Avranches Tower (East), Dover Castle, Kent, UK

John Latter, on November 3, 2007, said:

A view of Avranches Tower (see the appended historical notes for alternate spellings) on the first corner where the eastern outer curtain wall of Dover Castle briefly changes direction before continuing on its way to the cliff edge.

The photo was taken looking in a easterly direction and is the first one of this tower to have been uploaded. Other photos will follow - check later 'Comments' or click on the Tower tag.

There are 5 windows and doorways on the inner face of Avranches Tower which will be commented upon in later images. For the moment, of interest here is the vertical window just beneath the center of the second arch from the right (the 'crossbeam' is in fact a wooden railing on the near side of the arch opening).

This unglazed window is the center of one of the 'triple loops' referred to in the historical notes below. To the right of this 'center loop' is a dark area which is the location of an identical window angled at 45 degrees to the first. A third window, similarly angled, on the left of the center one is obscured by the column between the second and third archways. A close-up of a triple loop will be uploaded in due course.

From "The History of the Castle, Town and Port of Dover" by Reverend S. P. H. Statham, Rector of St Mary-in-the-Castle (ie St Mary-in-Castro (Longmans, Green, and Co., 1899):

Averanche Tower was placed in the angle of this curtain [ie the outer curtain wall above the moat/ditch surrounding Dover castle] and "its foundations were laid below the bottom of the deep ditch on the one side, and the wall was carried up, about ten feet thick, to a level with the inner vallum [vallum was a type of palisade, originally used as part of the Roman defensive fortification system]. In this wall they built a gallery on each of the five sides of the tower. At every angle there were several slope steps, leading from one platform to another." It was supported by the manor of Folkestone [1]. [p.270, abridged]

William de Averanche seems to have acted as Constable of Dover Castle until 1227. He was a descendant of the William de Albrincis (Averanche) to whom William I [also see William the Conqueror] granted lands for the defense of the Castle, and it is more than probable that Averanche's Tower is named after him. [p.333]

From "Dover Castle" by R. Allen Brown (Her Majesty's Stationery Office, HMSO 1974):

...Furthermore, attention has recently been drawn to the sophisticated design and concentrated fire-power of that section of the curtain [ie outer curtain wall] which is undoubtedly Henry's from Fitzwilliam to Avranches, again reminiscent of Edwardian work a century later at, say, the Tower of London (Mint Street) or Caernarvon. The Avranches Tower itself, which blocks and guards the potentially dangerous re-entrant and entrance of the former Iron Age earthworks, is polygonal to the field (five sides of a pentagon, and cf. the near-contemporary Bell Tower of c. 1190 at the Tower of London), and on each face has two tiers of triple loops evidently designed for the crossbow [2] [see "The English Castle].

[1] From "The Folkestone of Edward Hasted":

The manor of Folkestone was frequently called an honor because it was the 'chief seat of residence of the lords paramount in this barony'. It was held directly from the king and called the Barony of Folkestone or Averenches, after the family who held the barony from the 11th and 12th centuries. The lord who held this manor had to provide certain services for the king, in particular soldiers for the defence of Dover Castle. Each knight was required to defend a certain tower, so one of the towers at the castle was called Averenches Tower and later Clinton Tower.

The last is inaccurate: Avranches/Averenches Tower is a separate constuction to Clinton Tower.

[2] The crossbow reference appears to originate (or at least discussed) in "Renn, D.F., "The Avranches Traverse at Dover Castle", Archaeologia Cantiana v.84 (1969), p. 79-92". If anyone can email me a copy then I would be very grateful!: jorolat AT gmail.com