Caister Castle

Caister Castle

This ruinous castle was built between 1433 and 1446 for Sir John Fastolf. It is constructed in brick of various hues, ranging from pink and pale yellow to deep purple, with individual bricks measuring approximately 21.5cm by 11cm by 5cm laid in an indeterminate bond. Stone dressings are used at the quoins and around apertures. The brickwork of the late 14th or early 15th century in the service court is of relatively poor quality compared with the technical sophistication of the principal court, particularly in the great tower.

The castle comprises a principal court to the south-west and a service court to the north-east, surrounded by a roughly rectangular water-filled moat. Modern footbridges with concrete decks provide access over the north-west arm to the service court and over the south-west arm through the gatehouse to the principal court. The moat spurs that originally divided the two courts were filled in during the 19th century.

The castle ruins include parts of the south-west and north-west walls and tower of the principal court, and the north-east and south-east walls of the service court. The north-east and south-east walls of the service court feature two-storey round towers at the corners and brick buttresses on the exterior, with splayed arrow slits at intervals having timber lintels.

In the principal court, a circular west tower rises at the junction of the north-west and south-west ranges. It stands six storeys high, approximately 29 metres tall, with a polygonal stair-turret rising above the parapet on the south side. The lower four storeys of the stair turret contain small rooms lit by rectangular windows. The ground floor has a two-light Perpendicular dais window, mostly bricked up, with the remains of a tierceron vault. To its right is a moulded four-centred arch entrance doorway to the main tower. The tower is lit at intervals by rectangular windows and features machicolations to the parapet, with every fourth extending down to stepped corbelling serving as chimney shafts for the fireplaces in the tower rooms.

To the north-east of the tower stands a four-storey rectangular block immediately behind the north-west gable end of the hall, providing access to each floor. The gable end contains the remains of a ground-floor fireplace, later converted to pigeon nesting boxes. The hall extends south-east from the tower for seven bays and had three or four storeys, with the lower two forming the great hall lit by two-light rectangular windows, two of which are bricked up. Above was Fastolf's Domo Superiori, which could only be entered from the second storey of the tower. The inner wall has courses of flint nodules interspersed with the brick, while the outer wall features a deeply stepped corbel table. At the south end of the hall is a two-storey gatehouse, probably a replacement undertaken after the siege by the Duke of Norfolk. It has a four-centred arch within a square surround right of centre and a four-centred arch window opening above. To the left is a guard room lit by a rectangular window, now blocked, and two smaller windows on the narrow left return. To the right of the gatehouse the wall continues south to a corner turret of two storeys, with an ashlar drip course to the first floor and a corbel table of grotesques, apparently re-used ecclesiastical work. The turret is accessed from the court via four-centred arch entrances on the ground and first floors.

The north-west wall of the principal court stands two storeys high before crumbling down to the ground. The inner side has a set-off above a series of relieving arches, possibly indicating cellars, and features two splayed rectangular windows. The outer side also has a set-off and stepped corbel table supporting an arcade under the eaves, probably with a machicolatary function. The foundations of ranges that once abutted the interior of the principal court walls have been raised with a few courses of brick laid in rat trap bond.

The interior of the tower is hexagonal, changing to circular above the fourth floor. The first to fourth floors have, in the east facet, one four-centred arch doorway to the hall, and on all floors, in the south facet, a four-centred arch door leading from the staircase. Each floor except the top has a fireplace positioned in a different facet, either square-headed or four-centred and normally chamfered. The brick staircase and moulded handrail cut into the wall have been removed above the first floor, which is now accessed via a 20th-century timber winder stair. No longer are there any floors to the storeys, and the top floor has been ceiled over in timber.