During the children's visit to Norwich Castle they looked up at the thick, grey walls and thought about the feelings of local Saxon people and how they must have felt, being forced to bury their homes at the point of a Norman sword. Some of the words the children used to describe this castle were POWERFUL, DOMINANT, SCARY - you can see this in the 'personality' of our dragon.
Look at the pictures of the original castle baileys (earthworks) in the previous post. These bow-like baileys have become the stand for our dragon.
This picture is a panel in Norwich Castle Museum; a reconstruction showing the extent of the huge earthworks and defences (the 'bailey') which originally covered an area equivalent to about 16.5 football pitches. Look at the distinctive shapes - almost like bent bows without arrows.
These images are all still shots of the plasma screen video in Norwich Castle Museum keep, which shows a reconstruction of what the keep may have looked like when it was first completed by Christmas 1121. For our purposes - to use the building as inspiration for a Norwich Castle dragon - this reminds us that the keep was new once. in contrast to the current drab, grey, dirty, gloomy interior walls, it also shows us the kinds of colours and patterns which might be used to decorate the dragon. The image above shows the king's bath, located in his private appartments.
This image shows a guard walking towards the solid central spine wall, where the Victorian arches are in today's museum. Notice too, the well house to his right.
These are the arches near the chapel (of which no visible trace survives) which orginally supported a floor above (known as a 'mezzanine' floor). Notice the strong red nad white chequer board pattern on the underside (or 'soffit') of the arches.
Here's a picture of the king's private chapel (known as a 'Royal Peculiar') as it may have appeared in the newly completed building. Notice the spiral patterned columns. Spiral patterns in religious buildings usually indicate that an area is spiritually important (an idea copied from the original pillars in St Peter's in Rome).
* Please note: these still shots are no substitute for the orginal video located in the real castle. We would encourage you to visit Norwich Castle museum, and see this for yourselves.
The Normans were Vikings from Scandanavia who invaded Northern France and then settled there from the first half of the Tenth century (950AD onwards). The name 'Norman' comes from their origins as invaders from the North - 'North-men' -, and the land which they conquered became known as Normandie.
On the 14th October 1066 the leader of the Norman's, Duke William, fought a battle with the English (sometimes known as the Anglo-Saxons) at Hastings near the south coast of England. This was a fight to decide who should be England's ruler. The Norman's defeated the English, killing their king - King Harold - and most of their leadership. After several months of campaigning William was crowned king of England in Westminster Abbey in London on Christmas Day 1066. Picture of England's first Norman king, William, on the Bayeaux Tapestry
At some point - probably by Spring 1067 - the Normans arrived in Norwich. One of their first priorities would have been to construct a castle. Using local forced labour, they built up a mound and made a wooden castle. They also made a complex of hills and ditches beyond the castle (called the 'bailey'), so that an area of about 26 acres was 'squashed' under the stamp of this new construction - that's an area equivalent to about 16 and a half football pitches!
About 25 years later, having already extended the mound upwards and outwards, work began on the stone keep we see today (the outer walls were given a new 'skin' of Bathstone during the 1830s, but by comparing them with older pictures of the castle we know that they pretty much copied what was there originally).
This building was a Royal Palace, and must have seemed like some kind of spaceship landing in their city to the local English population. Designed to impress and scare people, the message it sent to the English was clear: We (the Normans) are the new bosses and we're here to stay!
View of the north wall fighting gallery passage. Note the tie-beam near the floor (Nineteenth century, I think), designed to prevent these old walls from buckling and collapsing. These seats, set back in the walls, allowed guards to rest, out of public view (thanks Laurence for agreeing to pose for this). For hundreds of years people have been leaving their mark on the walls of the keep. View from over the model Norman guard's shoulder.
Here are some photos taken from the Norwich Castle Keep fighting galleries*. These passageways run through the inside of the walls. As well as allowing guards to move around the building when if it were attacked - hence their name -, these passages allowed castle guards to move around the building without interrupting the gatherings going on below.
*Thanks to Norfolk Museum & Archaelogical Service for allowing us access to this area.
IMAGINE if strange new people wearing strange clothes and speaking a language you don't understand, turn up in your neighbourhood and declare themselves the new bosses.
IMAGINE if they then force you to destroy the homes in which you were born, and the churches where your loved ones are buried.
IMAGINE the seemingly endless hard work of shovelling earth all day as you bury the place which was your home.
IMAGINE being forced to bury your memories.
IMAGINE your feelings as you look up at the new hill and strange stone building from where these strangers look down on you.
HOW WOULD YOU FEEL?
-> What kind of dragon would live in this building? OR -> If the building transforms into a dragon, what kind of dragon would it be?
Keep castle model. Decoration on outside of castle. These arches and pillars set against the wall are known as a 'blind arcade'. If we imagine for a moment, they could be the fins on the back of the Norman dragon. This picture, with its five blind arcades, is the lower section of the outside wall. As the wall rises the amount of arcades in each bay increases by one at each successive level. Count those in the two photos above. This bay is coloured slate grey to indicate the flint which would have originally Note the colour and patterns on the inside walls of the original keep hall, as pictured in the model. Although we can't be absolutely sure what this would have looked like, by looking at decoration which has survived in other buildings of similar age, we can make informed guesses - and this is what the museum curators who developed this model have done here. Curves of a dragon's back? Semi-circular arches; parades of columns. Rectangles and semi-circles. The chutes leading up to the Norman toilets.
This model of the Norwich Castle Keep is a serious piece of work which attempts to recreate the keep as it would have appeared when it was first completed, by December 1121.
For our purposes - to use the building to inspire a Norwich Castle dragon model - we would point out the various shapes with which the outside of the building was decorated.
The grey sections at the lower levels represent the original flint-faced walls. This would have been mined locally from nearby areas such as Mousehold Heath. The smooth creamy coloured limestone was imported from quarries in Caen in Normandy (in modern day Northern France). The current castle walls were re-clad using greyer Bathstone during the 1830's.
This is one of a series of related blogs which showcase the work of the schools involved in the Norwich 'House of Dragons' project (to view others, click on their names on the 'Blog List', below). Each school used one of Norwich's special buildings as a source of inspiration for their dragon model. We hope you enjoy the results!
