Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/263

 Bodiham Castle, Sussex, 243 regular munitions against a siege, nor is there here, nor in portcullis chambers generally, any furnace for heating such materials in any quantity. The portal leading from this passage into the inner court has a second pair of doors, and beyond them a second portcullis. This chamber is not a part of the regular gatehouse. It forms a sort of porch projecting from it into the court, and has no upper story. A well-stair on the left opened from the court, and led up to the embattled platform which rested on the vault. This subsidiary prolongation of the length and defences of the entrance passage is believed to be peculiar to Bodiham. Over the outer part of the passage is the portcullis chamber. It has at each end a low four-centred arch, which concealed the head of the grate, when lifted, and above this, at each end, is the custo- mary small window. The lobby between the well-stair and this chamber is groined and ribbed, and in the centre is a large boss carved in foliage. The gatehouse lodges have a pit or sub-base- ment, perhaps a cellar, perhaps merely a cavity to keep the floors dry. If cellars, they were entered by traps in the floor above. There are also, above the basement, two upper floors. The lesser gatehouse is placed opposite to the main gate, in the centre of the southern face of the castle, and though equally lofty, is much smaller. It is a plain tower 22 feet square, projecting 15 feet in advance of the curtain, but with no internal projection. The outer gate is in the centre of the tower, and had a portcullis, and behind it were folding doors. The entrance passage is 11 feet square, vaulted as the great gateway, but not so lofty. Right and left are loops raking the curtain. A door in the west wall opens into the usual well-stair, contained within the north-west angle. There is no lodge. The inner portal was closed by doors only. It opened into a passage at the lower end of the great hall. In front of, and outside this gatehouse, there project 9 feet into the moat two walls about 3 feet thick. They seem to have con- tained between them a bridge pit, over which a bridge dropped from the gateway, upon a cross wall which remains. The pit is filled up. Opposite, the counterscarp of the moat, 62 yards distant, is revetted, and from it projects a half-hexagonal pier. How this intervening space was traversed is not now seen. Scarcely by a boat, for the pier is evidently intended to support a timber bridge, and a boat could not conveniently be reached from it. Probably there was a footway upon tressels or wooden piers. Thus much of the two gatehouses, the only towers which are machicolated. Each leads into the court of the castle, an open space 86 feet south and north, by 76 feet east and west ; round which are placed, against the curtains, the domestic buildings, 22 to 30 feet in depth, some of one floor, some of two, but all of nearly equal height, and so placed as to conceal the curtain and the lower parts of the towers from the inner court. Right and left of the great gatehouse the buildings had a ground R 2