The eastern recess now shows the oratory. The original window was narrow and drop pointed. On the wall are traces of fresco painting. There is also a piscina and a locker, and on each side a recess as for a sedile. That in the north wall has been cut as though for a doorway. The original door to this floor seems to have been in the north-east side.
There was evidently a floor above this. In the exterior wall are some cylindrical holes about 2 feet deep and 2 inches diameter. Their use is not clear. There were gurgoyles below the embrasures of the parapet. It is well to rebuild the bridge to the Water Tower, but to vault the ground-floor would be a mistake. The lower floor covering was always timber, and of a curious pattern. It should be replaced.
The Bloody Tower is the gatehouse of the inner ward. It stands in the south front, west of the centre, opposite to the earlier Traitor’s Gate, and it abuts against the also earlier Wakefield Tower. The exterior face ranges with the curtain. Its position was no doubt determined by the Traitor’s Gate, and by the advantages offered by the flanking defence of Wakefield Tower on the outside, and Cold Harbour Wall on the inside.
It is rectangular or nearly so in plan, 25 feet broad and 38 feet deep, and pierced by a vaulted passage, the axis of which has a twist to the east. It is of three stages, and 47 feet high from the outer gate cill to the parapet, which is modern, and of brick.
The portal, 15 feet wide, opens under a low-browed drop arch, 8 feet high at the spring, and 14 feet at the crown; 3 feet 6 inches within the entrance is a 6-inch portcullis groove, working through the vault in a chase 2 feet 6 inches broad, so as to admit a heavy wooden frame. Then follows a double chamfered gateway, reducing the passage to 11 feet 8 inches. Next is the body of the gatehouse, 21 feet long and vaulted, having a pair of gates at each end, and on the right a porter’s lodge. The inner pair of gates are succeeded by another chamfered gateway of 11 feet opening, and this by a second portcullis, with a chase only 1 foot 4 inches broad, followed by a portal of 15 ft. opening. The passage rises about one foot in ten, and this rise, giving a great advantage to the defenders, is continued to a point opposite to the White Tower, where it ends in a short flight of steps.
The vaulted space occupying the central part of the passage is about 22 feet long by 13 feet broad, and is divided into two not quite equal bays. The vaulting ribs spring from four corner and two intermediate corbels, representing lions’ heads, each supporting an octangular bracket.
Each bay is divided by four main hip ribs into four cells, and along the axis of each cell is a ridge rib, longitudinal and transverse. These cells are subdivided each by a secondary rib, springing also from the six corbels, and, with the ridge rib, dividing each cell into four compartments. Thus, besides the two wall half-ribs, from each intermediate corbel spring seven ribs, and from each angle corbel three ribs.
There are no regular bosses, but at each point of intersection the ribs abut upon an open circle, the centre of which is occupied by a lion’s face, dropped in from above. There are, therefore, three main and eight smaller circles, besides six half-circles at the junction of the ridge and wall-ribs. The ribs and circles, though of one pattern, are of two sizes. All have been clumsily cobbled with Roman cement.
The porter’s lodge, on the east side of the entrance, is a vaulted chamber, 10 feet square, with a window of two lights, no doubt replacing a loop towards the south or front. A door, now closed, on its north side, seems to have led into a staircase to the upper floors. About 4 feet of this lodge is excavated in the thickness of the wall of Wakefield Tower.
The entrance-way, on passing the gatehouse, lies between a retaining wall on the left, or west, and the main guard, which supersedes Cold Harbour wall, on the right. A modern staircase, no doubt representing an old one, ascends in the substance of the west wall, and opens on the parade before the constable’s house, and here also is the entrance to the first floor of the gatehouse.