The exterior is very plain, having neither cordon, string-course, nor window labels. A little above the ground is a double course of large ashlar blocks of a light yellow sandstone, tying the work firmly together, and higher up are other bonding courses of a less substantial character. The ordinary material is a bluish stone laid as rubble work, with the spaces and joints neatly filled up with spawls and fragments. The battlements have been replaced by a modern wall, but the junction, at the rampart walk, may be readily detected.
The entrance is at the ground level on the north-east side, from the main ward. It is marked by a broad, flat buttress, rather Norman in character, which rises vertically from the common base so as to stand out about 18 inches, where it dies into the wall about 5 feet below the battlements. In its centre is the gateway, and above it the window of the portcullis chamber. It is extended laterally in two wings, rising about half its height, and also dying into the wall above. These are intended to strengthen the wall, weakened by a well-stair and a lodge. As this buttress covers a considerable segment of the circle and is flat, it is broken into three planes by two vertical angles. The modern brick and stone wall replacing the battlement is rugged and broken, but in parts about 12 feet high, and intended to give elevation to the keep. The building thus made extensively visible has become a sort of parish cynosure, and, however irregular its appearance, it would scarcely be in good taste to remove the addition.
The keep has two floors. The lower is cylindrical, 31 feet in diameter, with walls 14 feet to 15 feet thick. It was about 14 feet high, with a ceiling of logs, which rested upon some forty plain corbels, of which about seventeen remain. At two opposite points, about half way up the wall, are two larger corbels, which evidently supported the struts destined to give stiffness to the central and longest beam.
This chamber, no doubt a store-room, save when in time of siege it might accommodate soldiers, was entered directly from the gateway, and rather ventilated than lighted by three equidistant openings, about 4 feet from the floor, 4 feet broad, and 5 feet high, having shouldered heads and covering. The sides converge, and the floor rises to a small square-headed loop of 4-inch opening. There is neither fireplace, seat, nor recess. The floor has been removed. There is no subterranean chamber.
The upper chamber within is an octagon, inscribed about the cylinder below it, with walls from 13 feet to 14 feet thick, and from side to side 31 feet. It is about 15 feet high to the corbels that carried its flat roof, and a row of larger corbels along one of the remaining faces seems to have supported struts necessary to make the roof a safe platform for military engines and stone ammunition. This, which was a state-room, was lighted by three recesses at irregular distances. They are 6 feet 6 inches wide, and rise from the floor 8 feet, being covered by slightly-pointed drop arches. Each has a vaulted roof and parallel sides, which afterwards converge upon a square-headed window, 2 feet wide and 5 feet 6 inches high, having a plain chamfer outside. In each side of the recesses is a plain shouldered doorway, 3 feet 9 inches broad by 10 feet high, opening into the mural gallery.
This floor has its main entrance through the portcullis chamber, and next north-west of this entrance is the chapel. This is a mural chamber, 14 feet by 7 feet, but not quite rectangular. It is flat vaulted, and its axis points south-east to the altar, which is a restoration. The doorway next the west end is only 2 feet broad by 7 feet high, with a cinquefoiled head and a plain moulding of Decorated character. The door opened inwards, and could be barred within the chapel. On the same side, but near the altar, is a small cinquefoiled recess for a piscina, with a projecting bracket and a fluted foot. In the opposite wall, in vaulted recesses, are two windows, that next the altar square-headed, the other lancet-headed. Against the west wall is a stone bench, and above it a rude squint through which any person in the adjacent window recess could see the altar.
The entrance to the keep is by a gateway 5 feet wide and 6 feet 6 inches high, having a drop arch rising about 3 feet more. The jambs have a single and the arch a double chamfer. Two feet within is the portcullis groove, 4 inches square, and next is the rebate for the door, with its bar holes. Beyond is the vaulted passage, 6 feet broad, leading to the ground floor, with a door opening so as to be barred against that chamber; within, however, is a narrow rebate, as though for a lighter door opening inwards. The portcullis grooves are stopped 3 feet above the floor, so that either the cill must have been obstructively high or the grate have terminated in a range of long spikes. On each side of the entrance passage is a shouldered doorway. That on the right, 2 feet 9 inches broad, opens into a mural chamber, vaulted, 6 feet by 9 feet, with a lancet loop to the field. On the left, the door is 3 feet 3 inches broad, and opens on a well-stair, which, lighted from the field by loops, ascends to the upper floor and the battlements.
Twenty-one steps lead to the portcullis chamber, which is also the antechamber to the state-room. It is vaulted, 6 feet broad by 10 feet long, with a square-headed window of 2 feet opening to the field, and within it the chase for the passage of the portcullis. At the other end a large doorway with a plain moulding of a Decorated type and an arch very nearly, if not quite, round-headed, open in a recess similarly arched, and this into the state-room. The door was barred inside so as to be held against the stairs.
HAWARDEN CASTLE, FLINTSHIRE, 1870.
