Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/176

 160 MedicBval Military ArcJdtechire in England. its length, and towers or gatehouses at either end. In these castles every part is intended for everyday use. No part is set apart only to be inhabited during a siege. The hall, chapel, and kitchen were habitually used, and constructed on a fitting scale. As Caerphilly is both the earliest and the most complete example in Britain of a concentric castle, it will be convenient briefly to point out its principal features. The position was selected to close a pass by which the Welsh were wont to issue from the hill country of Glamorgan into Monmouth- shire, the way by the sea coast being barred by Cardiff and the castles of the vale. The spot selected lay between the Taff and the Rhymny, upon a gravel bank rising in a low marshy bottom, having mountainous, or at least very high ground to its north, south, and west. The central part of the bank was occupied by a rectangular enclosure, 70 yards by 53 yards, having at each angle a lofty drum tower, and in the centre of each end a broad and lofty gatehouse. On one side of this inner ward was the hall, 72 feet long by 33 feet wide, placed between the chapel and the private apartments, while the gatehouses also contained apartments second only to the hall in magnitude. This inner ward stood within a second and rather larger area, also rectangular, and 106 yards by 90 yards. This middle ward was provided with smaller gatehouses connected with those within, and was contained within a revetment and parapetted wall which descended 20 feet all round into water. Four parapetted bastions, corresponding to the interior towers, capped the four angles, and the side next the hall contained the kitchen and offices, and a water- gate opening from the hall by a broad passage with space for the stowage of boats. The water by which these two wards were encompassed was on one side a deep and broad lake covering about 16 acres, and on the other side a smaller sheet of water of about 34 acres. These two waters were connected by cross cuts at each end, traversed, opposite the gatehouses, by drawbridges. One of these dropped upon a tete dti, pout, a sort of hornwork or ravelin of earth, about an acre and a-half in area, and enclosed within a revetment wall duly parapetted, and probably with a stout palisade on the raised ground within. A branch from the lake encircled this work, and a second drawbridge connected it with the ground outside. At the opposite end of the castle another bridge dropped from the middle ward upon the outer ward, a very remarkable work. This was a raised platform nearly 330 yards long by from 14 yards to 36 yards in depth, covering the whole front