Flel C?s-Lle SqIveJ and-E{cavations l9B3--Bq 'l'he original design of the castle seems to have comprlsed a rectangular keep with three conprartnents, R Newma.n ea.ch three floors high, with an attached tower at its stood" on low mound of accord"ance with the policy of the Historic Buildings eouth-eastem comer. This a In and. outer baileys surrounded and Monunents Commission for Lhgland to assess the bould.er clay. Inner and is almost certain nonunents in its care, a ful1 analytical survey and this to the north west. It llmited excavations were carried out at liel t)astle, that there was never an outer bailey on the south and This castle is unusual in that east sldes, but so nuch of the lsland has been eroded Ba,rrow-in-Furness. keep now stands at the very edge. was on by F\uness Abbey, here that the it constructed Fiel Island wall on south rather than by a secular lord.ship, guard the 'I'he renains of the outer curtain the to slde once have linked with the inner balIey entra,nce to the deep water harbour at Barrow. appear to a.nd rnay have continued as a single wa11 around the keep. Documentary sources record a licence to creneLlate in f3Z7 (Carunaar or Patent p.r69) n curtaln wa1ls which survive above and some subsequent was It is clear that the refurbishnent, but that it were constructed before any corner ruinous bV 1537 (Beck, Annales !'urnegienses, foundation height I,XII). were although sequence was probably The eastern side of the keep and of the eastern towers added, the lnrts some cases, partlcularly in the of corner towers each of the baileys had collapsed rapld in addition of gatehouse inner curtain. The outer sea by 1870's, when the Duke Buccleuch, the through the into the the of wall vislble only as a foundatlon on the at that time the owner of the island, organised a curtain ls partial restoration. west si-de and at the north-west comerr so that the north-western outer tower stand.s alone. It may be was never fully constructed. It is The excavatlons in the autumn of 1983 denonstrated that thls wall surviving outer towers were that the restorations of the Duke had been nore llke1y that the three part of the original design; the three inner towers thorough than previously supposed. A11 trace of any north- medieval activity had been renoved, as had nost of the a,re nore obviously later augnentations. The ea.stetrn and south-western i-nner towers are clearly debris from the decay of the build.ings. The d.id produce nore informatlon about the bullt over an exi"sting curtain wa1l and the norbh- excavations over bottom steps sequence manner Clrnstruction western tower is constructed the and of of the castle, ::amlnrt walk. however, which was confirned by the fabric survey in of a staln to the northern 1984. The design of the keep was changed durlng the occupation, It seens likely that the original plan Every accesslble internal and external wall of the north- castle was surveyed, using a theodolite and lap-held includ.ed. diagonal buttresses, certainly at the west In the sequence computer, which converted surveyed points a and south-west corners. Early the to were added to scale of L:J0, with reference a known polnt on of construction, further buttresses to entrance into the wall. Deta,l-Is on the walls were then added, with give add.itional strength. ltre origlnal the a.id of neasurements and photographs. the central keep conpartnent fron the north wa1I seens to have been into the ground floor. A two-
64 6S PIEL CASTLE storey gatehouse was subsequently added, possibly alnost imnedia.tely. Subsequently, the entrance bcth the gatehouse and the north wal1 of the through lt keep seems to have been blocked pa,rtially to raise it |1 > D< to the first floor. The various functions of the D< F )a keep nust ha.ve been reorganised, as the ground floor t< l1 wa.s now more tha.n seni-basement. partiatly t
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