button to main menu  Pennant's Tour 1773
button title page
button previous page button next page

Page 136:-
Directores*, a sort of soldiery supposed to have been employed as guides. The castle which they occupied gave the name which it retains at present, a little corrupted, the Roman appellation to their castlelets being Burgus†; and numbers of places abroad, as well as in Britain, retain the name, either simply or in addition, for the same reason, such as Wurtzburg, Ausburg, and others; and the Roman mount at Leyden still preserves the name of the Burgh. - I cannot trace the founder of the present castle: from the square form of its towers, it was certainly of Norman origin, - probably very early, for in 1174 it was garrisoned by the English, and taken by William king of Scotland in an inroad made by him in the absence of our great monarch Henry, but which soon after lost him his liberty, being defeated and taken by some gallant leaders on his retreat from the siege of Alnwick. It had been a considerable place; some square towers remain; the Keep, called Caesar's Tower, is the most considerable. At one side of the castle are the ruins of a rounder, an addition it must have received long after its foundation. It had been protected by vast fosses; those on one side are double, and have between them a high space, possible the very site of the Roman Burgus. This castle was the property of Robert de Veteripont, and passed
through
* See the Notitia in Horsley.
† Vegetius, lib.iv. c.10. and the comments on it.

next page

button to main menu Lakes Guides menu.