The outer and inner casing of the wall would be of dressed stone, the
middle part was chiefly rubble. At first, if they had plenty of
supplies, a very few men could hold a castle against an army as long
as they liked. These were the castles built by the Norman invaders
to retain their hold over the Welsh districts they conquered.
But many ways of storming a castle were discovered. They could be
scaled by means of tall ladders, especially in a stealthy night
attack. Stones could be thrown over the walls by mangonels to annoy
the garrison. Sometimes a wall could be brought down by a battering-
ram. But the quickest and surest way was by mining. The miners
worked their way to the wall, and then began to take some of the
stones of the outer casing out, propping the wall up with beams of
wood. When the hole was big enough, they filled it with firewood;
they greased the beams well, they set fire to them and then retired
to a safe distance to see what happened. When the great wall crashed
down, the soldiers swarmed over it to beat down the resistance of the
garrison. If ever you go to Abergavenny Castle, in the Vale of Usk,
look at the cleft in the rock along which the daring besiegers once
climbed.
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