Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/274

 254 Mediceval Military Architecture. flanking shafts, and near it a window, both in the east wall. In the north wall is a large recess and window and a door into the north- eastern staircase. In the west wall is a window in a recess, and a door which leads by a mural passage into the north wing, and into a garderobe in the north wall. The Chapel^ 24 feet by 2t feet, has a recess of 9 feet wide, in which is the east window, a piscina, and an almbry. It had also two south windows, and between them a small fireplace. In its west wall is the entrance-door from the well-stair, and a door, 2 feet above the floor, from the south wing, which probably opened into a raised seat for the lord. Both chapel and upper hall had a flat timber roof, and were 14 feet high. The room next above these, the third floor of the body, was of the dimensions of the great hall. It had three windows to the east and one to the north, south, and west. It was entered from the well- staircase in the north-east corner, and that of the south wing, and it had a door direct into the north wing. This room has a long, full- centred barrel vault, which rises about 6 feet above the walls, and is, therefore, to the crown, about 1 5 feet high. It is probable that this great chamber was broken up by partitions, but it contains no fireplace. Corresponding to these floors in the body are, in the south wing, five, — the first being the withdrawing-room already described, and 13 feet high. The second has two windows, a fireplace, and a mural garderobe, and is about 1 1 feet high. The third, the same, and is 8 feet high ; the fourth has the same arrangements, and, in addition, a door into the private seat of the chapel. It is 17 feet high. The fifth floor has two windows only, and is about 15 feet high to the crown of its vaulted roof All the chambers in this wing are of the same size, and one over another. The chambers in the north wing are over, and of the same size with, the first floor or kitchen, the hood and chimney-shaft of which, built against the west wall, passes up through each floor, tapering as it rises. In this wing there are six floors, most having two windows and some a fireplace. The second floor — that over the kitchen — is entered from the eastern well-stair, whence, at 12 feet above the floor of the hall, a mural passage threads the north wall and its window recess, and leads into the chamber. Hence, ascending in the west wall of the hall 10 feet, it reaches the commencement of a weU-stair, which leads to the upper floors and the roof. The uppermost and sixth floor is in the vault of the roof, and is lighted by orifices in its gables. Besides these chambers in the two wings there are small mural chambers at two levels in the west wall, which are reached from the south stair, and look into the recess on the west front of the tower. The battlements are still accessible by two staircases, and the three roofs are seen to rise independently from the rampart-walk level. They are high-pitched, and their vaults are covered with cut stone tiles, fitted so as to form ridges and hollows, and so jointed as