place Mr. Bruce is disposed to agree with Brand, whom he usually follows, that the existing keep was erected about the year 1080: this opinion is contradicted by all the ornamental details of the building', which are of late Norman character. It is more probable that the present editice was built during the twelfth century, on the site of the fortification reared by order of the Conqueror. The details of the chapel, belonging to the latest period of the Norman style, seem to mark the date of the com- pletion of the building as subsequent to 1180. It has long been a popular delusion that the apartment called the " great hall" of the keep was the scene of those imposing ceremonies of state which are recorded to have taken place in the castle during the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries ; for example, that John Baliol did homage to Edward I. in 1292 in this room. The words of the chronicler are "in aula palatii ipsius domini Regis infra castrum," i. e. " in the hall of the palace of the same lord the king within the castle." Yet it is capable of certain proof that the hall referred to was a. building wholly distinct from the keep. It appears by an unpublished survey of the castle, taken in the eighth year of Edward the Third, a copy of which is before us, that the kings great hall within the castle was a building which had two gables with a round window, once glazed, in each ; a description which does not at all agree with the character of the existing room in the keep. At the time of this survey the hall was