Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/390

 360 Meciiceval Military Architecture. structure, the north and south angles terminating in buttresses, each the half of a pyramid cut vertically and diagonally across, after a fashion very common in Welsh casdes, and well seen in Marten's tower at Chepstow. The cylinder is 40 feet in diameter. It con- tains three stories, of which the middle one is on a level with the inner court, or ierre-plein, of the place. The lower story may have been a cellar. It is vaulted, and has two great cross-springer ribs, and two windows opening high above the floor. A narrow passage, vaulted, with steps, leads into it from the court. Its internal diameter is 18 feet, its walls upwards of 10 feet thick. The windows were mere loopholes. The middle story is also circular and vaulted, with similar ribs. Here, however, the windows open nearly on the level of the floor, though also loops. There is a fireplace, with a flue carried up in the wall. The flue is backed with stone. The entrance to this chamber is also from the court, and, on the east side of the vaulted passage, a gallery passes off in the thickness of the wall, and leads to what was a small garderobe, occupying a square projection on the east side of the tower, at its junction with the curtain. The general dimensions of this story, and the thickness of the walls, correspond with those of the room below. The upper story contains one chamber, the south and east sides of which are flat, the rest circular. Here are no less than three fireplaces, each of large dimensions, with funnels in the thickness of the wall. It contains also two small recesses, one a sort of sink, and has two windows. There are also two doors, one, on the south side, opening upon the roof and ramparts of the hall and west front, the other, eastwards, leading to the ramparts of the great or northern curtain. Access to this chamber, from below, seems to have been obtained by an exterior stair between the tower and the hall. This story, within, is about 26 feet mean diameter, and the walls vary from 2 feet 3 inches to 4 feet thick. It was roofed flat, with timber, and above were ramparts and a parapet, probably reached by means of a trap-door in the roof It was evidently the kitchen, here, as at Morlais and Coningsburgh, placed in an upper floor. This tower is the most perfect of the whole, and in tolerable preservation, although the lower chamber is half full of rubbish ; the small apartment connected with the middle story is broken down, and the roof and ramparts are wanting on the summit. This tower, however, is evidently the type of, and has served in the present instance as a clue to, the original plan of the others. The South Tower corresponded nearly to the last, and, like it, appears to have contained three chambers, and at its junction with the west curtain, a square projection, containing in the middle story a small garderobe, and in the upper, probably a communication with the battlements of the hall. The lower chamber is entered by a vaulted passage, down steps, from the courtyard. The middle or main chamber probably was entered on the level, by a passage