If there is one building that stands as the all-time icon for the Channel Islands it is Mont Orgueil Castle. It is perched majestically on a granite promontory on the east coast of Jersey, within sight of Normandy. The name means 'Mount Pride', and is said to have been coined by the Duke of Clarence, brother of King Henry V. The castle owes its origin to the split between England and France in 1204: in that year King John lost control of Normandy. The Channel Islands became a strategically important frontier, one which was to be fought over for centuries to come.
Castles were quickly built in Jersey and Guernsey to establish an English presence in the Channel, and to defend the islands against potential French invasion. The earliest castle at Mont Orgueil comprised a 'keep' which occupied only the top of the rock, but over the course of three centuries more circuits of defensive walls and towers were erected at a lower level. These greatly increased the size of the castle and rendered it impregnable in terms of contemporary warfare, when the most feared weapon was the longbow.
Then cannon were invented and the defensive capacity of the castle was quickly weakened, as ever bigger guns were made. If the French landed on Jersey and secured a position on a nearby hill, they could bombard Mont Orgueil with cannon fire until its defences were breached. Hence, in the 1540s the English responded to the threat by greatly increasing the castle's defences on all sides, and raising a massive artillery battery on the very top of the rock. Attached to this was the residence of the English Governor of Jersey. Sir Walter Ralegh was its last Elizabethan Governor.
Between 1997 and 2006 Jersey Heritage undertook an ambitious and highly successful project to conserve and re-roof the semi-ruined Tudor buildings of the keep, and this involved a major programme of archaeological study. By 2010 we had learned a great deal about the Tudor fortress, but there were still some important outstanding questions concerning the thirteenth-century defences around the lower part of the castle rock. We knew from historic records that there had been walls, towers and ditches here, and some traces were still visible before the Second World War, but the castle had been refortified by the invading Germans in 194045, and we did not know to what extent the remains might have been destroyed.
In order to complete our understanding of the defences of Mont Orgueil, particularly of the medieval period, some crucial gaps needed to be filled. So we invited Time Team to come to Jersey and apply their surveying and excavation skills to finding the missing towers and ditches. The team rose admirably to a difficult challenge, just as they did in 2009 when I asked them to find Henry III's demolished sacristy at Westminster Abbey. But when working in the Channel Islands, one cannot just arrive on site and start digging: all the vehicles, equipment and personnel had to be assembled at Weymouth, loaded onto the Cross Channel Ferry, unloaded again in Jersey, and then taken to site. If you have forgotten something vital, you can't pop back to the office for it!
Once on site, scrub and ivy had to be cleared, and then geophysics undertaken, which is technically challenging when working amongst granite outcrops. A lot of fallen stone and soil had been dumped around the base of the castle in the 20th century, all of which masked the evidence that we were looking for; and there was always the risk of finding more unexploded bombs (a cache of them was found in 1979). But the team tackled and quickly overcame the problems and within hours of starting work, the lost defences of Mont Orgueil were coming to light. We achieved the main objective, which was to locate the outermost circuit of medieval defences. The foundations of two towers were uncovered, along with parts of the curtain wall, and sections were excavated through the castle ditch.
But archaeology always produces surprises, and Mont Orgueil was no exception. The site of an unsuspected Tudor artillery battery was discovered, and close to that a gun platform dating from the Civil War, when Charles II was exiled in Jersey and briefly stayed in the castle. The whole operation with Time Team was a resounding success: they answered the major questions, found entirely new evidence, and received a huge welcome from the people of Jersey.
Further reading:
Warwick Rodwell, Mont Orgueil Castle, Jersey: History and Architecture (Jersey Heritage, 2006)
The castle is open to the public
April - October, 10am to 6pm, daily
November - March, weekends
For further information visit www.jerseyheritage.org.
