The floors of these keeps are almost always of timber; thick rough planks, resting upon stout balks 12 inches or 14 inches square, placed about 2 feet or 3 feet apart, and resting either on a ledge or in regular joist-holes. Such floors exposed the keep to be burned, and once well on fire it would certainly burn till it was gutted. The basement is now and then vaulted, but the vaulting is very rarely original, and when it is so the keep is late. The vaulting at the Tower and at Dover is modern brickwork; the Ludlow vault seems Early English; that at the lower part of Carlisle, that of Porchester, Brougham, Bowes, and Richmond, Decorated; the vaulting at Middleham, Newcastle, and Mitford may be original. The vaulting at Norham, a late keep, may be original, but was more probably inserted at an early period by Bishop Puisèt. That of Bamburgh is an insertion. The basement of Bowes was vaulted, but what remains of one rib is either Decorated or later. In a few examples where guns have been mounted on a Norman keep, a brick vault has been sprung over the upper chamber, and the roof filled up and paved. At Dover, Carlisle, and Newcastle, where this has been done, the upper openings of the hall are closed, and the interior of the fabric utterly disfigured. There is certainly no original vaulting of a great chamber higher than the basement.
In most keeps there is a well-stair in one angle, which commences at the ground-level, supplies every floor, and terminates on the roof under the turret-head, but has no communication below with the exterior. This was so originally at the White Tower. There are also other staircases at other levels, beginning on the first, or even the second, floor, and not always reaching the roof. As a rule, one stair, descending to the storeroom, seems to have been enough; but it was thought an advantage to have two or three ascending from the hall or upper floor to the ramparts, for readiness during a siege. At Canterbury there are also two well-staircases in the side walls; and there is one in London. These well-staircases are from 8 feet to 12 feet in diameter, and lighted with loops. Usually they communicate with each floor through a sort of lobby. The stairs are always of stone. As the steps at each angle do not suit the same level of the mural gallery, these latter are coaxed and accommodated, usually very clumsily. Now and then the arrangement is different, the stair stops at the first floor, and is continued at the opposite diagonal. Sometimes, as at Carlisle, Ludlow, and Bamburgh, where the outer door is at the ground-level, the staircase commences in the side of the doorway, and ascends straight in the wall, and, on reaching the next angle proceeds as a well-stair. This is so at Chepstow, where the upper ascent is probably an addition. At Carlisle and Ludlow the staircase stops at the first floor, and is continued at another angle. At Brough, where the outer door is on the first floor, a narrow straight stair rises in the wall to the second. At Prudhoe, it is continued round two sides, and at Richmond. The direction of the staircases may be always detected by the position of the exterior loops, and the general rule seems to be to limit the approach to the stores and main floor, and from the latter to give a free access to the ramparts. The curves and angles in those narrow staircases facilitated the defence of them.
The immense thickness of the walls is usually taken advantage of for the formation of mural chambers. These are rectangular, and sometimes placed in an angle, and ∟-shaped. They are vaulted, usually in a plain barrel, or equally plain groining, lighted by external loops, and now and then, though very rarely, have, as at Bowes, a fireplace. In breadth they vary from 4 feet to 6 feet, and they are of all lengths. Usually they are more abundant and larger, in the main and upper floors. They were intended for sleeping-rooms, garderobes, oratories, and well-chambers. At Guildford is a very remarkable oratory, at the first-floor level, ∟-shaped, with a mural arcade. At Brougham the oratory is on the upper floor. At Rochester and Dover the upper gallery does not run all round; and in the latter ends in a prison cell. Some keeps, even with thick walls, contain but few chambers. The two remaining sides of Norham, a late keep, have none, or, at most, one. Dover, also late, is honeycombed with chambers at every level, and even the cross-wall above is threaded by a gallery, a singular example. Newcastle, built in 1080, has very many chambers. Where there are garderobes they have stone seats, and the vent is usually a vertical shaft in the wall, though sometimes there is a shoot upon the exterior surface of it, or, though more rarely, it is corbelled out. At Kenilworth, a fine but late keep, one angle contained a well-stair, and the three others chambers. They are turrets from the ground, and in size larger than usual. They are floored with timber. One angle turret seems to have been wholly occupied by garderobes, and the lower part, at present filled with light soil, was evidently a large cesspool. At Corfe a very large garderobe tower,—perhaps a Norman addition,—is appended to one side of the keep.
