That on the ground-floor may have been the common hall or hall of entrance; it is entered by a door in the east wall, and has four large windows, which have lost their tracery and mullions, two in the western side, and one at each end, and an exceedingly fine stone fireplace in the eastern wall. Its arch is of ogee shape, well moulded, much flattened, the ogee ending in a finial above the upper battlemented edge, which has small pilasters with capitals at each end. The heraldic decoration is as follows, reading from left to right:—Cromwell (ancient?), the treasurer’s purse, a lion rampant (for D’Albini), treasurer’s purse, Marmion, Bernak, treasurer’s purse, Cromwell and Tattershall impaling Deincourt, treasurer’s purse, Cromwell and Tattershall quarterly. In the lower line come treasurer’s purse, barry of ten (if Cailli, it should be barry of eight; it is sometimes assigned to Clifton, but it does not agree with the shield of Clifton of Buckenham[93] who married Elizabeth, sister of the second Baron Cromwell, or of Clifton of Clifton,[94] Maud Stanhope’s third husband), treasurer’s purse, Deincourt, Driby, treasurer’s purse, Grey of Rotherfield, and treasurer’s purse. In the middle, beneath the point of the ogee, is the shield of Cromwell, much defaced.
The room on the first floor might have been the hall of state or the audience chamber. Approach to it is gained by a newel staircase, the steps being stone, in the south-east turret, which begins a few feet above the level of the ground, and ends at the fourth storey, the ground-floor large room having had an entrance, now blocked up, from its south-east corner into this staircase. The hand rail, continuous and ingeniously moulded in stone, flush with the wall, is noticeable. A similar one, but slightly projecting, is in the staircase of the Alnwick Tower in the Bishop’s Palace, Lincoln; another in the staircase to the crypt in Grantham Church; and another, of much later date, in Kirby Hall.
The large room on this storey has three windows with excellent Perpendicular tracery, and the two western ones have the recess ribbed and vaulted; there is no window opening through to the north, as a chamber has been constructed in the thickness of the wall. The fireplace, which is in the east wall, has a well-moulded depressed arch, with amusing grotesques in the spandrils on either side and at the side of the circles, reminding one of the hard-working creations of Dicky Doyle on the cover of Punch. The pilasters and battlemented top are much the same as in the lower fireplace, but its chief ornament is a row of heraldic shields and badges in circles across its front. First comes the familiar purse, then Tattershall, St. George and the Dragon, Cromwell and Tattershall impaling Deincourt, Cromwell and Tattershall quarterly, on a shield couché, with two savage men as supporters, on an esquire’s helmet a cap of maintenance inflamed. Next comes a representation under an embattled arch of a lion being rent asunder by a man, a feat which was related of Hugh de Nevile, who served in the Crusades under King Richard I. It does not seem quite clear why this achievement of a Nevile should appear here, though, as we have seen, Maud Stanhope married a Nevile as her second husband. Then comes a lion rampant for D’Albini, and the treasurer’s purse. The spaces between the roundels above are occupied with shields of Bernak, Driby, Cromwell (one defaced), Cromwell, Tattershall, and Deincourt below, with the treasurer’s purse. About the end of the eighteenth century this fireplace was bricked up and opened at the back, to be used for the room in the eastern wall, where dwelt a pensioner, whose duty it was to be in readiness to light a cresset beacon-fire on the south-east tower in case of invasion.
The large room on the second floor was perhaps the state bedroom, and has three beautiful windows; a chamber in the thickness of the south wall preventing a similar window in that wall. The fireplace is of much the same general character as the last one, but has the spandrils filled with foliage, and the place of the roundels is taken by ten panels, ornamented with foliated tracery, making altogether an exceedingly delicate architectural composition. Alternating with the treasurer’s purse are the shields of Bernak, Deincourt, Driby, Cromwell, and Tattershall. In the thickness of the eastern wall of this floor is a beautifully vaulted gallery, 38 feet in length, vaulted in five compartments, with diagonal ribs of brickwork; on the connecting bosses are the shields of Driby, Tattershall, Deincourt, and Cromwell. It is lit by three fine mullioned and traceried windows.
The large room on the third floor has very similar windows to the others, and the fireplace also is very like that in the floor beneath; but the treasurer’s purse has invaded the spandrils, and the shields of Deincourt, Driby—one broken and defaced—Cromwell, and Bernak being separated by small treasurer’s purses, are enclosed in eleven dainty panels, with different tracery. On this floor in the eastern wall are two rooms even more richly vaulted than the gallery below, the spandrils being filled in with quatrefoils of moulded brickwork, enriched with the shields of Tattershall, Cromwell, Deincourt, and D’Albini (or Beler).
The floors of these great rooms were constructed of timber, and plastered; each floor resting on four great massive girders of oak, the upper one having a lead roof. Till a few years ago there were still four beams remaining in situ, but after the castle was struck by lightning, and one beam was thrown down, the others were taken down to avoid the chances of any accident. The lightning seems to have struck the north-east tower (which alone had kept its conical roof), and jumped across to the western wall, where it tore out the external footings of one window on each floor, till it reached the ground.
A very noticeable feature of Tattershall Castle is the covered gallery, well supplied with loopholes, which runs from turret to turret, partly projecting over the machicolations of the walls, having had above a parapeted and embattled platform. These galleries upon the machicolations are not uncommon in the châteaux of France. Visitors to the region of the Loire will remember good instances of this feature in Langeais, Azay-le-Rideau, and de L’Islette. A small staircase in the thickness of the wall of the south-eastern turret continues from the large circular staircase to the top of the turret. The turrets are battlemented, and have brick-arched machicolations. They were in Buck’s time apparently all roofed in with conical spirelets, terminating in fleurs-de-lys. All these roofs now are gone. In these turrets are fireplaces, for, no doubt, partly, the warder’s comfort, but also, possibly, for providing a prompt supply of boiling oil or lead “or something humorous” wherewith to discomfort the adversary beneath. And both in turrets and elsewhere in the buildings the necessary garde-robes may be found. The chimney stacks, on the east side particularly, must have added to the appearance of the tower, as they were originally considerably higher than they are now. Excepting the lightning stroke few modern events connected with the castle have been more interesting than the fall of a lad of nine years old, on June the 2nd, 1879, from the top wall of the keep to the floor inside, a distance of 76 feet. He came off with a dislocated hip and other bruises; but, like Joan of Arc’s 60 feet leap from Beaurevoir, “by some miracle broke no bone in (his) body.”
It might be mentioned that the fireplaces, which have been rather minutely described, are believed to have been carefully studied by Pugin when he was engaged in designing the internal decoration and fittings of the Houses of Parliament. About four miles north of Tattershall are the remains of another tower—Tower-le-Moor—of the same date, construction, and materials as Tattershall Castle. It was probably built by Lord Cromwell as a hunting-box, and was about 60 feet high. Only one angle of it exists now; considerably more is seen in Buck’s print of it in 1727.
Since this article was written, the property has been sold to Mr. Albert Ball, J.P., of Nottingham, who is, I believe, quite sensible of the great value to the nation of his new possession.