( 228 )
SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40.
BY WILLIAM LOETIE RUTTON, E.S.A.
AMONG the Harleian Manuscripts at the British Museum happily
survives the "Ledger" kept during the building of this fort or
castle, one of several constructed by Henry VIII. for the defence
of the southern coast. In it are found full particulars of the expenditure
:—the cost of materials, and the sources from which they
were derived; the wages of artisans and labourers, and the manner
in which the money for their monthly pay was procured and
brought to them at Sandgate; the names and remuneration of the
officers; and the mention of parts and details of the building no
longer existing.
The ledger consists of two folio volumes, numbered respectively
1647 and 1651 in the Harleian collection. When the Index to
these MSS. was printed in 1808, the twin volumes seem to have
been in their original vellum covers, on which their titles in black
letter were inscribed. Afterwards, however, the original covers
were replaced by flimsy marble-papered "boards " with weak leather
backs, and on the fly-leaves were pasted (to tho detriment of the
lettering which, apparently from the moisture, has been in part
rendered illegible) the portion of the vellum inscribed with the titles.
These run thus : On the first volume, " The Forst, the iido, iiido, iiii"1,
vth, vi"', viith, viii"1, and the ix"1 boke of the leger of the workes of Ihe
Kynges Castell at Sandgate in the tyme of Thorns Cockes and Rychard
Keys Esquyers Gomyshoners there'''' [etc. now illegible] ; and on the
second volume, " The x"', the xi"1, xii"1, xiii"1, xiiii"1, xvth, xvi"1, xvii"1,
xviii"1, and the xix"1 boke of the leeger of the workes of the Kynges
Castelle of Sandgate in Kent in the tyme of Reynold Scott Esquyer
beyng survey our thereof and Richard Keys Esquyer then beyng sole
Paymaster of the said Workes."
The two volumes together contain about 350 carefully written
pages, and the clerk, Thomas Busshe, has embellished his pages with
wonderfully elaborated initials, often showing considerable skill.
Foliated scrollwork is the usual ornament, and in it human faces
more or less grotesque are occasionally introduced; one clever
sketch, for instance, portrays an elderly goodwife wearing the
head-dress proper to the Tudor times of the draughtsman.
The arithmetic of the ledger, which is that of the time, is
clumsy and inconvenient. The Boman numerals are used throughout,
the impracticability of the system being very apparent when
addition is required; for instead of the orderly columns of units,
•yffi*
\
! 1 \
&" rf I
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SANDCATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40. 229
tens, and hundreds to which we are accustomed, we have unequal
files of numerals; eight letters stand for 88, and two for 90.
Addition thus becomes intolerable. The summa pagince—" Sm.
Pagin"—at the foot of each page, is neither carried forward
nor added to the sum of the next page, nor are the sums
of the pages ever brought together and their total shown. On
the last page of each month's account is found : " Sum of all this
whole book of the th pay;" to check which an auditor would
have to gather together the sums of the pages and make the addition.
Such a system of course conduces to error and facilitates fraud,
but in this case, although I found occasional errors, and could not
always make my addition agree with that of the clerk, the difference
between us finally is but slight. One other difficulty to the uninitiated
must be noticed, viz., such complications as " xiixxxvi li."
for 12 score and 16 lbs. (=256 lbs.), or "xxviii. and di. at ijd.
ob.," for 271 l°s- at 21^. Throughout the two volumes, the Arabic
numerals now universally used are found but once, viz., in the year
date of an " empcion," or purchase, in the fifth month, " xu daye
of Septembre An0 1539."
Having carefully examined the accounts, I have classified the
information they afford, hoping thus to present it to my readers in
the most convenient and intelligible form. But before giving attention
to the building of the Castle a few lines are, I think, demanded
relative to antecedents at Sandgate.
