Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/335

 Caernarvon Castle. 311 ■basements were not intended to be used. They were not vaulted, and have no sewers. Each tower has a first floor at the court level, and at this level, or a few steps above it, the wall is pierced all round by a mural gallery, looped to the field and connected with divers mural chambers and garderobes. The second floor has windows of a larger opening, as has the third or uppermost. Each floor has a fireplace, usually a mere opening in the wall, and each is reached by a well staircase, which begins at the first-floor level and ends in a tall turret which rises some 20 feet above the roof. From the upper floor a doorway opens out upon the rampart of the curtain. The floor was all of timber. The roof was almost flat, having a very slight pitch to a central ridge, and was covered with lead. The curtain, everywhere unusually thick and lofty, along the north side was looped in two stages, showing that it gave support to long ranges of buildings, probably barracks, with thick walls and very low-pitched lead-covered roofs. These buildings are wanting, but the towers and curtains are toothed, to give bond to their walls when built. The most remarkable part of the castle is the arrangement for the defence of the southern or river front. On this face the curtain is of immense thickness, extending from the Queen's Gate to the Eagle Tower, and including in that distance the Prince's and the Exchequer Towers, and two others of smaller dimensions. This wall, from the Queen's Gate to the Prince's Tower, contains, at a little above the court level, a broad and lofty gallery, which not only pierces the curtain, but is continued through the walls of the towers, with an occasional vaulted chamber or lobby, as a "place d'armes." This gallery is looped towards the field, and has an occasional window and door towards the court. It descends by steps so as to pre- serve its level as regards the court, and in its walls are several garderobes. Above this, of the same length and similarly constructed, is a second gallery, also looped towards the field, but either the inner wall and roof of this gallery have been removed, or, more probably, never completed, for it now remains as an open platform. The thicker and outer wall, however, is perfect, and carries what is still a broad rampart walk, or allure, reached by occasional flights of steps in the wafl from the upper gallery. Thus was provided a triple line of loops, and these loops are not, as was often the case, mere air-holes, but are so contrived as to afford ample scope for the effective use of either longbow or arblast. No body of assailants, however brave, unprotected by armour or unsupplied with regular siege appliances, could have withstood such a line of defence, manned, as it would be, with the first archers in Europe, exposing those without, in front and flank, to a shower of clothyard shafts and iron-pointed quarrells. The curtain, from the Prince's to the Eagle Tower, though as thick as elsewhere, is solid below, having only the upper gallery ; neither does it communicate with the Eagle Tower, which forms a