Most keeps, even early ones, contain fireplaces. One has been discovered in the Tower, long supposed to be without them. At Dover they are in the cross-wall; at Rochester, where they are very handsome, in the sides. Usually the funnel ascends in the wall; at Rochester and Colchester it forks, and the two flues open a little way up on the face of the wall, concealed in the hollow angle of a pilaster. It is not easy to tell whether a flue is original when the fittings of the fireplace have been inserted; thus, in the Tower closets, where the fireplaces are Tudor, there are no marks in the wall as though it had been cut into to construct a flue, so these may represent original fireplaces, though this is not probable. No doubt open hearths were much used, and fireplaces of iron with flues of wood and plaster, which would leave no trace when removed. The fireplaces in the mural chambers at Dover seem all to be of Tudor date. No fireplace has been discovered in Richmond keep; there is an original one in a mural chamber at Bowes.
These keeps, built mainly for security, have but few external openings, and those rarely of any size. Sometimes the narrowest part of the loop is in the centre of the wall, with a splay each way, having the section of an hour-glass. This is seen at Kenilworth and Porchester, late keeps. The arrangement seems a bad one, much aiding the entrance of an arrow. The larger windows, sometimes of 3 ft. or 4 ft. opening, were closed with shutters.
A well was an important accessory to a Norman keep. In Dover there are two—one being in the forebuilding. Sometimes, as at Bamburgh and Castle Rising, its mouth is at the ground level. More frequently its pipe is contained within the wall, and opens into a special well-chamber, as at Dover, Newcastle, and Kenilworth. At Carlisle it is in the wall, and was reached by an internal lateral opening, now converted into an external one. At Rochester it is in the cross-wall; the pipe there ascends to the summit, and has an opening at each floor, and there are traces of some such arrangement at Canterbury. At Porchester the well occupies one angle of the wall, and opens on each floor. At Colchester the well, long closed, has been discovered. It is in the basement, near the entrance. At Hedingham there is known to be a well, but its place is lost. At Bamburgh, one of the most remarkable wells in the country, carried down 145 ft. in whin rock, was only discovered in the last century. At Richmond a hollow octagonal pier, carrying the vault, has been built exactly over the well, which is reached through it. At Arques, in Normandy, where the well is near one angle, a pipe has been built over it, raising the mouth to the first floor. At Bowes, Brough, Brougham, Guildford, Castleton, and Corfe, no well has been discovered, and it is only very recently that one has been laid open in the White Tower, in London.
Great pains were usually taken to cover the entrances of these keeps by a forebuilding, the details of which have been but little studied. Upon one side of the keep, but a part of its structure, was placed a smaller tower, also rectangular, of the length—that is, covering one side—and about one third of the breadth, of the keep, and two thirds of its height. At one end, at the ground level, commenced a straight staircase which rose to near the other end when it stopped at a landing which was the vestibule of the actual entrance to the keep. Above the lowest part of the staircase was a low tower and a strong doorway. Halfway up the staircase was often a second doorway, and sometimes, as at Dover, a second tower. Over the landing at the stair-head was a larger and taller tower, also with a strong doorway. Outside this doorway the staircase was often broken by a drawbridge, as at Rochester. The staircase was not always covered over, but was protected by an exterior parapet of some height, as at Berkeley, where the shell keep has a forebuilding, a very unusual example. The battlements of the lower or entrance tower were reached by a little door in the adjacent angle of the keep high up. This is seen at Rochester, and at Middleham and Brougham, where the tower itself is removed. In the keep-wall by the side of the staircase was often a recess for the guard, as at Middleham. The bridge-pit had an exterior parapet concealing those who used the bridge. At Castle Rising where the middle gate is perfect, its battlements are reached by a small door from the keep.