Hasted, as evidence of the existence of a castle preceding that
built by Henry VIIL, quotes a writ of Eichard II. (Rymer's
Foedera, ed. 1709, viii., 49) directing the Captain of Sandgate
Castle to admit Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford (afterwards
Henry IV.), then banished the realm, there to tarry with his family
for six weeks. This writ, however, is accompanied and immediately
preceded by another of same date (3 October 1398) and of like
tenor, directed to the Captain of Calais, and considering the fact of
there being a castle at Sangatte (in English documents written
Sandgate) about nine miles from Calais on the French coast and
within the English pale, the identity of date of the writs, and the
improbability that the King when banishing his dangerous cousin
should permit him to tarry six weeks on the Kentish coast, we can
scarcely doubt that the French Sangatte was implied. This writ, of
which the purport has been misunderstood, is the sole basis of belief
in a mediseval castle at Sandgate in Kent. But although dismissing
as an error the existence of a castle prior to that which now concerns
us, it is clear from tbe evidence adduced in the Archceologia
(iii., 244), and in Philipot's Villare Cantianum, that from the
earliest times the " gate" from the shore through the Kentish
cliffs into the country had been the object of daily and nightly
watch and ward; yet no stronghold or watchtower is mentioned,
nor in the record before us of the building of Henry VIII.'s Castle
is there any mention of old foundations or old material; on the
contrary, without any such mention, we are clearly informed of the
founding of the new structure.
230 SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40.
The object of Henry VIII. in erecting castles and bulwarks
along the coast is thus quaintly given by Lambarde in his Perambulation
of Kent (1570) : " Of this I hold me well assured, that
King Henry VIII. having shaken off the intolerable yoke of the
Popish tyranny, and espying that the Emperor was offended by
the divorce of Queen Katherine his wife, and that the French King
had coupled the JDolphine his son to the Pope's niece, and married
his daughter to the King of Scots, so that he might more justly
suspect them all than safely trust any one, determined (by the aid of
God) to stand upon his own guard and defence; and without sparing
any cost he builded castles, platforms, and blockhouses in all needful
places of the Realm. And amongst other,fearing least the ease and advantage
of descending on land at this part [Deal] should give occasion
or hardiness to the enemies to invade him, he erected near together
three fortifications which might at all times keep and beat [sic] the
landing-place, that is to say, Sandown, Deal, and Walmer."
Let us now learn from the ledger what it has to tell concerning
the building of the Castle at Sandgate. In quoting the accounts I
shall not always follow the spelling, as to do so would, I think,
scarcely be to the reader's convenience; for, defined orthography
not having then been reached, the clerk apparently wrote as seemed
good to him at the moment, among many variations sometimes even
giving to the word the form it now wears. The diction, however,
will be preserved, with many examples of the old spelling.
Commencement and Progress of the Work.—The second leaf of
the first volume of the ledger is inscribed: " The building of the
King's Castle of Sangate [sic] from Sunday, the 30th day of
March, unto Sunday, the 27th day of April, by the space of one
month ;" and on the reverse page : " Anno 30° & 31° Eegni Eegis
Henrici Octavi." The Sundays though named are not, I think,
included in the working month; the masons, however, are each
month described as " labouring their holy days and vigils," but
there seems to have been general exemption from labour on Sundays,
although certain overseers and clerks were paid for the week of
seven days.
The first page of the account for each month is headed in this
manner: " Payments made and paid for Our Sovereign Lord the
King's Grace, for his building there done of and by Master Thomas
Cocks and Eichard Keys, Commissioners of the said building, as
well for all manner of empcions [purchases] necessary, and carriages,
as also wages to all manner of artificers and labourers, purveyors,
clerks, and overseers, that is to say, from Sunday, the 30th day of
March, unto Sunday, the 27th day of April, by the space of one
month." The masons of course come first in the lists, and the description
of their employment during the first month indicates the
commencement of the Castle from its foundations. They are scappling,
i.e. roughly shaping the stone, and " laying it for the foundation
and building of the foresaid Castle." The same indication
appears in the work of the " scapplemen and rockbreakers," they
are " digging and casting beach from the foundation of the Castle,
SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40. 23 1
breaking rocks, carrying them from the sea, and loading earth and
stone." There is nothing to suggest that any old foundations were
dealt with.
Here it may be well to notice the belief common at Sandgate
that the Castle was built ou a platform of timber resting on piles.
This conjecture had its origin in the exposure of piles some years
since, when, by the action of the sea, the southern section of
the wall had been undermined and greatly damaged. As far as
shown by excavations for sewers, etc., nothing but beach is to
be met within a considerable depth ; " digging and casting of beach
from the foundation of the Castle " is described as one of the first
operations towards its erection, and this " casting of beach " is
found in the accounts onward to the twelfth month. The ledger
has no mention of pile driving, or of carpenters employed on a
timber sub-structure ; indeed, during the first month four carpenters
only are on the list, and their work is described as
making barrows, hods, etc., and helving tools ; in the second month
no carpenters appear to have worked at the Castle; and not
before the third month did they muster strongly, when 22 are
returned in the account as, in addition to making necessary plant,
framing timber (which I suppose to imply floors, roofs, doors, windows,
etc), and erecting a forge. I am inclined to think that
the discovered piles had been driven for the defence of the walls in
years subsequent to the building of the Castle, and after one of the
many occasions when they had been injured by the sea, the assaults
of which would no doubt have been more ably resisted had the
foundations been originally laid securely at a greater depth.
