1. Arch Moulding.
  2. String-course, second floor.
  3. Window Moulding, second floor.
  4. Window Moulding, third floor.
  5. Fireplace Arch, second floor.
  6. Fireplace Arch, fourth floor.

The south chamber has three windows in the south wall, a fireplace, and a door opening into the south-west well-stair. In each end is a loop. In the recess of that to the west, on its north side, is a passage to a garderobe, and there is probably a corresponding place in the opposite, or east window, but the window recesses are inaccessible.

The cross wall, instead of two doors, is pierced by four arches of unequal size, two on each side of the well pier, which has its small and rather ornate door. Between each pair of arches is a heavy Norman pier, a plain cylinder with fluted capital, and opposite to which are two half-piers, or responds. The arch has been ribbed and worked in bold roll and hollow, varied with the chevron pattern, but the central rib has fallen away. The capitals of this arcade range with the general string-course, and the arches rise into the upper division of the apartment. There is rather more ornament on the north than on the south face. The arcade was filled up with a stone screen, about 10 feet high, of which one division remains and a part of its doorway. The screen is original, and has been rather richly worked, but it had no bond into the piers, being merely built against them.

From this floor twenty steps led up 17 feet to the gallery. This threads the whole wall, passing all round the building. It is from 3 feet to 3 feet 6 inches broad, barrel-vaulted, from 8 feet to 9 feet high, and is placed 4 feet from the inner face of the wall, and 5 feet from the outer. It is generally level, save that it rises at the south-west angle to accommodate itself to the staircase, and in the centre of the east front to clear the vaults of the garderobes below, and possibly to meet the thrust of the arch in the cross wall.

In the north division there are in the west end three recesses, 3 feet 7 inches, 5 feet 10 inches, and 4 feet 1 inch, which open into the gallery, and correspond to three windows in its outer side. In the north wall are also three windows with recesses corresponding, each of 5 feet 10 inches in width. In the east end is only one recess of 5 feet 9 inches opening. At this point the gallery is rather above 3 feet wide, and the corresponding window has a recess, 5 feet by 4 feet. Most of these expansions of the gallery opposite to the windows are groined, as in the corresponding gallery in the Tower of London.

The arrangements of the south division are very similar. In the east end is one recess of 5 feet, and in the west three of 3 feet 2 inches, 5 feet, and 3 feet 7 inches, the central being the largest. That at the south end represents a short window, intended to conceal the gallery, which here rises to the staircase. In the south wall are three recesses, with windows corresponding. There is no chamber in the south-east angle, the gallery merely turns at a right angle, but in the north-west turret is a groined chamber, 6 feet square, with which the gallery communicates, and which has windows in its two outer faces. The north-east and south-west angles are occupied by the staircases. It is evident from the character of the masonry that with the south-east angle have been rebuilt the two adjacent windows in the south face and of that in the east face. The new work is inferior to the older, and there is no attempt at ornament. The arrangements of this grand floor, like those of the corresponding rooms called the Council Chamber in the Tower of London, must have been inconvenient in the extreme. The rooms must have been very cold and very public, with windows, doors, and garderobes on every side, and a gallery in which a whole household might have listened, unseen, to what went on below. There is nothing to distinguish between the uses to which these two noble chambers were applied. Probably the northern, having the more ornate entrance, was the hall, and the southern a room of a more private character.

From the gallery level twenty-three steps lead up 17 feet to the upper floor, and on the way a small passage opens upon the battlements of the forebuilding. This floor contains two very cheerful and handsome rooms, 25 feet high, with larger windows than the floors below, and a finer view. Here, also, the window recesses and fireplaces are ornamented, and we may suppose this floor to contain the private apartments. The roofs were open and low pitched, and seem to have been supported by rafters placed near together, and without principals. The arrangement of the mural galleries here is peculiar. They do not run round the rooms, but are short, connecting two, or at most three window recesses. Where the wall has been rebuilt they are altogether omitted. They do not pass behind the fireplaces, the vents from which pass off horizontally, and so block the way.

The north chamber is entered, like the rest, from the north-east angle, and from the staircase passes a gallery which pierces the east wall for 20 feet, and traverses the recesses of two windows which light the east end of the room. In the west end are also two windows, in like manner pierced by a short gallery, entered only from the chamber. In the north wall, besides the fireplace, are four windows, two on each side of it, each pair connected by a short gallery, also entered from the chamber. In the cross wall are two doorways, and near the centre the small door of the well pipe.

The arrangements of the south chamber are somewhat different. In the west end are three window recesses, having a mural gallery in common, but not communicating with the staircase. In the east end is but one window, the jambs of which are solid. In the south wall is the door from the south-eastern staircase and also three windows, with a fireplace. There are no galleries in this wall. This chamber has suffered much from the destruction of the south-east angle, which it is evident carried with it about 28 feet of the south and 15 feet of the east wall. In the untouched part of the east wall remains embedded the half pier, capital, and half the architrave of a large original late Norman arch, of about two-thirds the span of the room, more or less ornamented, and evidently the recess for a large east window. It is just possible, as this was an archiepiscopal fortress, that this was a chapel. In the south wall, close east of the fireplace, is the jamb and half the arch of a window recess, also ornate, of which the other part has been removed. The restoration has been effected in a very hasty and slovenly manner. The masonry is of inferior quality, and the new recesses are perfectly plain, although the older ones in the same floor are rather highly ornate. Whatever, in designing this chamber, may have been the intention of the builder, it is very certain that the re-builder thought only of making the tower defensible in the cheapest and quickest way.

From this floor thirty steps ascend 25 feet to the battlements. On the way a passage from the north-eastern staircase opens into a gallery in the east wall, 16 feet long and 5 feet wide. It is traversed by a window, the recess of which, 4 feet wide, opens on the gable of the north room of the upper floor. The staircase passes up to the base of the north-east turret, in which are two doorways opening on the ramparts of the north and east walls. The rampart walk is 4 feet broad, with a parapet of 2 feet and a rere-wall, now gone, of 3 feet. The walk is carried through the north-west turret, which contains a chamber 9 feet square, and through the south-eastern turret, which also contains a chamber. From hence the passage is continued along the south wall, but is stopped by the wall of the south-west turret, the stair contained in which only opens on the west wall. The turret chambers were about 8 feet high and had flat roofs, reached possibly by wooden steps. Each turret had two entrances, one on each face. The parapets of the curtains between the turrets were 8 feet high, and contained five embrasures on each face. At this level the profile of the double roof may be traced. It was composed of two ridges, one over each chamber, with a central gutter resting upon the cross wall. Both parts were low pitched, and the ridges did not rise above the battlements: the northern portion sprung a little the lowest and had rather the steeper pitch. The southern, springing higher, delivered half its water from eaves 2 feet above the common gutter, whence it was carried away by an enormous stone shoot, a sort of gurgoyle. Another such, taking the contents of the north gutter, crosses the head of the staircase and projects eastward. At the rampart level the walls and turrets are pierced by a row of holes 9 inches or 10 inches square, intended, evidently, for the horizontal beams of a brattice. There are no corbels or cavities, as usual, below, to receive struts, the beams being probably strong enough without them. These holes seem not to be original, and being rough, were probably made in haste when the south-east angle was rebuilt: they are of importance enough to be shown in the tower which figures in the corporation seal. Besides these, in the inner face of the north wall, above the gutter, are two rows of pigeon-holes, probably original, and even now accommodating a few birds.