White Tower; Plan of Second Floor
White Tower; St John’s Chapel
The tower is divided internally into two parts by a longitudinal wall, east of the centre, 10 feet thick.[174] Thus in the basement there is a large western chamber, 91 by 35 feet, and on every floor above there is a corresponding room, the dimensions of which increase with the thinning of the outer walls to a maximum of 95 by 40 feet. The eastern chamber, however, is divided into two parts by a cross-wall, considerably to the south of the centre. There is thus in the basement and each floor an oblong north-eastern chamber, into which access is obtained from the main well-stair. In the basement there is a doorway in the longitudinal wall between this and the western chamber; but, on each of the upper floors, the communication is maintained by five openings in the wall. Apart from the recesses of the loops, and the mural lobbies which lead to the vices in the turrets, there are only two mural passages, one in the first and one in the second stage, communicating with garde-robes; but the wall of the third floor is pierced all round by a gallery, with a barrel vault, in the thickness of the wall, which communicates at either end with the broad gallery above the aisles of St John’s chapel.
Tower of London; St John’s Chapel
Christchurch
The south-eastern quarter of the tower contains, in the basement, the sub-crypt of the chapel, known in later days as “Little Ease.” On the first floor is the upper crypt, which, as well as the sub-crypt, has a barrel vault, and ends in an apse. The second floor is the ground-floor of the chapel and its aisle or ambulatory, which is divided from the nave by plain round-headed arches springing from cylindrical columns with capitals, those of the eastern columns famous for the Tau-shaped plaques left uncarved between their volutes, those of the western columns scalloped ([122]). The nave of the chapel rises through the third floor to the barrel vault. The aisles have groined cross-vaults: the gallery above them on the third floor is covered by a half barrel vault. This gallery, as before mentioned, is connected in its north and west walls with the mural gallery of the main chambers. The ground floor of the chapel communicated with the north-eastern chamber through a doorway in the cross-wall; but the main entrance was through a short mural lobby from the western chamber, which led into the west end of the south aisle. At a late date a vice was made in the thickness of the wall from this lobby to a doorway in the basement, by which access was obtained to the chapel from the later domestic buildings adjoining the south side of the tower.