Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)

by George Thomas Clark

Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.

The door opens into a lobby or entrance passage 12 feet broad by 36 feet long. The right-hand wall is an open arcade, modern, but probably representing an older wall, shutting off the well-chamber. The south end is now open, but was crossed by a wall 10 feet thick, which no doubt contained the inner door leading into the great ground-floor chamber. On the left is first the door of the great staircase, then a niche 8 feet broad and 9 feet high and 7 feet deep, and semi-domed. A short passage, vaulted and groined, leads into the great staircase, a cylinder 16 feet diameter, with a newel of 2 feet. It has loops to the south and west, and forty-seven steps lead to the present summit. At the twenty-third step a passage with three steps branches off to the first floor.

The well-chamber, 15 feet by 26 feet, contains the well, now closed by a pump. It is 5 feet diameter and 65 feet deep, and was lined with ashlar, of which the upper part has been stripped off. The well was discovered in the last century. It is said that in it was observed a lateral culvert, intended as a waste-pipe to carry off any overflow that might otherwise injure the foundations. In the south wall was a recess 8 feet broad and 7 feet deep, round-headed and semi-domed, now a window. Probably the buckets stood in it. Here also a modern stair descends to the vaults. The well-chamber is not vaulted. Next east, separated by a wall 9 feet thick, is the prison; this is a barrel-vaulted chamber 15 feet by 30 feet, entered from the middle compartment by a doorway of 3 feet opening; it supports the ante-chapel. East again of this vault a wall, 13 feet thick, divides it from the crypt. The western part of the crypt, the cross limb of the T, is rectangular, 14 feet by 28 feet, vaulted and groined, and entered from the eastern compartment; it has a loop in its south wall. The stem of the T is the crypt proper, 31 feet long by 14 feet broad and 14 feet high to the crown of its barrel vault. Its east end is semicircular and semi-domed. A loop in the centre of the apse has been converted into a window. In this crypt is said to be a drain falling southwards towards the river. This completes the account of the ground floor.

From the staircase a door opens into the lobby above the entrance passage, and which was probably of the same size. At present the east and north walls are modern. The south end of this lobby is occupied by a flat-sided and flat-backed recess, 10 feet broad, 10 feet deep, and about 12 feet high, which has a chink or chase in its floor for the passage of the portcullis. As the recess is wider than the grate there are no lateral grooves. Above is a cavity where was inserted the ring or hook whence the grate was suspended. On the left of the staircase door is a smaller door, which opens into a garderobe which shares the turret with the staircase. It is 15 feet 6 inches long by 10 feet 4 inches broad, barrel-vaulted, with loops to the west and north, and beneath each a seat and a shoot in the wall. The loops have been enlarged into windows, and the chamber is used as a record-room. Outside, in the north wall of the turret, close to its junction with the curtain, is a bold deep bracket, composed of seven stones and a tile, at the top projecting about a foot, which may have supported the shaft of a garderobe from the battlements, or may have been connected with some sort of bretasche or timber erection. Its use is not clear. The east wall of the lobby divides it from the modern library, which stands over the ancient ante-chapel, and was probably the principal private apartment in the keep. It had three recesses, no doubt with loops, in its south walls. Two are now windows, and one a fireplace. Outside this chamber, to the north, is a modern corridor, the space of which was apparently a part of the ante-chapel. In its east wall is a round-backed niche 10 feet broad, through which a passage has been broken, most injudiciously, into the chapel. From the ante-chapel a lofty round-headed doorway opened into the west end of the chapel.

The chapel is composed of a nave and apse, and of four lateral recesses or side chapels. It is in length 45 feet and in breadth 15 feet, and 17 feet 6 inches high to the crown of its barrel vault. The apse is semicircular and semi-domed, of the same height with the nave. The westernmost pair of recesses are 14 feet wide and 12 feet deep, with semi-domed ends. The eastern pair are 11 feet wide and 11 feet and 14 feet deep, and both semi-domed. In the east wall of the south recess is a niche as for a side altar. The lateral vaults are accommodated to the main vault. The groins or lines of intersection are plain. The apse has a central recess, now a window, and two lateral smaller recesses with loops, unaltered. As the walls are everywhere very thick and the five original apertures could not have exceeded eight inches, the chapel must have been more than usually dark. It contains no ornamentation of any kind, not even an abacus or plinth. The masonry appears to be rubble of a very ordinary character. It is thickly plastered. This is a very curious and rare example of a castle chapel.

