Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/178

 162 Meducval Military Architectjti^c in England. attention from the fact that it stands upon open ground, and its plan is therefore unaffected by any pecuHarities of level. It is composed of two wards ; the inner rectangular, 58 yards by 66 yards, with high curtain walls, drum towers at the four angles, a gatehouse in the centre of each end and half-round towers in the centre of each side, of which one is the chapel. The apartments were in the gatehouses, and the hall was on the first floor, above the portal. The curtains are remarkable. They are 16 feet thick, but are pierced longitudinally below the ground level by a series of sewers, and above by a mural gallery, the rampart walk being above all. The outer ward is an irregular octagon, the opposite sides being equal. It is strengthened by twelve drum towers. The space between the two walls, forming the ward, is narrow — from 40 to 50 feet broad. At one end is a gatehouse, protected by a double traverse raking the passage, and at the other is a postern, part of a gatehouse, either unfinished or pulled down. From one end towards the sea shore projects a wall 5 yards broad and about 33 yards long, containing a passage looped each way and traversed by a gateway. This is a spurwork, and was con- nected with the quay, and ended in a round tower. There was but one ditch, which girdled the whole, and was fed from the adjacent sea. It is now filled up. The additions to the Tower of London, by which its Norman keep and Early English inner ward were converted into a regular concentric castle, are skilfully managed. Here the second ward, as usual, is very narrow, and a broad and deep ditch girdles the whole. One limb of the ditch is, however, represented by the Thames, but between it and the outer wall is a strip of land serving as a quay for the landing of stores, of which the rear is strongly fortified. At each end was a sluice for regulating the water of the ditch, and in the centre a grand and strongly fortified water-tower, with a portcullised canal from the river, known as Traitors' Gate. The annexed plan of the Tower represents very fairly a composite but concentric castle. When the size of the fortress did not require more than one ward, as at Pennard in Gower, or where the ground was unsuitable, as at Conway and Chepstow, the concentric arrangement was laid aside. At Chepstow the Norman keep stands upon a steep ridge of rock, occupying its whole breadth. The additions, therefore, were necessarily at each end, so that the whole castle, constructed at various times, is an oblong, composed of five wards opening one from the other, with the keep in the centre. Its plan is, as it were, a slice cut right across a concentric castle.