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Rougemont Castle, also known as Exeter Castle, is the historic castle of the city of Exeter, Devon, England. It was built into the northern corner of the Roman city walls starting in or shortly after the year 1068, following Exeter's rebellion against William the Conqueror. In 1136 it was besieged for three months by King Stephen. An outer bailey, of which little now remains, was added later in the 12th century. The castle is mentioned in Shakespeare's play ''Richard III'' in a reference to that king's visit to Exeter in 1483. Devon's county court was located here from at least 1607, and the three Devon Witches—the last people in England to be executed for witchcraft—were tried here in the 1680s. All the buildings inside the walls were swept away in the 1770s to make way for a new courthouse, which was extended by the addition of wings in 1895 and 1905. Because of its function as a court, the interior of the castle was not open to the public until the court moved to a new site in 2004. The entire site has since been sold to a developer whose stated aim is to transform it into "the Covent Garden of the South West".〔 The castle is named after the red stone found in the hill, and used in the construction of the original buildings, of which the large early Norman gatehouse is the main remaining feature. It is surrounded on three sides by the Rougemont Gardens and Northernhay Gardens, public parks now maintained by Exeter City Council. ==Construction and early history== After the Norman conquest of 1066, Gytha, mother of the defeated King Harold, was living in Exeter and this may have caused the city to become a centre of resistance to William the Conqueror. Another reason for discontent may have been William's insistence that the city's traditional annual tribute of £18 must be increased. After Exeter's citizens rejected William's demand that they should swear an oath of fealty to him, he marched to the city in 1068 and laid siege to it for 18 days before it capitulated. The citizens of Exeter had been able to withstand William's siege thanks to the city wall, which had been first built by the Romans and extensively repaired in around 928 by King Athelstan. Although the siege ended with the surrender of the city, William ordered a castle to be built within the wall to safeguard his position. The place selected was at the highest point, inside the northern angle of the wall,〔 on a volcanic outcrop.〔Variously described as a "volcanic cone" (), a "volcanic outcrop" () or a "volcanic mound" ()〕 The building of the castle was left to Baldwin FitzGilbert who was appointed castellan, amongst other honours. A deep ditch and internal rampart were constructed between the north-western and north-eastern city walls, forming a roughly square enclosure with sides of about . The ''Domesday Book'' of 1086 reported that 48 houses had been destroyed in Exeter since the King came to England—this has been interpreted by historians to mean that this many houses were on the site cleared for the castle.〔See, for instance, 〕 A large stone gatehouse, which still survives, was built into the bank at the south side of the enclosure. It has clear elements of Anglo-Saxon architecture, such as long-and-short quoins and double triangular-headed windows, suggesting that it was built very early by Anglo-Saxon masons on the Normans' orders. At this early stage the rampart was probably surmounted by a stockade, though two corner turrets were soon built where the bank met the city walls, the western one of which (mistakenly known as "Athelstan's Tower") is still present. The stockade was soon replaced by a masonry curtain wall. The remains of this wall shows that it was bonded into the repaired city walls, but not the gatehouse, indicating that it was built from the former towards the latter.〔 Another early enhancement was the construction of a protective barbican over the city side of the drawbridge. There is evidence that the castle was attacked before it was completed. This evidence is both physical, in the form of repairs to Athelstan's Tower; and documentary, in a report made by Orderic Vitalis of an attack made on Exeter in 1069. In the early 12th century a chapel dedicated to St Mary was built within the castle walls. It had four prebendaries and was said to have been founded by William de Avenell, a son of the castle-builder Baldwin FitzGilbert; de Avenell also founded a priory at nearby Cowick. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rougemont Castle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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