Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/384

 354 MedicBval Military Architecture. used as a mess-room. In its north side was a very large fireplace, flanked by Norman columns ; but this is now walled up. This floor is now entered solely from the south-east angle, but formerly had also a door near the north-west corner, from the well-stair. There is also a door near the south-west angle, which opens into a second well-stair, which probably led to the upper floors and the battlements. This is now closed, and there is no direct way from the first to the upper floors. The second floor is reached, at this time, by an exterior door in the west wall, approached by an exterior stair on the north face, and from the rampart on the east. This door is not original, and has been broken through at the place of a recess, probably looped, which led from the second floor into a mural chamber and garderobe in the east wall, and which are seen on the right hand of the door on entering. This second floor is about i6 feet high, and has a timber ceiling. In the east wall, over the present entrance door, is a mural chamber, on the walls of which are some curious carvings by prisoners. One represents the Percy crescent and fetterlock, and another a coat of arms. From this floor a ladder leads through a trap into the upper floor — a modern arrangement. The third or upper floor is vaulted in modern brick to support the gun platform above. This platform is formed of large slabs of stone, laid down in 1812, which may also be the date of the vault! The walls above are 1 1 feet thick all round. The well of the keep is reputed to be Roman, though this is quite as likely to be true of the larger one in the outer ward. When the keep was built, the well, whether new or old, was included within the north wall, between the doorway and the north-east angle, and its pipe was carried up in the wall, no doubt with a lighted chamber at each floor, as indicated by a line of loops still seen in the wall. To make the well available when the keep was shut up as a prison, a hole was cut in the outside of the north wall, near the ground level, into the pipe of the well, and through this the water is still drawn up. The well is 78 feet deep, and its present cill is 92 feet above the sea level. A curious external stair, probably Edwardian, has been built against the north face of the keep, and leads up, by the well, to the ramparts of the curtain, and so to the door of the second floor of the keep. No doubt its original use was to lead to the ramparts only. The keep, though much disfigured to make it carry artillery, and much obscured by its conversion into prisons, a mess-room, and store-rooms, is for the most part original, and if cleared, as it should be, of the vaultings of the upper floors, would be a tolerably perfect specimen of a Norman keep, with a full share of mural chambers and appendages. The hall and other domestic buildings, including what was called Queen Mary's Tower, most of which were standing at the close of the last century, were ranged at the south-east angle, upon the