The Great Hall is approached from the quadrangle by a fine porch, richly adorned and of the whole height of the building. The entrance is an unusual one at so early a period.
BISHOP’S PALACE: GREAT WHEEL-WINDOW OF BANQUETING HALL.
It is about 9 ft. wide by 11 ft. 6 in. high, and has an ogee six-centred arch, but the flight of steps are somewhat inconvenient, as the tread is about fourteen inches and the rise about eleven and a half. Above were two niches containing statues of King Edward III. and Queen Philippa. Fragments of one remain now, but where is the other? It seems sad that this should have disappeared within the last few years.
BISHOP’S PALACE: GENERAL VIEW OF COURTYARD LOOKING TOWARDS ENTRANCE TO GREAT HALL.
(From Jones and Freeman.)
The Hall itself is a magnificent stately apartment, even unroofed as it is. It measures 116 feet by 31 feet, but this includes a smaller chamber of about 30 feet which was originally a withdrawing room. At the south corner is a staircase (down and up), and another at the east leading to the turret. A doorway from the kitchen aisle is now blocked. In the south-east wall is an exceptionally beautiful rose-window. The centre is an upright quatrefoil, and at the cardinal points radiate four strong mullions, and in between each of these are three lesser ones. The heads are of the trefoil kind. The inner circle is not concentric with that enclosing the tracery, but is dropped a little to create, as was often done in these circular windows, an optical delusion. Thus the splay at the top is considerably less than at the bottom, but looks about the same. Gower’s four-leaved flower is again in evidence in the hollow at the outside edge of the splay. Bedrooms in two floors occupied the western end of the hall.
The West Chapel is entered from the northern corner of the hall, and projects from the main building. There must have been a fine window to the east judging by its proportions, and it has niches with canopies outside. A large arched piscina can be seen on the south wall inside, and at the east corner a double-bodied grotesque. In the north-east angle is the belfry turret, which terminates in a very pleasing broached spire; but the porch, which occupied the angle between the chapel and the domestic buildings, is all destroyed.