The vestibule at the stair-head was usually a good-sized chamber, often vaulted. In it was the main doorway of the keep, of not less than 6 feet opening, with flanking shafts and moulded architrave. At Castle Rising this ante-chamber is arcaded, and very handsome; at Rochester it is plain, or nearly so. At Dover it contains a guard-chamber, at Newcastle and at Middleham a chapel. The basement below the vestibule was usually a prison, and had a small door into the corresponding basement of the keep. At Rochester are two floors below the vestibule and two above it. The forebuilding is perfect only at Castle Rising, Norwich, Dover, and Newcastle; there are large remains of it at Rochester, Porchester, and Middleham, and some at Hedingham, Corfe, and Kenilworth. At Scarborough, Brougham, Bramber, Canterbury, and Helmsley there are traces only. At Dover there are vaults below the staircase and lower tower, above which is a vestibule and a chapel, and in the first or upper floor a second chapel. Sometimes there is a way from the foot of the staircase of the forebuilding into the basement of the keep, but probably this is not original. It is seen at Dover, Newcastle, and Castle Rising. The White Tower has been so pulled about that it is difficult to say how it was originally entered. The forebuilding is essentially a Norman appendage, and, with the exception of Berkeley, and, perhaps, Chilham and Orford, confined to keeps of the rectangular pattern. It has been supposed to mark a late keep, but there is a forebuilding at Arques usually regarded as a very early one.
In the smaller keeps, and some few of the larger ones, there is no forebuilding, and the entrance is by a plain arch, as at Clitheroe, Goderich, Bowes, Guildford, and Malling. This entrance was on the first floor. In the latter case it is, indeed, in the basement, but nevertheless 10 feet above the ground level. The approach in these cases seems to have been by an external staircase of timber. At Chepstow, Carlisle, Bamburgh, and Ludlow, the entrance was by a single doorway at the ground level. In almost all the larger keeps it has been found convenient—probably when they ceased to be used solely as military buildings—to have a large direct entrance at the ground level. Such have been made at London, Rochester, Norham, Kenilworth, Porchester, Guildford, Clitheroe, Hedingham, Colchester, Goderich, Canterbury, Brough, and Malling, and probably Chepstow. Some of these are evidently insertions, taking the place of a loop; others seem to have been original doors opening from the basement of the keep into that of the forebuilding, made external on its destruction, as at Corfe and, perhaps, Kenilworth. At Richmond the removal of the forebuilding has laid open a large Norman arch in the basement which opened into it. Besides these main doors, Ludlow has two doors opening from the keep upon the ramparts of the curtain; and at Rochester is a small door whence probably a plank drawbridge, six feet or eight feet long, dropped upon the adjacent curtain. There is something like this at Helmsley, and in the Norman keep of Adare, in Ireland.
Most keeps contain an oratory; some a regular chapel. Dover is peculiar in having two, both in the forebuilding, in its lower tower. Newcastle has one in its forebuilding, under the staircase and upper tower. Middleham has the remains of a very handsome one at the head of the outer staircase. At Rochester the chapel seems to have been in the forebuilding, high up, beneath the kitchen. At Castle Rising it is on the first floor of the keep, at one end of one of the large rooms. At Guildford and Brougham it was in the wall. The finest and earliest castle-chapel in England is that in the White Tower. It is large, has a nave, aisles, and semi-circular apse, all vaulted. This chapel occupies two stories, and below it are two floors of vaulted crypts, intended for prisons. The chapel at Colchester, though smaller and ruder, resembles in position that in the White Tower.