Stokesay
Manorbier Castle; Outer stair to Chapel
Manorbier castle contains an interesting example of the enlargement of domestic buildings, with a solar block at either end of the hall. The castle stands on rising ground in a deep valley, about half a mile from the sea. The inner ward or castle proper is surrounded by a curtain, with a gatehouse in the east wall. The dwelling-house is upon the west side of the ward, at the end opposite the main entrance, and consists of two distinct portions. The earlier consists of a first-floor hall and great chamber above cellars. There was a floor above the great chamber, probably forming a bower for the ladies of the household, the hall corresponding in height to these two upper stages. The present entrance to the hall is in the side wall at the end next the great chamber, and was probably made, with the outer stair against the wall, in the thirteenth century. The hall itself with its adjacent buildings appears to be originally of the later part of the twelfth century: the cellars below have semicircular barrel vaults. In the second half of the thirteenth century a new block of buildings was made at the opposite or south end of the hall. It was now probably that the new entrance was made. The position of the daïs seems to have been reversed, and a window in the south end-wall of the hall blocked by a fireplace. Behind this wall, and entered by a doorway in its west end, was the new great chamber, a long, narrow building, with its principal axis at right angles to that of the hall, and with a floor above. At each end of the south wall of this apartment is a passage. That at the west end passes along the line of the curtain to a garde-robe tower which projects at the south-west angle of the castle: the passage is still roofed with flat slabs on continuous corbelling, and is well lighted by loops in the curtain. The other passage, at the south-east corner of the great chamber, forms a lobby to a large chapel, which was built across the south-west angle of the ward, so that a small triangular yard was left between it and the curtain. There is a separate outer stair to the chapel ([208]), placed, like the stair to the hall, at right angles to the wall. The whole group of buildings, with its two outer stairs, is unexcelled for picturesqueness in any castle.
The kitchen at Manorbier was placed, at any rate when the thirteenth-century alterations were undertaken (probably about 1260), at right angles to the hall and older great chamber, against the north curtain. Owing to the confinement of the space within the curtain, and the growing necessity of private accommodation, the position of the kitchen was not fixed so regularly in the castle as in the ordinary dwelling-house. At Berkeley ([186]), where the hall was built against the east curtain of the inner ward, the kitchen is a polygonal building, divided from the screens by a buttery, and occupying a more or less normal place in the plan. At Warkworth ([49]), as we have noticed, the kitchen is in its proper place, near the entrance end of the hall, but may have been at first a separate structure. The original position of the kitchen at Cardiff ([191]) seems to have conformed to this plan. The desirability of placing the kitchen within easy reach of the hall is obvious. At Kenilworth, where the magnificent hall, built towards the end of the fourteenth century, occupies the whole north side of the inner ward, and is on a first floor above a vaulted cellar, the private apartments formed a wing against the west curtain of the ward, while the kitchen was against the east curtain, and was within easy reach of the stair to the hall, and the passage below it which led into the cellar. The kitchen at Ludlow ([106]) was a separate building, opposite the entrance to the hall and the western solar block, and placed against the north outer wall of the small courtyard which covers the keep. In the two great Edwardian castles of Conway and Carnarvon, where the halls were large and the space limited, the kitchens were built against the curtain opposite the hall.[241]
The chapel was also a variable factor in the plan. It has already been remarked that, in some early castles, the chapel was a collegiate church, standing separately within the precincts of the castle, and sometimes, as at Hastings, filling up, with the houses of the dean and canons or their deputies, a very considerable part of the enclosure. Indeed, nearly all the ruins left within the curtain at Hastings are those of the large cruciform church and the buildings in connection with it. At Ludlow the Norman chapel was a detached building in the inner ward ([106]). This was the private chapel of the lord of the castle, and in the sixteenth century was joined by a gallery to the block of buildings at the east end of the hall: the nave was then divided into two floors, so that the first floor formed a private gallery or solar, while the household used the ground-floor. This method of division of the west end of the chapel into two floors is very usual: it was employed twice at Warkworth, both in the chapel attached to the domestic buildings already described, and in the chapel of the later tower-house on the mount. It may also be seen in the chapel at Berkeley, and in many manor-houses, as at Compton Wyniates. At Ludlow we have noticed that there was a second chapel for the garrison in the outer ward, built in the fourteenth century: with this the arrangement at the Tower of London may be compared, where the royal chapel of St John is in the White tower, but the garrison chapel of St Peter was built on the north side of the inner ward. The chapel at Kenilworth was against the south wall of the outer ward. There was a chapel on the south side of the inner ward at Alnwick. As a rule, however, only one chapel would be provided. The chapels found in tower-keeps have already been discussed: with the exception of Newcastle and Old Sarum, they were, as a rule, private chapels or mere oratories.
In later castles, two considerations determined the planning of the chapel. It was placed so that the altar should be as nearly as possible against the east wall, and so that there should be direct access from the private apartments to the gallery at the west end. These conditions are met both in the earlier and later chapels at Warkworth: they can be traced in the plan of Bodiam and other late medieval castles. At Berkeley ([186]) where the solar block was at right angles to the hall, against the south, or, more correctly, the south-west curtain, the chapel fills the angle between the buildings, and the entrance is masked by a vestibule from which a vice led to the private apartments. The altar is placed rather north of east, against the wall at the back of the hall daïs, and the gallery at the opposite end was entered from the great chamber. The main axis of the chapel is at an obtuse angle to that of the hall, and a vestry was made in the south-east corner, where the wall dividing it from the hall is thickest. In the plan of the great Welsh castles of the later part of the thirteenth century the chapel was usually in close connection with the domestic buildings. At Conway, where there is also a beautiful oratory, with a vaulted chancel, on the first floor of the north-east tower, the chapel was formed by screening off the eastern portion of the great hall. At Harlech the chapel was built against the north curtain, the solar block probably occupying the angle between chapel and hall. The chapel at Kidwelly was in the two upper stages of the south-east tower of the inner ward, and was in close communication with the hall and the apartments adjoining it. The position of the beautiful little chapel at Beaumaris is somewhat isolated, on the first floor of the tower in the middle of the east curtain of the inner ward. The only communication with the hall block on the north side of the court was through a long and narrow passage in the thickness of the curtain; and the chapel is too small to have served for the devotions of a large garrison. It was so arranged, however, that, if the entrance to the tower were left open, the service might be followed by worshippers in the bailey below. Ample room, however, was given to the congregation in most cases: the first-floor chapel at Manorbier is a chamber of considerable size. It has a pointed barrel-vault and stands above a cellar, which also has a pointed barrel-vault and contains a fireplace. The fashion of founding collegiate establishments in castles did not cease until the end of the middle ages. The chapel—the third within the castle—which was begun during the fifteenth century at Warkworth bears witness to an intention of this kind on the part of one of the earls of Northumberland; but the actual details of the proposed foundation are not known, and probably were never placed on paper.