Rougemont Castle: A Norman Fortress and Courthouse in Exeter
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- British, Norman, Roman
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page16 sections
History
Rougemont Castle is a Norman fortress in Exeter, United Kingdom, begun in or shortly after 1068 after the city surrendered to William the Conqueror following an 18-day siege. William ordered its construction to secure his position after Exeter’s rebellion, placing it within the northern corner of the Roman city walls on the highest point of a volcanic outcrop. Baldwin FitzGilbert, a Norman landholder and castle official, was appointed castellan, the officer responsible for commanding and managing the fortress.
The Norman foundation
The castle was built into the existing Roman defences, which had been extensively repaired around 928 by King Athelstan. The Domesday Book, William’s survey of landholdings and resources made in 1085 and 1086, recorded that 48 Exeter houses had been destroyed after the king’s arrival. Historians have interpreted this entry as a possible reference to houses cleared to create space for the castle.
The new stronghold may have been attacked before it was finished. Repairs to the western corner tower point to damage probably caused during an assault on Exeter in 1069, an event also described by the Anglo-Norman monk and chronicler Orderic Vitalis. In the early twelfth century, William de Avenell, Baldwin FitzGilbert’s son, was said to have founded a chapel dedicated to Saint Mary within the castle. The chapel had four prebendaries, clerics supported by income assigned to their religious office. William also founded a priory at nearby Cowick.
The siege of 1136
In 1136, Baldwin de Redvers seized the castle during his rebellion against King Stephen. Stephen ruled during the Anarchy, a period of civil conflict over the English succession. The king’s army besieged Exeter Castle for three months, until the defenders’ water supply failed. The fighting probably destroyed the barbican, a fortified outer defence protecting the entrance, and may also have brought down an eastern tower through undermining.
The circular earthwork now called Danes Castle, north of Rougemont Castle, was known as New Castle from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. It was once regarded as an outwork of Rougemont Castle, but excavations in 1992 led to the interpretation that it was constructed by Stephen’s army during the siege of 1136.
Medieval development and changing names
An outer bailey, an enclosed area outside the principal castle enclosure, was added during the later twelfth century, probably in response to advances in siege technology. Repairs continued into the early fourteenth century, and the last recorded repair to the defences took place in 1352. The castle’s official name remained Exeter Castle, while the name Rougemont Castle first appeared in a local record from around 1250. It referred to the red rock of the hill and the walls built from it.
By about 1500, the original gateway had fallen out of use and been blocked. Access was redirected through an adjoining archway. The castle was reportedly badly damaged during the second Cornish uprising of 1497, when Perkin Warbeck, a claimant to the English throne, entered Exeter with approximately 6,000 Cornish men.
King Richard III visited Exeter in 1483. Shakespeare later referred to the visit in Richard III, using the similarity between Rougemont and Richmond in a premonition concerning the king’s death. By around 1600, the castle was described as having extensive cracks and an aged appearance.
A judicial centre
A courthouse had been established within the castle walls by 1607. The three Devon witches were tried and convicted at the Exeter Assizes, court sessions held under royal authority, in 1682 and 1685 before being executed at Heavitree. They were the last people in England executed for witchcraft. A plaque near the gatehouse commemorates the trials.
John Norden’s plan of 1617 showed the court buildings, chapel, castle well, northern sally port, and what may have been the ruined walls of a rectangular keep. A sally port was a small gate used by defenders for sorties. During the English Civil War, Parliament authorised Exeter in 1642 to spend £300 on fortifying the city and repairing the castle. The fortress had at least four artillery batteries. Exeter fell to the Royalists in 1643 and to the Parliamentarians in 1646, while the gatehouse served as a prison for part of the war.
In 1773, all buildings within the castle walls were demolished to make way for a new courthouse. Philip Stowey designed the building, and James Wyatt amended the design. The courthouse later expanded westward in 1895, when offices were created for the new county council, and eastward in 1905. Devon County Council moved to Devon County Hall in 1964.
Excavation, courts, and later reuse
In 1891, part of the wall between the gatehouse and the eastern city wall collapsed after attempts to repair it. Excavations carried out during stabilisation work uncovered human skeletons beneath a lodge near the entrance. They were thought to be burials associated with the former Saint Mary’s Chapel. A document from 1639 referred to the chapel precinct as a possible burial place for prisoners who died in the gaol.
