Documented Dikers
In 1943 the surviving pages of the castle’s building accounts were transcribed and translated from Latin. While the accounts are not complete, the pipe roll for the year 1434-35 does detail the new ditchwork undertaken, the men undertaking these tasks and their total pay over the year. Mathew Diker or Dyker and his staff (Diker meaning a man who digs dikes, ditches or foundation trenches) were paid for altering the existing moats and digging new sections. The ditchworks involved “scouring and emptying the water of the ditches round the said castle,” i.e. the original inner moat, for digging new stretches of ditch linking the river to the castle “hired to make anew 36 rods of ditch, beginning at the river Bain and descending in a straight line through the midst of Tateshale market as far as a certain temporary gate called le Baryate…and so descending as far as the east end of another ditch called le Newdike,”and for digging a second moat at the castle “a new ditch called le Wardike (i.e. Ward Dike) on the west side.” The work also included planting hedges and embedding bundles of sticks called “hegyng kiddes” (Hedging kids) to stabilise and protect the banks. The total payment in 1434-5 for all this ditchwork was £44-19s.-5d. Mathew is still recorded as being on site digging foundations five years later.
Am I seeing double?
Unlike the typical layout of contemporary fortified manor houses, Lord Cromwell’s castle was surrounded by an unusual double moat, joined together by a small link-moat. This arrangement not only isolates the Inner Ward, where the Great Tower sits, separating the Lord from the outside world but also creates two other secluded islands– the Middle and Outer Wards. In order to progress through the castle you would have to pass through three gatehouses (two new brick gatehouses and a thirteenth century stone gatehouse) with lifting drawbridges.