Penhallam
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Penhallam is the site of a fortified
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...
near
Jacobstow Jacobstow () is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is located east of the A39 road approximately south of Bude.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 190 ''Bude & Clovel ...
in
Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, England. There was probably an earlier, 11th-century
ringwork A ringwork is a form of fortified defensive structure, usually circular or oval in shape. Ringworks are essentially motte-and-bailey castles without the motte. Defences were usually earthworks in the form of a ditch and bank surrounding the site ...
castle on the site, constructed by Tryold or his son, Richard fitz Turold in the years after the
Norman invasion of 1066 The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, French, Flemish, and Breton troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conquero ...
. Their descendants, in particular Andrew de Cardinham, created a substantial, sophisticated manor house at Penhallam between the 1180s and 1234, building a quadrangle of ranges facing onto an internal courtyard, surrounded by a
moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...
and external buildings. The Cardinhams may have used the manor house for hunting expeditions in their nearby deer park. By the 14th century, the Cardinham male line had died out and the house was occupied by tenants. The surrounding manor was broken up and the house itself fell into decay and robbed for its stone. Archaeological investigations between 1968 and 1973 uncovered its foundations, unaltered since the medieval period, and the site is now managed by
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...
and open to visitors.


11th century

Penhallam Manor is located near
Jacobstow Jacobstow () is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is located east of the A39 road approximately south of Bude.Ordnance Survey: Landranger map sheet 190 ''Bude & Clovel ...
, in a sheltered valley leading down to the sea, at the junction of two tributaries of the
River Neet The River Strat is a river in the northernmost part of Cornwall in southwest England. The Strat flows for to the sea at Bude, having risen to the south of Kilkhampton. It flows initially in a generally southwesterly direction through Stratton ...
. The valley is now a mixture of woodland and marshes, although in the medieval period it would have formed a more open area of land. There may have been an earlier
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
building on the site, although no traces have been found. Shortly after the
Norman conquest of England The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...
, however, a
ringwork A ringwork is a form of fortified defensive structure, usually circular or oval in shape. Ringworks are essentially motte-and-bailey castles without the motte. Defences were usually earthworks in the form of a ditch and bank surrounding the site ...
castle was probably built at Penhallam by the invaders, and a substantial manor was recorded as being present there in the
Domesday survey Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086. The construction work was carried out either by a one Tryold - a follower of
Robert The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, prais ...
, the
Count of Mortain The County of Mortain was a medieval county in the Duchy of Normandy in France centered on the town of Mortain, disputed between France and England during parts of the Hundred Years' War. A choice landholding, usually either kept within the family ...
- or his son, Richard fitz Turold. In the wake of the invasion, Robert acquired vast lands in Cornwall, and in turn the pair were granted the honour of Cardinham, a feudal landing holding comprising 28 manors. The castle at Penhallam took advantage of a raised area of ground above the marshes, with a circular bank of earth possibly up to wide and high, surrounded by a shallow, wet
moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...
up to across. A
hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...
would have been constructed within the ringwork, up to in length, possibly using stone or cobwalling. A bailey probably lay just to the south, containing the stables and outbuildings, probably within the earth bank that surrounds the modern farmstead.


12th-13th centuries

Tyrold and Richard fitz Turold founded what eventually became known as the Cardinham family, who became powerful Cornish landowners and agents for
the Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...
. Penhallam was an important manor for them, and it may have acted as their administrative ''
caput A head is the part of an organism which usually includes the ears, brain, forehead, cheeks, chin, eyes, nose, and mouth, each of which aid in various sensory functions such as sight, hearing, smell, and taste. Some very simple animals may not ...
'' before the family established their main castle at
Cardinham Cardinham () (the spelling 'Cardynham' is almost obsolete) is a civil parishes in England, civil parish and a village in mid Cornwall, England. The village is approximately three-and-a-half miles (6 km) east-northeast of Bodmin. The hamlet ...
. The family probably visited several times a year, possibly to go hunting in the deer park they established stretching up the valleys to the south-west. From around 1180 onwards, under either Robert fitz William or Robert de Cardinham, the manor house began to be redeveloped, with the ringwork defences being mostly demolished in the process. The first work involved building a camera - a chamber alongside the existing hall - and was carried out between 1180 and 1200. A set of rooms known as a wardrobe, used for accommodation and storage, and a
garderobe Garderobe is a historic term for a room in a medieval castle. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives as its first meaning a store-room for valuables, but also acknowledges "by extension, a private room, a bed-chamber; also a privy". The word der ...
followed on the north end. Robert's son, Andrew de Cardinham, inherited the family's estates around 1226 and carried on expanding Penhallam, building a new hall, a service wing - including a kitchen, buttery,
pantry A pantry is a room or cupboard where beverages, food, (sometimes) dishes, household cleaning products, linens or provisions are stored within a home or office. Food and beverage pantries serve in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. Etymol ...
, and a combined
brewhouse A brewhouse is a building made for brewing beer and ale. This could be a part of a specialized brewery operation, but historically a brewhouse is a private building only meant for domestic production. Larger households, such as noble estates, o ...
and
bakehouse A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based baked goods made in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, doughnuts, bagels, Pastry, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as Coffeehouse, cafés, servi ...
- a
chapel A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...
, lodgings, and a
gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the most ...
. The gatehouse was protected by a
drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable b ...
, leading to a set of stables and other service buildings on the site of the former bailey. The exterior walls were
whitewash Whitewash, calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, asbestis or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime ( calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk (calcium carbonate, CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes ...
ed and would have made the property highly visible from the nearest road. By around 1234, the result was a substantial, sophisticated manor house, with a large quadrangle of ranges, approximately across, facing onto an internal courtyard. Andrew gave the manor to Emma, his widowed sister-in-law, for the remainder of her life in 1234; Andrew left no male heir, and on his death the manor passed to his daughter, Isolda de Cardinham. Isolda then gave the manor to Sir Henry de Champernowne, a member of a powerful Devonshire family, at some point before 1270. Around this time, the drawbridge was replaced with a stone bridge and, around the end of the century, the southern kitchen and lodging buildings were rebuilt.


14th-21st centuries

By the 14th century, Penhallam was occupied by the Beaupré family, tenants of the Champernownes, and by 1330 the manor had begun to be subdivided into smaller units of land. The manor house was abandoned and fell into disrepair; the roof collapsed at some point after 1360. The walls were robbed for their stone and by 1428 the manor itself had ceased to exist. A small farmstead, called Berry or Bury Court, was established on the site of the former stables. In the mid-20th century, plans were drawn up to clear the area around the former house, then owned by Roger Money-Kyrle and managed by Economic Forestry (South West) Ltd., in order to plant a new forest. Initial archaeological investigations were carried out by the
Ministry of Public Building and Works The Ministry of Works was a department of the UK Government formed in 1940, during the Second World War, to organise the requisitioning of property for wartime use. After the war, the ministry retained responsibility for government building proj ...
in 1968, and work continued until 1973. The foundations of the walls, exposed by the archaeologists, were consolidated and protected, and the moat cleaned out and refilled. The site was protected under UK law as a
scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...
in 1996, and is now managed by
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...
and open to visitors.;


See also

*
Castles in Great Britain and Ireland Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 105 ...
*
List of castles in England This list of castles in England is not a list of every building and site that has "castle" as part of its name, nor does it list only buildings that conform to a strict definition of a castle as a medieval fortified residence. It is not a list ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

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External links


English Heritage visitors' page
{{Cornwall, state=collapsed Country houses in Cornwall Manors in Cornwall English Heritage sites in Cornwall