Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/297

 Bridgenorth^ Oldbury, and Quatfo^^d. 275 is supposed to have given to the place its early name of Brug, or Breig, the distinctive " North " being an addition, probably in the thirteenth century, when there is said to have been an earlier bridge a little lower down. The town contains several old buildings, and among them, near the bridge, a very fine one framed with timber, in which was born Bishop Percy. There is also the fine parish church of St. Leonard's, which stands at the north end of the town, east of the north gate, and just within the line of the old walls. The castle platform is in plan somewhat of an equilateral triangle, each side being about a furlong. Leland says its area is about one- third that of the town. The two sides of this area were protected by a cliff so steep as to render a ditch unnecessary, and the face of which, where it needed support, was, and still is, revetted, the wall and edge of the cHff having been, no doubt, crowned by a parapet. The cliff rises out of a steep talus, or slope. The base of the area was defended by a wall within a ditch, upon which was a great gate- house, standing in Leland's time and for a century later. The ditch has been filled up and built over, and the wall removed. Just within its line still stands what remains of the keep, and a few yards to the east of that was the castle chapel, now the church of St. Mary Mag- dalen, and, until recently, a peculiar with a special jurisdiction. The chapel was collegiate with an endowment for certain prebenda- ries, disendowed at the Reformation. The present building, con- structed in 1796, is a large and distressing example of Telford's church architecture, in what the great engineer was pleased to regard as the Grecian style. The two buildings stand on the highest part of the castle area, which falls 30 feet to 40 feet towards the southern point. A modern wall has taken the place of the old enceinte. The view thence is very noble, nor does any town in England possess a finer promenade than that with which corporate care has encircled the area. The fragment of the keep, long known as "the leaning tower of Bridgenorth," seems to be the only masonry remaining of the castle, for the revetment wall of the cliff looks as though it had been replaced. The keep was a regular rectangular tower of the usual Norman pattern, but in dimensions very unworthy of the powerful earl who built it, or of the celebrated fortress of which it was the citadel. It was 45 feet square, and from 60 feet to 70 feet high to the base of the parapet. On each face were two pilaster strips, 8 feet broad by 6 inches projection, placed close up to but not covering the angles of the tower, which are thus converted into nooks, or hollow angles, of 6 inches in the side, and which, instead of, as usual, terminating above and below in a flat square, end in a sloping surface, as though to receive a column. The pilasters rise from a common plinth, and ascend to the parapet. Whether they were continued upwards so as to form the usual angle-turrets does not appear. Each had two sets-off on the face and outer edge only, reducing the breadth to 7 feet 6 inches and 7 feet. The sets-off were continued round the building. In the west face was also T 2