Near to Bell Tower is an original mural chamber, probably a garderobe, lighted by a recess and loop. This recess shows the original wall, about 7 feet thick; and an interior addition of 3 feet more. The original recess has an acute, and the addition a drop arch. The one may be early English, and the other of Decorated date. Above this the full thickness of the wall is seen in the great modern window, cut through it, in the constable’s lodging.
Bell Tower is so called from the alarm bell once suspended from its summit. The bell now discharges the less exciting duty of summoning the garrison to St. Peter’s Church, and the bell turret has been replaced by a gazebo. The tower caps the south-west angle of the ward, and stands 40 feet within the Byward Gate, which it commands. It is in plan an irregular octagon, about 35 feet mean diameter, and 60 feet high, from the level of the outer ward. Five and a half of its sides project beyond the curtains. Above, the angles are rudely rounded off, and the upper 20 feet is cylindrical, and may be an early addition. The two southern faces have a chamfered plinth, 6 feet high. The walls have been stuck over with chips of flint, and the parapet is a brick addition; but it is evident that the basement was originally of fine jointed ashlar, almost equal to Wakefield. Five cruciform loops mark the line of the interior basement, about 14 feet above the exterior ground.
BELL TOWER.—FIRST FLOOR.
The lower 10 feet of this tower is solid, and above this are two stages. The basement, now a cellar and boot-hole, is of irregular plan, and may be called a rectangular figure with inclined ends. The walls are from 9 feet to 13 feet thick, and contain four pointed arched recesses with loops, and a mural chamber, also looped. The entrance passage from the gorge is bent at right angles.
This chamber is vaulted and ribbed, its outer end terminating in a rude pentagon, traversed by five hip-ribs, of plain rectangular section, and meeting by a high-pitched arch, in a central boss. This boss and the capitals whence spring three of the ribs are of early English character. The shafts are wanting.
The upper chamber is rudely circular, and about 18 feet across. The walls are 8 feet thick. From the well-stair, which commences at this level, a short passage opens into a rectangular lobby, also vaulted, 4 feet by 5 feet 6 inches, from which a door leads into the chamber, and another into a small flag-roofed mural gallery, which threads the south wall for 22 feet, and has two loops, one raking the south curtain, the other lighting a garderobe, which seems to have another opening direct into the tower.
The main chamber was lighted by four loops, of which two have been converted into windows, and two stopped up. These recesses are of irregular breadth, with high drop arches, the crowns 10 feet 3 inches from the ground, with traces of a broad moulding above each. The north loop rakes the west curtain, and has cupboards right and left under flat drop arches for archers’ tools. Another has a lateral squint towards the south, and another, with a hole in its arch, widened by the rubbing of the old bell-rope, has evidently been used as a doorway. No doubt it opened upon the gatehouse, now removed, which crossed the outer ward at this point, close north of the Byward gate. This chamber is rudely domed in with overhanging courses of tile stone and flat rubble, like an ancient dovecote. No doubt a proper vault was intended. To the spring of the dome is 14 feet, to its crown 22 feet.
It was in this chamber that, in 1830, was discovered an inscription commemorating the imprisonment here, 20th June, 1565, of Lady Mary Douglas, Countess of Lennox, on account of the marriage of her son, Lord Darnley, to the Queen of Scots.
The well-stair ascends from this floor to the battlements; and at its foot a narrow door, set in a square recess, opens upon the rampart wall of the west curtain, leading to the Beauchamp Tower. The Bell Tower has been the subject of an interesting paper by the Rev. Thomas Hugo, read in Suffolk Street, in 1858. It may safely be attributed to the reign of John, or even of Richard I., that is, to the last twenty years of the twelfth century.