This tower has two, and had three, stages. The basement, the floor of which is upon the ground level, contains an octagon chamber, 23 feet from face to face, with walls 13 feet 6 inches thick. In each face is a recess, 6 feet broad, having a semicircular head, the edge of which has a double chamfer, with an angular recess between. The northern and the three southern recesses are 8 feet deep, and have a flat end also 6 feet across, so that there is no splay. In the end is an opening, round-headed, and about 4 feet across, which contracts rapidly to a loophole. The north-east and north-west recesses are 7 feet and 6 feet deep, and are blank, without loops. The west recess is only 2 feet 6 inches deep, and was probably closed when the Bloody Tower was built. The eastern recess is the present entrance, but the curtain must have abutted on this side, so that it is not improbable that the original entrance was in the north-eastern recess. The chamber is, however, so dark, and the recesses so obscured and encumbered by stores and brick walls, that it is difficult to examine them minutely.
BLOODY AND WAKEFIELD TOWERS.—BASEMENT.
The chamber is 10 feet high. It has a flat timber covering, which, if not original, is very old, and may well represent the original. Probably it actually dates from the rebuilding of the upper story, in the reign of Henry III. In the centre of the chamber, upon a plain stone cheese-like base, is set up an oak post, 18 inches square, with the angles taken off. Upon this rest two beams, 11 inches square, at right angles, crossing the chamber east and west, and north and south. Parallel to the former, 2 feet from it on each side, are two other similar beams also crossing the chamber. There are, therefore, left outside these beams, and divided by the north and south beam, four quadrants, and these are filled up each with five beams, also 11 inches square, which radiate fan-like towards the walls, where all seem to have rested upon a stone ledge or wall-plate. The radiating beams are mortised into the main beams. All this work is original. These timbers have rotted at the wall ends, and to support them, and the load of records above them, two octagonal frames have been placed beneath, one close to the wall, and one half-way between the walls and the central post, and these are supported each by eight props, so that the interior of the chamber is disfigured by a regular forest of seventeen posts. East of this tower the foundation of the old curtain has been laid open.
Since these lines were written, all this timber work has been swept away, and the tower has been converted into the jewel office. On the north-east side of the tower is a later well-stair, 6 feet 6 inches diameter, which ascends to the first floor and the battlements.
This upper or first floor, also an octagon chamber, is of 30 feet diameter, and has a recess in seven of its eight faces. Of these three to the south, and that to the north-west, terminate in modern enlargements of the old windows, as does that of the west, of which the opening is skewed, to avoid the Bloody Tower. In the north face is a fireplace, probably representing an original one. The north-east recess is closed at 4 feet deep, and that to the east is occupied by two openings; one, the present door, evidently not original; close north of which, beneath a drop arch, is the original entrance from the palace, 5 feet 5 inches broad, and at 2 feet 6 inches deep reduced to 4 feet broad, where it forms a lofty doorway, now closed. These recesses have each a drop arch, supported by a plain chamfered rib.
The south-east recess was intended for an oratory, and its sides are produced inwards by two walls, buttressed in tabernacle work at their west ends, and connected above by a bold plain drop arch, rather light, and flatter than the rest. This no doubt is the chapel mentioned in 1238. It is possible that the recess to the north-east was the royal door, and that the narrow eastern opening led to the stair and to the rampart of the curtain.
The south recess also differs from the rest, in having within it a second rib, of 3 feet opening, as though above a doorway, and the opening is twisted to bring it opposite to the door of St. Thomas’s Tower, between which openings, 18 feet apart, there was evidently either a cross-wall or a light bridge, giving a short cut from the palace to the ramparts of the water-gate.
The intention was to vault this chamber, and in each angle is a semi-octagon pier, with a rude base, and without a cap. The total height of the ceiling, now flat, is 25 feet, so that the vault was to have had a high pitch with eight cells. It is clear that this never was executed.
This tower has now undergone complete restoration, all the interior fittings have been cleared out, the masonry laid bare, and the two floors vaulted, and the bridge suggested as having led to St. Thomas’s Tower has been actually built.