Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/230

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ON THE CITY OF ANDERIDA, OR ANDREDESCEASTER.

That the walls of Pevensey existed, and in a ruined condition, at the landing of the duke of Normandy, seems sufficiently certain from the evidence now to be adduced. It is indeed stated by Mr. Lethieullier in his " Description of the Tapestry remaining in the Cathedral of Bayeux," that "Harold, who had been crowned king, was not ignorant that the duke would infallibly come with an army to support his right to the throne ; and therfore fortified Pevensey," &c. The authority for this assertion I know not, but admitting it to be indefeasible, it cannot signify that Harold then erected the whole of the now standing walls, because, in the first place, he had no time for a work of such magnitude and admirable construction, as we behold it to be ; and secondly, as already shewn, internal proof still survives that the masonry is Roman. So again, though a Chronicle of Battle Abbey[1] informs us, that the duke of Normandy landed "near the castle called Pevenesel[2]," this expression, considering what ground we have for beheving the anterior origin of the fortress, can only imply, as it would seem, that the "castrum Pevenesel" was in being when William landed there. But, beyond this negative reasoning, the walls even now shew marks of repairs and additions belonging to what, with regard to architecture, is styled the Norman period. One of the towers has been heightened[3], where the distinction between the Roman and the later mortar is clearly visible, beside that the upper portion exhibits a window with a semicircular, head, or of Norman shape. There are also several places where the walls have been patched, one in particular, apparently an extensive injury, where the new work is "herring-bone;" but in all these cases the composition of the mortar manifestly indicates a date subsequent to the original erection, and my observations tend to the conclusion that a majority, if not all, of these repairs, are coeval with the ad- dition to the tower just referred to. Whether they were effected by Harold, or by his rival William, is immaterial : the difference of time could be very trifling; and at the period in question the intercourse between England and

  1. ↑ From A.D. 1066 to 1176, compiled by an unknown monk of that establishment, and recently printed by the Anglia Christiana Society, from a manuscript in the British Museum.
  2. ↑ 1066. Dux ergo cum incredibili exercitu, divino comitante favore, navigationem aggressus, prospere tandem prope castrum Pevenesel dictum applicuit—Chronicon Monasterii de Bello.
  3. ↑ Chronicles of Pevensey, p. 43.
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