Rougemont Castle remained the seat of Devon’s Crown Court and County Court until new law courts opened in 2004. The Crown Court deals principally with serious criminal cases, while the County Court handles civil matters. The castle’s steep terrain and the difficulty of providing disabled access contributed to the move. After Exeter City Council failed to purchase the property, it was sold in early 2007 to GL50 Properties for redevelopment.
In 2011, the former Court 1 reopened as the Ballroom and the former Court 2 as the Gallery. Former prison holding cells were converted into lavatories, and 12 apartments were created within the castle walls. The courtyard was also used for a Coldplay charity concert in December 2009. Rougemont Castle became a scheduled monument, a legally protected archaeological or historic site in England, on 10 August 1923. Its principal structures are listed Grade I or Grade II*, categories identifying exceptional or particularly important architectural or historic interest.
Remains
Rougemont Castle occupies a roughly square enclosure between the north-western and north-eastern sections of Exeter’s city wall. A deep ditch and internal rampart enclosed an area with sides of approximately 600 feet, or 180 metres. The early fortress used the Roman walls and the high volcanic outcrop as part of its defensive setting. Its principal surviving medieval feature is the large early Norman gatehouse, while later walls, fragments of the outer bailey, courthouse buildings, and archaeological remains reveal successive changes in the site’s use.
Early fortress and medieval defences
Gatehouse and curtain wall
The gatehouse was built into the bank on the southern side of the enclosure from the red stone found on the hill. Its long-and-short corner stones and windows with double triangular-headed openings are associated with Anglo-Saxon building practice. These details indicate that English masons working for the Normans may have built it at a very early stage of the castle’s development.
The original rampart was probably topped by a stockade. Two corner turrets were soon added where the rampart met the city walls. The surviving western turret is commonly called Athelstan’s Tower, although that name is incorrect. The stockade was later replaced by a masonry curtain wall, a fortified enclosing wall. Surviving sections show that the curtain wall was bonded into the repaired city walls but not into the gatehouse, suggesting that construction proceeded from the city walls towards the gatehouse.
Barbican, towers, and water supply
A barbican protected the city-side approach to the drawbridge. It was probably captured and destroyed during the siege of 1136. In the northernmost corner, a sally port beneath a large tower and a drawbridge over the external ditch were demolished in 1774, and no trace remains of them.
The castle’s water supply included a well and probably a rainwater cistern. Around 1930, a short section of crudely built tunnel was discovered leading towards the possible site of the eastern tower. It has been interpreted as evidence connected with the siege of 1136. The relationship between the water supply, the tunnel, and the damaged eastern defences preserves a physical link with the siege that ended when the defenders’ water failed.
Outer bailey and chapel precinct
Outer bailey
The later outer bailey consisted of a wall and external ditch extending from the eastern city wall along the northern side of Bailey Street to the western city wall near the present city museum. Only a section of its wall survives, near Bailey Street. Portions of the ditch, later filled in, were found during renovation work in 2009.
Saint Mary’s Chapel
Saint Mary’s Chapel stood within the castle walls after its foundation in the early twelfth century. By about 1630 it was described as ruinous, and it was demolished with the other internal buildings in the late eighteenth century. Excavations beneath a lodge near the entrance uncovered several human skeletons, probably burials associated with the chapel. The 1639 reference to prisoners who died in the gaol gives the chapel precinct an additional connection with the castle’s later judicial and prison functions.
Courthouse buildings and later features
Courthouse complex
The courthouse erected in 1773 was built of limestone in the Palladian style, a classical architectural manner based on designs associated with Andrea Palladio and characterised by symmetry and formal proportions. Its western extension was added in 1895, followed by an eastern neo-Palladian wing in 1905. The early sixteenth-century entrance arch was replaced in 1773 by a new entrance made from reclaimed stone and fitted with a false portcullis. That entrance remains in use for the site.
Converted courtrooms and castle yard
Former Court 1 has arched windows extending to floor level and was converted into the Ballroom in 2011. The former prisoner holding cells were adapted for lavatories, while the former Court 2, measuring 150 square metres, became the Gallery. A statue of Hugh Fortescue, 1st Earl Fortescue, stands in the castle yard. Made by the sculptor E. B. Stephens and dated 1863, it is a Grade II listed monument.
Rougemont Castle is enclosed on three sides by Rougemont Gardens and Northernhay Gardens, public parks maintained by Exeter City Council. The surviving enclosure, medieval masonry, gatehouse, archaeological evidence, and courthouse buildings together preserve the physical record of a fortress that became a centre of county justice and later acquired new civic and cultural uses.
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