Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/430

400 curtain, only the interior and cross wall between the two wards. The open space is a steep of rugged, broken rock. Probably there was a cross wall and doorway above, and a narrow flight of steps leading to it from below.

The keep is of rough rubble masonry, with ashlar quoins and dressings. It has neither plinth, set-off, nor string, and preserves its exterior dimensions to the summit. Each angle is capped by two pilasters of 9 feet breadth by it inches projection. They unite at the angles, which are solid. The two southern angles are supported by extravagantly-large low buttresses, of modern addition, but it is said they were preceded by buttresses somewhat similar, though of much slighter character.

The keep is 33 feet square and about 43 feet high. The walls are 8 feet thick at the base, and consequently enclose a chamber 17 feet square. This is the basement floor, and at the ground level. It is 9 feet high, and the floor, which covered it above, and is now gone, rested upon nine beams, and was therefore immensely strong. The north, south, and west walls are each pierced by a loop, set in a round-headed recess, 5 feet broad and 5 feet high to the springing. Two of these loops have been converted into open breaches, and the third, to the north, has been walled up and the recess covered with a flat lintel. This floor must have been entered from the room above by a trap and ladder. It was, as usual, a store, the value of these strong small towers depending upon their being well provisioned.

The first floor rested upon a set-off of a foot, and is therefore 19 feet square, with walls 7 feet thick. It is 23 feet high. It has in the north and south walls small square-headed loops, placed in round-headed recesses of 4 feet 6 inches opening. In its west side, close to the north end, is a doorway 2 feet 10 inches broad and 8 feet high, round-headed. In the north wall, on each side the loop, is a door. One of these, flat-topped, of 2 feet 6 inches opening and 6 feet high, leads through a small mural lobby, 4 feet 8 inches by 3 feet 2 inches, into a well-stair, 7 feet diameter, which occupies the north-east angle, and commencing at this level, ascends to the battlements by fifty-four steps. The other door, of 2 feet 11 inches opening, 8 feet high, and round-headed, leads by a passage bent at a right angle and having a barrel vault, into a plain mural chamber, 7 feet by 5 feet, also barrel-vaulted, and which, no doubt, had a loop in its west wall. This wall, however, is now broken away, so that the chamber has much the aspect of an entrance-lobby, which it certainly was not.

The second, or uppermost, floor rests upon a set-off of 2 feet, and is therefore 23 feet square, with walls 5 feet thick, and at present 11 feet high. Singularly enough, it shows no trace of any wall-opening whatever, as though it had been added in modern times for effect only, which, however, does not appear to be the case. The staircase, however, has certainly been repaired, and no doubt originally opened into this floor. The wall at the interior angle is