During the first month the total number of men receiving pay
was 255; of these, 102 were masons building or getting stone; 4
were carpenters making the plant, viz., barrows of all kinds, hods,
mortar bosses and tubs, and helving tools; 4 sawyers; 17 limeburners
; 28 wood-fellers; and the remainder, with 12 overseers
and clerks, were carters of materials. The amount of the first pay
was £130 8s. 10%d., which, at the present time to appreciate, we
may perhaps multiply by nine.
The number of men was doubled in the second month, and
their augmentation continued up to the sixth month—that ending
14th September—when the accounts show that 843 men were employed,
and £469 19s. 0%d. was spent; this being the highest
monthly pay in 1539. In regard to the number of men it must not
be understood that the 843 worked the whole month through; many
were employed for only a part of the time, and the work of the
carters was especially intermittent. Thus, for this month we should
take 500 as about the average number working daily at the Castle
or near at hand, and to this add an intermittent number of carters,
chiefly of timber, the average of which cannot without a very troublesome
calculation be ascertained. The 500 may thus be classified :
Masons and stonegetters, 74; bricklayers, 103; carpenters and sawyers,
51; plumbers, 5; lime-burners, 16; labourers, 216; carters of
stone from the quarry, 21; overseers and clerks, 14. After the
232 SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40.
sixth month, and as the winter approached, the men decreased in
number, until in the ninth month, ending 7th December, there were
but 108 men on the list, the sum of the pay being £57 Is. lOd.
The tenth month then commenced, but was cut short on the 20th
December, from which day there were Christmas holidays for three
weeks, during which all work was suspended, three men only being
left to keep watch and ward over the rising Castle, the materials and
stores.
At this halting place, it is convenient to mention what is
gathered touching the workmen's lodgings. Were there houses at
Sandgate before the building of the Castle ? We hear of one only.
In the accounts for the thirteenth month (not yet reached) there is
mention of 20s. paid as a year's farm of a house hired of one William
Jenkyn "to keep the King's money, and as a place to pay it out
again ;" also in the nineteenth and last month half a year's rent is
paid for " the King's Pay House." In the valuable " Plan of Sandgate
Castle and parts adjacent," made in 1725 (one of a very interesting
Kentish collection, Brit. Mus., King's Library, xvni., 48),
there appears only one house with two or three outbuildings attached,
close to the Castle on the Hythe side. Possibly this house,
or one standing in 1539 on the same site, may have been that used
as the King's pay house. Mr. Fynmore of Sandgate, to whom I am
much indebted for information, thinks the Fleur de Lis publichouse
may yet represent it. Nichols, the writer of the Eoyal
Progresses, 1788, says that as lately as 1775 there were only two
houses beside the fort, and with this evidence and that of the 1725
plan we may safely conclude that in 1539 no existing buildings
were found to shelter the workmen. They would therefore have
had to find lodging at Folkestone or Hythe, respectively two and
three miles distant; but some temporary provision was made for
them near their work, for we have mention in the first month of
"hales," or tents, and a " pavilion;" the entries are so interesting
that they must be fully given:—
"For carriages and mending of two hales and a pavilion from
London to Sandgate, and for tlie reparacions of the same: Paid to
the Sergeant of the Tents for the mending of two hales and a
pavilion, 14s. Paid for three baskets to carry the stakes and other
stuff from the said place, 15d. Paid for carriage of hales and
pavilion wth. the timber from the Sergeant's house to the ship at
London, 20d. Paid for carriage of hales and pavilion from London
to Sandgate, 7s. Paid for bringing a land [by land] of the said
hales and pavilion from Dover to Folkestone, 2s. 4sd. Paid for 10
ells of canvas for mending of the pavilion, price of ell 5cl, 4s. 2d.
