Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/347

 Caerphilly Castle, Glamorgan. 321 have fireplaces, and were floored with timber. The walls are 9 feet thick, and are looped in various directions for defence. Passing through the gatehouse, behind it is a broad platform, which extends behind the southern curtain, and is scarped and revetted towards the inner moat ; on the right of this is a prolonga- tion of the gatehouse westwards, into the gatehouse tower. One of two doorways leads up this tower by a hexagonal well-stair, 9 feet in mean diameter ; this opens upon seven apartments in two stories, and terminates in a lofty quadrangular turret. In the first story are devices for working the portcullis, and a small fireplace and oven, probably intended to serve the purpose of a cooking-place for the porter and his assistants. These rooms are vaulted. From this story a passage opens upon the rampart of the northern curtain, and led, probably by a temporary plank bridge, across an abyss in the thickness of the wall, about 29 feet deep and 5 feet wide, and opening below between the grates of a water gate. A passage, at the ground level, leads from the platform through the gatehouse tower, across the ditch or canal from the water gate, to the northern curtain, and was defended by gates, portcullis, and drawbridge. From the gatehouse a dividing wally 20 feet high and 6 feet thick, extends westward 80 feet to the edge of the inner moat, and thus cuts off the platform and the whole of the southern from the northern curtain. Each face has been embattled, so that should either curtain be taken, the other could still be defended. At the union of the gatehouse with the northern curtain^ in the latter, at the level of the water's edge, is a low-browed archway, which could only have been accessible by a boat, and is a water gate. It is defended by two grates, and a cavity open above between them, and thence a covered way once probably a sort of canal, leads close under, and. north of, the dividing wall, to the edge of the inner moat. This curtain runs northward for 130 yards, and is strengthened exteriorly by three buttress toivers, quadrangular and solid below, but hexagonal and chambered above. Each has a projection of 20 feet ; they are of unequal breadth. The chambers have each a loop in front, and one at the junction of the tower with the wall on either side. They were accessible only from the rampart. In the curtain itself are six loops, opening in pairs between the buttress towers. The curtain ends, northward, in a pair of towers, connected by the vault of a portal, the north postern, regularly defended, and opening upon a plot of ground and causeway separating the two parts of the outer moat. Behind, and parallel to this curtain, at a distance of 19 feet, was a slight wall, 4 feet thick, which formed the back wall of a postern gallery, leading from the gatehouse to the north postern, and forming above a broad flat walk for the defence of the ramparts. This gallery is said to have been fitted up as a stable. Southern Curtain. — The general plan of this curtain is irregular ; it passes south-eastward from the gatehouse, forms a large semicircle, Y