The basement is of an irregular figure, a sort of polygon of four very unequal sides, with a curved outer end. It is vaulted, and its outward portion has three, and its inward four hip-ribs, plain, chamfered, and 13 inches broad, springing from the wall without pier or corbel, and meeting irregularly in mitred joints at the crown. The wall is about 12 feet thick, and in two of the sides and the curved end are three round-headed recesses of 7 feet 6 inches opening, intended for loops, but now fitted with windows. The ring-stones of these recesses appear original, and much resemble those in Wakefield Tower.
The entrance door from the stairs has a slightly drop arch, and near it another similar but larger door, set in a deep recess, opens into a vault about 22 feet by 16 feet, looped outwards. This vault is a Tudor casemate of brick, but half of it is in the old curtain, and probably old, though lined. As the door is certainly old, this may have been an original mural chamber, or it may have opened on the “terre-plein” before the church vaults were built. The vaulting of the tower is chalk, the ribs and coigns of harder material. Possibly the walls and recesses of this tower are late Norman, of the age of the Wakefield, and the ribs and vaulting early English, or later additions, or, which is more probable, the whole is of one date, Richard I., or John. It is a very curious structure. Bayley says that courses of tiles were seen in the masonry like those found in the adjacent city wall, of the fragments of which it may certainly have been constructed. If the whitewash were removed, and the exposed masonry examined, we should probably learn whether the base of the tower be a part of the ancient enceinte of the fortress, the work of Henry II. or his son.
DEVEREUX TOWER.—BASEMENT.
The survey of 1597 shows two circular turrets at its junction with its curtains, and calls it “Robyn the Devyll’s Tower,” or, later, “Develin Tower.” Its present appellation is derived from Robert Earl of Essex, confined here in 1601. The superstructure is modern.
Flint Tower was taken down in the last century, and rebuilt of brick, and was again rebuilt in stone, a few years ago. In its present form it is a rectangle, 40 feet square, having a slight interior and bold exterior projection, and its outer face is rounded. The survey of 1597 shows the interior projection and the usual flanking turrets, but the whole of the present tower appears new, and even the exterior base is either new or has been cased. In the curtain, close west, is a modern staircase in the wall.
The curtain from Devereux to Flint Tower, 90 feet, though capped with a modern parapet, and casemated within, seems in substance to be old; as does the curtain, also 90 feet, from Flint to Bowyer Tower.
Bowyer Tower caps the salient of 160 degrees which breaks the north front of this ward. It is in plan half-round, flat-sided, of 45 feet diameter, 28 feet projection from the exterior of the curtain, and ranging with its interior face, here thickened by the addition of modern casemates. It had in 1597 one circular turret at its junction with its east curtain. The basement is original, and only altered by the substitution of windows for loops. In plan it is rectangular, with a bow of three faces, in each a recess for a loop, the walls being 10 feet thick. There is also a blank recess in the west wall. The entrance door is in the south side, and close east of it is a smaller door, communicating with a chamber in the east wall. Above the entrance door is a trace of a large closed-up arch in the wall. The arches are all drop pointed. The chamber is vaulted, and from its angles, without piers or corbels, spring four plain, heavy, chamfered hip-ribs, which meet, without boss or ornament, in the crown. They are of the pattern of those in Devereux Tower, and no doubt of rather early Decorated date, and probably of the reign of Edward III.
The upper floor is wholly new, as is the whole casing of the exterior.
Bowyer Tower was, from an early date, the residence and probably workshop of the royal maker of bows. In 1223, Grillot was making “balistas corneas”; and, for his encouragement, he had, in 1224, a robe for his wife. Soon afterwards the Archbishop of York had orders to send up Roger Balistarius, with all his implements, to the Tower, paying his expenses. Bayley gives a good perspective drawing of the interior.