DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61904#0206
194 CARISBROOKE CASTLE.
reign of Edward IV., for his arms are yet vifible upon it.
This afpedt of the caftle is extremely pidturefque. The gate-
way is ftrikingly impreflive, and the mouldering battlements,
hung with luxuriant ivy, give to it the folemnity of ruin. At
the fouth-eaft angle of the caftle is an ancient tower, called
Montjoy’s, the walls of which are in fome places eighteen
inches thick. But no part of the ancient remains is fuppofed
to be of a higher date than the Norman period, eredted by
William Fitz-Ofborne, its firft Norman lord, and his immediate
fucceffbrs. Confiderable additions were made in the reign of
Henry I.
The buildings eredted for the accommodation of the
governor of the ifland, when he choofes or has occafion to
refide here, are extenfive, but by no means magnificent; nor
particularly cheerful, having only one window which looks out
beyond the enclofure of the caftle, or gives any view of the
extenfive but fomewhat naked landfcape which the caftle
commands. In fadt, one of the moft ftriking features of the
I fie of Wight at the prefent day is its abfence of wood. It
is girdled by woodlands round its coafts, but its interior is one
monotonous fcene of undulating and neatly cultivated land—a
land almoft without a tree. The name of Carifbrooke has been
varioufly derived from Whitgara-burgh, the town of Whitgara,
a Saxon chief, and from Caer, the old Britifh name for a
ftronghold, and brook, referring to the brook in the valley below.
Neither of thefe appear to us very fatis factory. More probably
the Whitgara was but a corruption of Hvitgard, the Scandi-
navian for white refidence; and Carifbrooke comes from the
Saxons having added their burg to the Britifh caer, though
meaning the fame thing, a caftle or fort; and the burg, as in
Germany, being gradually corrupted into bruck, as in Ofna-
bruck, Innfbruck ; and fo to brooke, Caerfbruck, and thence to
Carifbrooke.
reign of Edward IV., for his arms are yet vifible upon it.
This afpedt of the caftle is extremely pidturefque. The gate-
way is ftrikingly impreflive, and the mouldering battlements,
hung with luxuriant ivy, give to it the folemnity of ruin. At
the fouth-eaft angle of the caftle is an ancient tower, called
Montjoy’s, the walls of which are in fome places eighteen
inches thick. But no part of the ancient remains is fuppofed
to be of a higher date than the Norman period, eredted by
William Fitz-Ofborne, its firft Norman lord, and his immediate
fucceffbrs. Confiderable additions were made in the reign of
Henry I.
The buildings eredted for the accommodation of the
governor of the ifland, when he choofes or has occafion to
refide here, are extenfive, but by no means magnificent; nor
particularly cheerful, having only one window which looks out
beyond the enclofure of the caftle, or gives any view of the
extenfive but fomewhat naked landfcape which the caftle
commands. In fadt, one of the moft ftriking features of the
I fie of Wight at the prefent day is its abfence of wood. It
is girdled by woodlands round its coafts, but its interior is one
monotonous fcene of undulating and neatly cultivated land—a
land almoft without a tree. The name of Carifbrooke has been
varioufly derived from Whitgara-burgh, the town of Whitgara,
a Saxon chief, and from Caer, the old Britifh name for a
ftronghold, and brook, referring to the brook in the valley below.
Neither of thefe appear to us very fatis factory. More probably
the Whitgara was but a corruption of Hvitgard, the Scandi-
navian for white refidence; and Carifbrooke comes from the
Saxons having added their burg to the Britifh caer, though
meaning the fame thing, a caftle or fort; and the burg, as in
Germany, being gradually corrupted into bruck, as in Ofna-
bruck, Innfbruck ; and fo to brooke, Caerfbruck, and thence to
Carifbrooke.