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 The Reclangtdar Keep of a Norman Castle. 131 in the basement, but nevertheless lo feet above the ground level. The approach in these cases seems to have been by an external staircase of timber. At Chepstow, Carlisle, Bam- burgh, and Ludlow, the entrance was by a single doorway at the ground level. In almost all the larger keeps it has been found convenient — probably when they ceased to be used solely as military buildings — to have a large direct entrance at the ground level. Such have been made at London, Rochester, Norham, Kenilworth, Porchester, Guildford, Clitheroe, Heding- ham, Colchester, Goderich, Canterbury, Brough, and Mailing, and probably Chepstow. Some of these are evidently in- sertions, taking the place of a loop ; others seem to have been original doors opening from the basement of the keep into that of the forebuilding, made external on its destruc- tion, as at Corfe and, perhaps, Kenilworth. At Richmond the removal of the forebuilding has laid open a large Norman arch in the basement which opened into it. Besides these main doors, Ludlow has two doors opening from the keep upon the ramparts of the curtain ; and at Rochester is a small door whence probably a plank drawbridge, six feet or eight feet long, dropped upon the adjacent curtain. There is something like this at Helmsley, and in the Norman keep of Adare, in Ireland. Most keeps contain an oratory ; some a regular chapel. Dover is peculiar in having two, both in the forebuilding, in its lower tower. Newcastle has one in its forebuilding, under the staircase and upper tower. Middleham has the remains of a very handsome one at the head of the outer staircase. At Rochester the chapel seems to have been in the fore- building, high up, beneath the kitchen. At Castle Rising it is on the first floor of the keep, at one end of one of the large rooms. At Guildford and Brougham it was in the wall. The finest and earliest castle-chapel in England is that in the White Tower. It is large, has a nave, aisles, and semi-circular apse, all vaulted. This chapel occupies two stories, and below it are two floors of vaulted crypts, intended for prisons. The chapel at Colchester, though smaller and ruder, resembles in position that in the White Tower. Of the three drawings here given, the first gives the plan of the White Tower, London, at the second or chapel floor. The three well staircases are there seen, and the outer and cross walls. Here also is shown, in the south wall, the small mural staircase which ends at this level, and affords the only communication with the main floor of the chapel. K 2