Paid more for 7 ells of canvas for reparacions of the said hales at
5d. the ell, 2s. 6d." Afterwards other repairs of the canvas appear
in the accounts, and in addition to the tents a " lodge " was built at
the quarry, the men occupying it being called "lodge men." We
read also of the inn (hoops for the "inne," and a new bolt for the
"iyn," in the eighth and eleventh months), and as the word had
then a wider meaning than now, it was probably applied to the
SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40. 233
lodge or some other temporary erection. In the second month were
purchased " rushes for the hale," as bedding perhaps, and early in
December, as the winter drew on, there is the cost of thatching
with broom " the house at the quarry."
The Work resumed and finished 1540.—The building of the
Castle had been suspended on the eve of St. Thomas the Apostle
(20 December 1539), and it was resumed on the 12th January 1540.
A change of administration was then made, or rather this seems to
have had effect during the tenth month, which comprised the fourteen
days of December before the holidays, and fourteen days of
January ending on the 25th. Thomas Cockes disappears as Commissioner,
and his late colleague, Eichard Keys, is associated in the
Commission, as Paymaster, with Beinold Scott, Esq., who has now
the chief charge as "Surveyor" or "Comptroller." Eeinold or
Eeginald Scott was of Scott's Hall in Smeeth; on the completion
of the Castle, or perhaps a little earlier, he was knighted, and in the
next year, 1541, he became Sheriff of Kent.
During the midwinter month, December-January, of course
little worlc could be done ; 5 masons were employed in preparing
stone, 7 carpenters or sawyers were kept at work, and 14
labourers were employed in the quarry; only £16 Is. M. was spent.
The accounts of the next month show an increase in the number of
men, but they made only short time ; in the twelfth month, ending
March 21, there was further advance, and the labour and expenditure
increased until midsummer was reached. The fifteenth
month, ending June 12, showed the largest pay-sheet; 900 men had
been employed, and £518 spent. Deducting from the total of 900
for intermittent labour, the daily average was about 630 men;
masons of various classes employed either on the building or in the
quarry numbered 189; of carpenters and sawyers there were 66;
lime-burners, 13 ; labourers, 319; carters of stone from the quarry,
36; overseers and clerks, 7. This was a strong force to be employed
on a building of such moderate size, and consequently the advance
was rapid. After midsummer the numbers decrease, and in the
accounts of each month onwards the approach to completion is
more and more evident.
In the seventeenth month preparation was made for crowning
the edifice, the vanes appear, eight of them figure in the account
at 5s. apiece, and " the great vane" cost 10s.; painting and
gilding are provided for; the " go-jons " (gudgeons) for tho drawbridge
are prepared; the lantern is being completed; 13s. 4sd., a
large price, is paid for the lock of " the utter gate;" and the guns are
fixed. In the eighteenth month, in addition to paviors, plumbers,
and calkors, who were at work in tho previous month, we have
now the painters; and the heading of the nineteenth and last month's
account thus refers to the completion of the building: " Payments
made fully by Eichard Keys, Esquire, Paymaster of the King's
works of his Castle of Sandgate in the county of Kent, in the
presence and by the surveying and oversight of Eeynold Scott,
Esquire, surveyor of the books of the said work, for the finishing,
234 SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40.
mending, and making of an end of the same Castle. That is to say
for making of certain doors, windows for the lantern, platforms of
timber and boards, and for paving of three rooms hired by great
[fixedprice]. Also certain hard-hewers for to make holes for bolts,
hooks, and bars for windows; also making of gutters with other
necessaries. Also certain labourers to make clean the countermures
and to bear out the rubbish. Also certain painters hired by the
day to paint places necessary for the said Castle, by the space of one
whole month, that is to say from the 5th day of September unto
the 2nd day of October."
We will now gather the information afforded by the ledger in
relation to each class of work executed.
The Stone.—Eeference has already been made to the quarry;
clearly it was near the Castle, though the exact position can scarcely
now be defined. On the plan of 1725, before referred to, two
quarries are marked, one of them 600 yards from the Castle towards
Hythe, the other 900 yards distant towards Folkestone ; they are
on the shore apparently at low-water-mark, an awkward place
for getting stone. Vet that such was the position is indicated in
the accounts. In the first month " scapplemen and rockbreakers "
are " breaking the rocks and carrying them from the sea; " in the
third month the " labourers pertaining to the rocks " are engaged
" in carrying of stone, not only in lading of carts but also wading
in the water for to lade the boats, giving attendance to the tides,
and waiting on the carts;" and in the same account appears the
hire of boats " to carry stone into the King's Castle." The boats
seem to have been laden with the stone, and, as the tide rose, they
were floated to the building. Lyon's Hist, of Lover (1813), ii., 185,
mentions a certain fisherman named Young, who in 1536, a few years
earlier than the building of Sandgate Castle, was rewarded by the
King with a pension, for inventing a method of raising and transporting
stone by tide-floated boats. At Sandgate, however, the
boats do not seem to have answered, for they are mentioned in but
one account, afterwards carts only were used.
