Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)

by George Thomas Clark

The first floor is also of two chambers, 43 feet long, and 21 feet and 18 feet 6 inches broad. These floors contain the two state-rooms, which, to the timber ceiling, were 24 feet high. In the north and south walls are, in each two windows, round-headed, of 2 feet opening, of hour-glass section, with splays of 3 feet opening outside, and 5 feet inside. The sill of the recess is 4 feet above the floor, and the recess 12 feet high. Its angles are occupied by a bold bead or engaged shaft, with bases and foliated caps, whence the bead is carried round the head. Besides these four windows, in each west end is another, of the same character, but with recesses 20 feet high, and without beaded angles. The two south windows were probably walled up when the exterior smaller hall was added, and light ceased to be an object in the keep. In the north chamber the west window is also closed. The doors to the well-shaft and the stair have been closed in modern times. In the cross wall is a large modern breach. The old door was near the west end; also, in the south-west angle of the north room, a door opened into a small garderobe in the west wall. This is partially bricked up, but the loop is seen in the central pilaster, outside. The main entrance of the castle is on this floor, in the east wall of the south chamber. It is round-headed, of 4 feet 6 inches opening, perfectly plain, without chamfer or rebate, which, no doubt, has been cut off. It is evidently original. There are two doors in the east wall of the north chamber, but they are modern openings.

The second floor, 13 feet high, was the attic of the original building, and a mere series of lofts. The roof was very singular. Over the cross wall was a central ridge, and over the middle of each chamber a valley or gutter, from which the roofs rose to the outer walls. As a lean-to, there was, therefore, in the cross section, a central triangle divided by the cross wall, and on each side a half-triangle, formed by the outer wall; and in each of the four half gables thus formed in the east and west walls was a small round-headed window, eight in all. The windows remain, as does the stone weather-table, by which the section of the early roof is indicated. The roofs were steep, and, therefore, no use could be made of them as a platform for machines of defence or for storing missiles. In the cross wall, here 3 feet thick, is a tall, very plain, round-headed door, of 2 feet 6 inches opening, communicating between the halves of the division of the central roof. The south loft was reached by the well-stair, but how the three northern lofts were reached does not appear. In the north chamber, under the southernmost of the two east windows, are traces of a door, which no doubt led to the battlements of the forebuilding, covering the main door, as seen at Scarborough and Richmond, and elsewhere. The arrangement of the original roof resembles that of Helmsley, a very late keep, which also has been raised.

Soon after the completion of this roof, and within the Norman period, it was decided to raise the keep two stages, by which means the roof attics were converted into a regular second floor. Something of this kind was done at Richmond and at Bridgenorth.

The third floor, then built, is 18 feet high. It is quite plain, without an opening in the cross wall, and with one small window in each west wall. How the north chamber was entered is not known. The present floor is from 3 feet to 4 feet above the original one. The next is the fourth or upper floor, about 15 feet high, with a cross wall 3 feet 6 inches thick, of rough rubble, while the outer walls are of ashlar on both faces. The south chamber has four windows; those in the south wall of two lights, flat-headed, but under a full-centred arch of relief outside, and within placed in a recess, also full-centred, of 5 feet 6 inches opening. All these are quite plain. There is a similar window in the east end. The west end window is of similar pattern, but with a single light; and of the north chamber, two windows in the north side and one in each end are also of one light. In the east wall of this chamber a small door opens by an L-shaped mural passage turning the north-east angle into a garderobe, having a loop in the east wall, and a vent opening directly outwards on the face of the north wall. At Brougham is a similar arrangement for an oratory. In the south jamb of the west window of the south room a small oven has been excavated. As this could not be reached from the old floor level, it is probably very modern. Whether the well-pipe is brought up through the new work does not appear, nor is there any trace of an original opening from the turnpike stair, though probably there was one. The door in the cross-wall, of 4 feet 6 inches opening and full-centred, is placed near the west end. This has a rebate, so that the door opened into the north chamber, and was bolted on that side.

