Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/356

 330 MedicEval Military Aixhitecture. been rudely wrenched away, with damage to the walls, for the pur- pose, probably, of converting them into lime. Portcullises, stockades, doors, with the roof of the hall, and every particle of timber in the place, have long been removed. Every staircase, gallery, and chamber is pervious to the rain, and exposed to the pernicious force of the frost, yet such and so durable are the materials, and so firm the mortar with which the whole is cemented, that time and weather alone have produced but trifling injuries upon the pile, compared with the wilful destruction of the hand of man. Before arriving at any general conclusion respecting the age of Caerphilly, it will be proper to make a few remarks upon certain details, on which those conclusions in some measure rest. And first of the doorways. With certain exceptions shortly to be enumerated, the doorways throughout the building are of the same general character. The arches are " drop," that is to say, they are obtusely pointed arches, whose centres lie below their spring. This is obviously the best form of the pointed arch for the portals of a castle, and it is that usually employed in the military structures of the Edwardian period. With the same exceptions, the arch- mouldings are composed of a five-sided rib, upon the front and widest face of which a smaller rib, of the same figure, is placed. This pattern of rib-moulding is also very commonly employed in castles. The principal portals, together with the doors leading from the first story of the towers upon the ramparts, are defended by port- cullises, working in a D-shaped groove. This groove passes up as a chase or slot into the chamber above ; but there is no evidence of the sort of contrivance employed in raising the portcullis. The portcullis, however, might have been raised by mere manual exer- tion, and a bar thrust across would be sufficient to retain it securely when raised. The sills are destroyed, so that it does not appear whether the points of the portcullis were received into, or had worn, small holes in them. Besides the portcullis, the larger portals are provided with a chase, but without side grooves, intended, as is pre- sumed, to allow of the use of a sort of wooden frame. Also, in the main portals are four or five square holes or meurtricres in the arch, through which beams to form a stockade might be dropped. It may be observed further that although some of the portal passages are of considerable length, yet the ribs of their vaults are all transverse, never passing diagonally from an angle towards the centre, in the manner employed at Caldecot and elsewhere, to vault a compart- ment of such passages. There appears to have been more than one kind of drawbridge employed in this castle. In some places, as at the great gate, and at the passage in its gatehouse tower, the bridge, when drawn up, fitted into a depression, so as to lie flush with the upper wall, from whence, therefore, its length may be inferred. In other cases it simply rested against the wall, making a projection. It