It is clearly evident from the accounts that "the quarry," often
mentioned, continued to be the hard limestone rocks by the seaside.
In the fourth and fifth months we find again the "labourers pertaining
to the rocks carrying of stone, lading of carts, and giving attendance
to the tides; " in the sixth month the beach is being cast, in
order probably to get at the rock beneath; the same occurs in the
twelfth month, and in the thirteenth month's account the labourers
are still " working at the rocks, carrying up stone from the water
side for the edifying of the King's Castle." Thus throughout we
find certainly that the rough hard stone for the castle walls was
got from the rocks by the seaside, and though it cannot be said
that the quarry was either of those marked on a map made nearly
two centuries later, yet the plan of 1725 is evidence that in the
reign of George I. building material was obtained from a quarry
similarly situated to that used in the reign of Henry VIII.
But the Kentish shore did not provide all the material for the
SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40. 235
fort; much of the stone was of foreign origin, and had come, three
centuries before, from that country against a possible attack from
which it might now serve. It was in fact second-hand, and came
to Sandgate from the lately dismantled priories of St. Eadegund,
Horton, and Christ Church, Canterbury; in the ledger it is called
" cane stone," easily recognized as Caen stone. The total number
of loads thus obtained—the load being reckoned as a ton weight—
was 459, of which more than half, viz., 237, came from St. Eadegunds,
90 from Horton, 32 from Canterbury, 33 from Hythe, 57 from
places in the Hundreds of Bircholt Franchise, Hayne, Stowting,
and Street, and 10 came by sea from Sandwich. At St. Eadegunds
" the farmer" received for the stone 8d. a load ; at Horton nothing
was paid; at Canterbury the Prior of Christ Church twice received
4s. 8d. a ton, and afterwards " Mr. Byngham" had 3s., but it is not
said that the stone came from the same site; Michael Carver of
Hythe was paid 5s. a tou for stone delivered at the Castle.
The Caen stone was doubtless used in the jambs, lintels, parapets,
and embrasures, and wherever the easily-worked freestone was
preferable to the obdurate " Kentish Bag." Two special purchases
of stone we find in the twelfth month, viz., six gravestones for the
covering of six doors, 20s. (the place whence they came is not
named), and a fair mantel stone for a chimney 10s.
The Masons.—These are variously designated according to the
work in which they were engaged. The " freemasons " employed
in " barking " [knocking off the surface], shaping, and dressing the
freestone; the hard-hewers (also called lodgemen from living in
the lodge built for them at the quarry) got, broke, and shaped
the hard limestone; the scapplers roughly dressed the stone
with scappling hammers ; the layers or builders ; and the setters,
who, from there being only two or three, I suppose to have had
the setting of the lines for the masonry, and the duty of keeping it
in proper form. Eobert Lynsted the warden or master-mason—
who signs each month's accounts—gets 10^, a day; Nicholas Eychard,
the under-warden, and the setters, have 8d. a day; the others are
paid by the week at 3s. 8^., or by the day at 8d. and 7d. ; and there
were " prentices " at 6d. or 5d. a day; all these could make extra
time at ld. or j^d. an hour, but we do not discover the number of
hours reckoned in a day's work.
Masons found within a circuit of fourteen miles were not sufficient;
they had to be brought from the distant "west country"
of Somersetshire and Gloucestershire. In the second month, 43
masons, there " pressed," received a bounty of 4s. a man, being Qd.
for every score of miles they had travelled to reach Sandgate ; in
the following month, June 1539, Thomas Busshe, Clerk of the
Ledger, travelling with the same object, enlisted 54 masons; and
again in March 1540 a similar journey was made by Bichard
Tayler, with the result of procuring 71 men in the West and 43
men nearer home. The itinerary is interesting and will be quoted
afterwards with the officers' expenses.
Bricks.—About 147,000 were conveyed to the Castle, the price
236 SANDGATE CASTLE, A.D. 1539-40.
being generally 4s. 4
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