Outside the outer gate of this chamber, towards the south, is a small mural chamber, lighted by a very handsome window, 2 feet 6 inches broad, with tracery in the arched head and a handsome drip-stone above, looking towards the inner ward. This chamber opens upon a sort of lobby, now mostly destroyed, outside the great gate, and provided with a small doorway of its own, fitted with a portcullis, and from this descends a small staircase with a ribbed and vaulted roof, which communicated with the lodge connected with the entrance from the outer to the inner ward. This was evidently a postern for such foot-passengers as came after the great gates were closed, and who did not wish to enter the main or guard-chamber of the keep. From this lobby ascended a well-stair to the upper story, rather larger than the other one, which was close beside it in the wall. The position of the larger staircase is marked by a sort of bartizan or projecting round turret, which commenced at the first floor level, and was lighted from the inner ward. Most of this is broken away, and only traces of it remain.
Of the upper floor but little remains save the wall towards the inner ward. In this wall is an excellent trefoil-topped window of one light beneath a square head. This is placed in a recess of the wall, vaulted and ribbed.
Near it a small door opens upon the head of the staircase from the lower floor and the kitchen. The other staircase from the postern is destroyed.
It appears from what has been described that the main floor of the keep was in fact a passage by which the principal entrance led from the outer to the inner ward. As the level of the first floor is 17 feet above that of the inner ward, and something more above that of the outer, the approaches were upon arches leading up to the gateways. The outer bridge no doubt was built against and protected by the curtain of the outer ward. That the road rested upon arches is evident from a trace of a skewback or springing stone below the gateway, and from the position of the window of the inner cell of the porter’s lodge. There is similar evidence of another bridge from the inner gateway down to the level of the inner ward, and excavation there would probably show the pier bases. How there came to be two fireplaces in what must have been the guard-chamber, and what was the use of the trough, are questions as yet unanswered. So far as I know, this is the only example of a main entrance so raised and carried through the keep. This keep is, in fact, a gatehouse.
There remains to be noticed the fragment of a building attached to the southern angle of the keep, and from which evidently sprang the wall which ran between the outer and the inner ward. [[B. Fig. a.]] This seems to have been an oblong, divided into two compartments. One, of which much of two sides remains, was 11 feet square, vaulted and ribbed, the fans spreading from the four angles. This was entered on one side from a small Decorated door of 2 feet 3 inches opening, which led into a bent passage. The face towards the inner ward seems to have contained a second small door, by the side either of a window or a larger door. From this chamber a door probably led, through the second chamber, now removed, to the base of the winding steps already mentioned as ascending to the eastern entrance to the keep. The designs of the mouldings of this appended building are peculiarly delicate and graceful, and well executed.
This keep is probably the latest example of a rectangular keep as well as a singular one of a keep with its main floor employed as a gatehouse. Its ornaments and details generally are in the late Decorated style, and of the reign probably of Edward II., though it is by no means likely that the work was due to Gaveston. Ashlar masonry is freely employed outside and inside the building, and the details throughout are admirable. It is probable that the addition of the solid buttresses to the curtain was the work of the builder of the keep. The masonry and material correspond. The portcullis grooves are alike, and the solitary stringcourse on one of the bastions is nearly, if not quite, of the pattern of that employed on the keep. It is much to be desired that the inhabitants of Knaresborough would obtain the castle as a promenade, reopen the ditch, or part of it, restore the bridge leading to the outer gate, excavate the foundation of the north-east angle of the keep and of the bridge covering the way into the prison, and check the progress of weather and exposure in the upper portions of the keep. A moderate sum would execute all that is required, and the result would add to the comfort and augment the attractions of the town.
LEEDS, OR LEDES, CASTLE, KENT.
LEEDS Castle is a very peculiar structure. It stands upon three rocky knolls, of which two are islands in a lake of 15 acres, and the third occupies the central part of the artificial bank by which, as at Kenilworth and Caerphilly, and in some degree at Framlingham and Ragland, the waters are or were retained.
The central and larger island is girt by a revetment wall, having half-round bastions, and rising about 15 feet out of the water. This was the wall of the outer ward. About 40 feet within, and concentric with this, are indications of the wall of the inner ward, which was about 8 feet thick and 20 feet high. At each end, connecting the two walls, and occupying the space between them, were the gatehouses, of which that to the south remains, and is a very curious structure. It represents, probably, a late Norman work; but its oldest recognisable part is a doorway of the time of Henry III., surrounded, however, by masonry apparently of that of Edward, his son. A bretache is mentioned in a Survey of 1314, but the present corbels overhanging the gateway, and upon which the timber work rested, appear to be of the age of Richard II., and probably date from 1386. The Constable’s room, placed in the rear, and at the level of the portcullis chamber, is entered through a doorway, the valve of which is original and peculiar, being composed of planks of a taper section, the narrow edge of one fitting into a groove in the back or broad edge of the next.