The area of Corfe Castle, if we include the large southern bailey, is 3-3/4 acres; without it, 1-1/2 acres. This bailey was certainly in existence in the reign of Henry III. (as the extract from the _Close Rolls_ proves) before the towers of superb masonry were added to it by Edward I.
The value of Kingston Manor had considerably increased at the date of the Survey. After the Count of Mortain forfeited his lands (in 1105), the castle of Corfe was kept in the hands of the crown, and this increases the probability that the keep was built by Henry I.
About 400 yards S.W. of Corfe Castle is an earthwork which might be called a "Ring and Bailey." Instead of the usual motte there is a circular enclosure, defended by a bank and ditch of about the same height as those of its bailey, but having in addition an interior platform or berm. This work is probably the remains of a camp thrown up by Stephen during his unsuccessful siege of Corfe Castle in 1139.
[Illustration: FIG. 14. Dover. (From a plan in the British Museum, 1756.)]
DOVER, Kent (Fig. 14).--The Norman historian, William of Poitiers, tells us that the castrum of Dover was built by Harold at his own expense.[391] This comes from the celebrated story of the oath of Harold to William, a story of which Mr Freeman says that there is no portion of our history more entangled in the mazes of contradictory and often impossible statements.[392] But let us assume the statement about the _castrum_ to be true; the question then to be answered is this: of what nature was that castrum? We never are told by English chroniclers that Harold built any castles, though we do hear of his fortifying towns. The present writer would answer this question, tentatively indeed, and under correction, by the theory that the castrum constructed or repaired by Harold was the present outer rampart of Dover Castle, which encloses an area of about 34 acres, and may have enclosed more, if it was formerly complete on the side towards the sea.[393] The evidence in support of this theory is as follows:--
1. There certainly was a _burh_ on the top of the cliff at Dover in Saxon times, as the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_ tells us that in 1048 Eustace of Boulogne, after coming to Dover, and slaying householders there, went _up to the burh_, and slew people both within and without, but was repulsed by the burh-men.[394] There was then a burh, and valiant burh-men on the cliff at Dover in Edward the Confessor's reign. But the whole analogy of the word burh makes it certain that by the time of Edward it meant a fortified town.[395]