to the first floor is straight and is carried up in the thickness of the wall. The first floor forms a triangular hall with groined vault of peculiar form, has a fireplace in one angle, and is lighted with small loops. From this floor the staircase is carried up as a wheel in the south angle of the walls. The top floor has a segmental vault which carries the flat stone roof. This is formed of stone flags all overlapped and laid in regular courses, each slightly higher than the others as they rise towards the centre.
FIG. 70. PLANS OF THE KEEP.
The staircase turret stands independently upon this platform, and has a sloping stone roof. The parapet is very perfect, and is, as usual, projected on bold corbels ([Fig. 71]). Owing to the sharp angles of the plan, the inclination of the corbels near the angles towards one another (in order to keep the arches over them as equal as possible) is much greater than usual—more marked than that, for instance, of the corbels at Avignon (above
FIG. 71. CASTLE OF BEAUCAIRE. (Interior of Courtyard.)
referred to, p. 150). The corbels at the angles which are right angles have the usual additional courses in the height. A bold ovolo moulding runs round beneath the corbel-course, the object of which is to keep the inner face of the machicolation well clear of the front of the wall, so that stone balls or other missiles thrown down would run no risk of being diverted from their course by striking any of the projections of the rough-faced masonry with which the tower is built. The parapet is provided with large embrasures, and the merlons or spaces between are pierced with loops of the crossed shape adopted in the fourteenth century.