The original roof of the Norman addition was flat, as shown by a bold weather-table carried round the walls; but the actual present roof is exactly the reverse of that described below, there being a central and two side gutters, and a ridge over the centre of each chamber, an equally impracticable roof for a defensive platform. The flat or nearly flat roof much resembled that now upon the White Tower, London. The parapet can be examined from the top. The embrasures are at long intervals, and 4 feet 6 inches deep by 2 feet 3 inches opening. No traces of angle turrets are seen save at the stair-head, and that is but a small affair. No fireplace has been discovered in the keep, and only two mural chambers, both very small, for garderobes. The absence of ornament or of any very well marked state room with mural closets, is probably due to the construction at the same time with the keep of more convenient domestic buildings in the inner ward.

The forebuilding was part of the original design of the keep, of the lower part of which it is a prolongation, of the same breadth, and 25 feet deep, eastward. Its walls, as thick as those of the keep, also contained two chambers, divided by a cross wall, east and west. The northern chamber is now filled up, and possibly always was so. The southern chamber seems originally to have had no outlet, and if used as a dungeon or cellar, it was probably reached by a trap in the timber floor.

The first floor of this structure, at the level of the same floor of the keep, was divided also into two chambers, between which was a passage, which led from an outer stair to the door of the keep. The north chamber has been defiled by use as a dust-house and garderobe for modern prisoners in the keep; but an elegant oriel window in the late Perpendicular style inserted into its north wall shows that it has been a room of some pretension. The south chamber was the chapel of the keep. In its west wall, the wall of the keep, is a large full-centred recess, about 11 feet broad and 2 feet deep, for a seat, and in the south wall remains half a Norman window, which originally opened into the inner ward.

The original roof of the forebuilding had rather a high pitch, of which, over the chapel, the weather-table remains. This was superseded by a higher roof, but at a very low pitch, suitable for lead. The top of both roofs reached nearly to the level of the floor of the second story of the keep. The battlements of this accessory tower were 15 feet to 20 feet below those of the original keep. The approach to the first floor of the forebuilding was by an exterior staircase of twenty-six steps, placed against its east wall, so as to reach the outer door about the centre of the building, and leading on also to the north curtain. The present staircase is modern, but a careful examination will show Norman remains about its base. It would seem that when the keep was raised it was decided to make a door in the south wall of the forebuilding into the space below the chapel. When this was done the wall was thickened on the outside. The door still remains, but opens no longer into the open court, but into the basement of a later building. Part of the added facing has fallen off, and the old wall is seen, with a billeted string corresponding to that upon the keep. In later times a Perpendicular window has been opened in the chapel wall above, and a second Perpendicular door into the space below. This is the door which has over it the arms of Queen Elizabeth in stone, and which was probably made by some earlier monarch to admit the wine-tuns into the vaults of the keep.

The inner ward is still bounded to the east and south by the original Norman wall of Caen stone, 6 feet thick. The original domestic buildings were ranged along the south side to the west of the entrance, as traces of the original walling still show. At the south-eastern angle was a large rectangular tower, of 23 feet breadth by 25 feet projection, placed diagonally,—not a usual Norman arrangement. The walls are 6 feet thick, and the gorge is open. It was of two stages, the basement being one, had timber floors, and was, no doubt, like the middle gatehouse of the Tower of London, boarded in the rear. The two exterior angles are hollow, or nooked, though without shafts. The upper floor was lighted by three narrow, round-headed loops.

Whatever may have been, in Norman times, the extent of the offices, at present these buildings cover three sides of the court, that to the north being open. Near the centre of the court was a well, and in the north wall, close to the steps of the keep, a small postern; at the north-east angle, partly on the two curtains, is a rectangular tower of great strength, about 26 feet by 30 feet, with walls 6 feet thick. Its basement seems to have been used as the great kitchen, though not originally constructed for that purpose. The upper floor is on the level of, and entered from, the north curtain; its north and east walls are pierced by a mural gallery, 3 feet broad, with two loops to the north and three to the east. There is also on that side a door opening on the main curtain. From this floor a well-stair, near the north-west corner, ascends to the battlements. The base of this tower seems Norman, but the upper floor and battlements are early Perpendicular.