Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/35

Rh shaft, but enough remains to show that the chamber was 14 ft. long by 3 ft. 2 in. broad, and had a loop in the north wall. The eastern third of this chamber is uninjured. A depression in the floor, quite at the east end, looks as though it had been a garde-robe for the state floor, and this idea is strengthened by the quoining and ashlar-work about the angles at that end. Brayley prolongs this chamber at a right angle into the east wall. This is a pure fiction. The quoining of the end shows that there was nothing further, and the groove in the wall is only meant to support the ends of the boards upon which the vault was turned. The fireplace, close west of this chamber, of which the flue remains, is an insertion. The position of the mural chamber, and of the window, shows however that there may have been an original fireplace here.

There remains to be mentioned the well-stair, which occupies the north-west angle of the keep, commencing at the first-floor level, and ascending to the roof. This stair does not communicate directly with the main chamber, but opens by a small, round-headed door in the jamb of the adjacent north window, where three steps in a short, narrow passage lead up into the base of the well-stair. The stairs are gone, but the cylinder of the well-stair, 8 ft. diameter, remains. As high as the second floor it is lined with excellent chalk ashlar, and lighted by two loops on the west side. A door and passage, similar to that below, ascends by four steps into a recess, not a window, in the north wall of the upper floor. This side door is pointed, but this seems the effect of modern cobbling. It should further be mentioned that the four hollow angles of the first or state floor are quoined with chalk ashlar. The floor rested on no set-off, the walls being of the thickness of the basement.

The second, or upper floor, was about 15 ft. high. There is a set-off at the floor level, reducing the east and west walls by about 2 ft. In this floor are four windows in broad recesses. These on the west and east and south faces are central. The fourth window is towards the east end of the north wall, the centre of that side being occupied by a fireplace much modernised, but which the displacement of the window shows to be original. In the south wall, close to the south-cast angle, a door leads into a small mural garde-robe, with two vents corbelled out over the exterior wall, and