Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/355

 Caerphilly Castle, Glamorgan. 329 The vaulted roof of the kitchen is broken, but enough remains to display its original structure. The steps of the water-gate gallery- have been removed, but the vaulted roof is but httle injured. In the great court a depression in the sward indicates the ancient well. It has lately been opened a few feet down, but nothing of importance was discovered. The four bastion towers of this ward deserve special notice, since it is the position of one of them which has conferred upon this castle much of the notoriety it possesses. That these four towers have been mined and blown up with gun- powder, at some period when the effects of that agent were well understood, is evident on inspection. The mine has been sprung near the centre of each tower, and has produced effects, differing in degree only, upon each. That on the north-east is altogether levelled, on the outside, entirely to the ground, crushing in its descent the very bastion on which its foundation rested — on the inside, the door and a portion of wall, as high as the curtain, only remain. The destruction of the north-western tower has not been by any means so complete. Only a third of its outer circumference has fallen, and the rest, deprived indeed of its floors, remains as firm as ever. The portion which has fallen lies in fragments upon the neighbouring bastion. At the south-western tower the mine has operated outwards ; the whole of the outer portion has fallen upon the bastion and into the ditch, but the inner strip connecting it with the rest of the building, and containing the entrances to the several stories, has been pro- tected by the outbuildings on its southern side, and is unshaken. The last, or south-eastern, is the celebrated leaning tower, the obliquity of which has been much exaggerated, and absurdly accounted for. In the case of this tower the mine has exploded in a contrary direction from the rest, and the inner portion, with the adjoining curtain, has been thrown into the court, while the outer portion remains standing, although the force of the explosion has thrown the mass out of the perpendicular, so that it overhangs its base, towards the south-west, nine feet. The parapet at its summit remains quite perfect, and is the only one in the castle that is so. The neighbourhood of these four towers, and the intervening gatehouses, upon which the force of the gunpowder has been chiefly employed, is a chaos of ruins ; subverted masses of the gallery, staircases, the vaulting of large portions of the chambers themselves, lie in confusion upon the ground ; and the thin mantle of vegetation which has enveloped them, although it adds much to their picturesque beauty, increases in no slight degree the difticulty of accurately comprehending their original disposition. Throughout this immense building the iron work, even to the staples of the doorways, has been removed ; nor is there any lead to be found in the sockets of the window-bars. The hewn stone forming the door-frames, window-cases, newels of the well-staircases, and in some instances the stairs themselves, have