Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/66

50 hold) which exhibits any remains of mediæval work; and ruins retaining any decided features are far from numerous; on which account it is the more necessary to mark the peculiarities of such as still exist.

Of these the most important is the cathedral of St. German in Peel castle; a building smaller and less ornamented than many village churches in England; while its commanding situation, and the adaptation of its style to the castellated buildings which surround it, and of which indeed it forms a part, invest it with a grandeur not exceeded by edifices of far higher architectural pretensions.

St. Patrick's Isle, of which the whole accessible area is contained within the wall of Peel castle, forms a termination to a bold promontory, being connected with it by a causeway, lately built, not as I conceive with a view to the convenience of access, so much as the security of the harbour, the entrance into which is between the castle and the town. The rock is of rather a slaty texture, in most parts very rugged and precipitous, and pierced with several deep caverns. On the highest part of the island, not far from its centre, stands a round tower, of the same character with those peculiar to Ireland. Like them it has a door at some distance from the ground, and wider at the bottom than at the spring of the arch. There are also four square-headed openings near the top, and another lower down. The material of this tower is principally red sand-stone, laid in pretty regular courses of thin but long or wide blocks; the jointing is wide, and filled with a hard coarse mortar, which has been less acted upon by the atmosphere than the stone itself. The door faces the east, and the top window the cardinal points, according to the orientation of the cathedral. In the round tower at Brechin, in Scotland, the door faces the west; but I do not suppose the builders of these structures were guided by any rule on this head.

Had I been acquainted with the very interesting accounts lately brought before the public of the ancient oratories in Cornwall, I should have paid more attention to the building that stands to the south of the round tower. This has the same orientation with the cathedral, but there is now an entrance under the east window, and a partition wall from