The first floor, north of the chapel and the entrance lobby, is divided into a larger west and a smaller east chamber. The eastern chamber is 21 feet by 88 feet, the western 61 feet by 100 feet, the increase of size over the lower area being due to a slight reduction in the thickness of the walls.

The eastern chamber is entered from the western by a doorway in the dividing wall. In its north end is a loop, in its east wall two fireplaces; north of the one are two loops and one south of the other; between them is a fourth loop and a mural garderobe. This chamber, 3 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 3 inches, has an eastern recess 3 feet wide, and in it a small loop beneath which is the seat, and a shoot opening in the wall. There are two doors opening from the main chamber 3 feet 3 inches apart. It is probable that the chamber was divided by a partition of wood, so that there was a fireplace in each room, and the garderobe was common to the two, with a door opening from each. The north-east turret here contains a vaulted chamber, 13 feet by 10 feet and 16 feet high. It has one loop to the north and two to the east, now broken into one. In the west wall is an indication either of a fireplace never completed, or of one walled up. This was probably a bedchamber.

The western chamber may possibly have been subdivided, like the lower floor, by a wall raised upon that now removed; and an unequal space between the loops in its north wall favours this view. More probably, however, the wall was not so raised, and the irregular space may be caused by a wish to keep the loops clear of the external pilaster. The chamber, supposing it to have been of the full breadth, had four loops in the north wall, and in the west wall two fireplaces, having two loops between and two beyond each, six in all. The fireplaces are spacious, round-headed, with rounded backs set with tiles on edge in herring-bone pattern. They stand in a broad pilaster of a foot projection, and are quite plain. They are of tile, of one pattern throughout, and at a height of about 14 feet the flue is stopped, and divides into two branches which open in the face of the wall, one on each side of the pilaster, in the hollow angle, as at Rochester and in the Tower of London. These fireplaces do not seem to have had any hood. Over one of them is a sort of weather moulding of tile, which looks as though part of a hood, such as is still seen over the west door of St. Botolph’s Church. There is, however, a second fragment on the jamb of the fireplace, which could not be part of a hood. These are probably the remains of the weather mouldings of the roofs of cottages built within the area of the keep after the whole was gutted and laid open. The loops of this floor, like those below, are of one pattern. A recess, 7 feet wide, flat-sided and round-headed, commences at the floor-level and rises about 14 feet. At a depth of 3 feet 6 inches is a rebate or reveal, from which commences a splayed recess, ending in a loop eight inches wide.

In the north wall, at its west end, is a plain doorway, and a recess corresponding to a doorway in the outside of the wall, which opened upon the shelf already mentioned, as in the east face of the north-west turret. This shoulder formed a landing, 6 feet by 8 feet, whence a staircase descended by a face of the wall to the ground. The walls show where the staircase was let into it by the discontinuance of the regular coursing, but this also shows the staircase to have been an afterthought. The original staircase was probably of wood. The door has evidently been walled up from an early period. In the west side of this doorway is a smaller lateral doorway opening into a groined lobby, which leads into a staircase and a garderobe, which occupy the north-west turret. The garderobe is 7 feet by 2 feet, with a loop to the east and the seat and drain to the west, and in the north wall a recess as for a lamp. A few feet south of the seat and its shoot a second shoot is seen in the outer wall. This probably belonged to a garderobe in the battlements, now gone. The staircase is a well, 6 feet diameter, of which twenty-four steps remain. It evidently led from the first-floor level to the summit. The fragment of the turret seems to show that the original height of the wall was about 32 to 36 feet. This and the main staircase are cut short by the removal of the upper 5 feet or 6 feet of the wall. They open upon the present top of the wall, which has been levelled, and a slight battlement and rear wall built to make the walk safe. There does not seem to have been a second floor.