Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/445

 Cockerniontk Castle, Cumberland. 411 from which a prisoner or his food might be lowered through the trap. These prisons are placed on each side of, and parallel to, the gateway, in the thick cross head of the X- The basement of the gatehouse-chamber, 21 feet broad by 29 feet deep, and about 10 feet high, is quite plain, and without loops. It is entered in the west wall, from the upper ward, by a flight of twelve steps, beneath a lancet doorway. The covering of this room was the timber floor of the gatehouse. The first floor, also 21 feet by 29 feet, has in its side walls two doorways, of 3 feet opening, and acutely pointed, which led into the lateral chambers. In its west wall, but near the north end, is the inner gateway, piercing a wall 9 feet thick, and opening into the upper ward. This passage is vaulted. It has no portcullis, and but one rebate for a door. In the north side of the passage a narrow, shoulder-headed door leads into a small vaulted lodge, looped towards the upper ward. Entering this ward, on the left, is the door descending to the base- ment, and further on, right and left, are two doors, each lancet, and at the top of flights of twelve steps, which descended into the base- ments of the lateral chambers. The gatehouse had an upper floor, now mostly gone. There were two lateral chambers on each side of the gatehouse, parted by an east-and-west cross-wall, now destroyed. The large spaces thus formed are not quite rectangular. That on the north averages about 26 feet east and west by about 35 feet north and south; and that on the south is a mean square of about 35 feet. Of the four chambers by which these spaces were occupied, the basements of the two next the gatehouse were covered with a pointed vault. Except these, the floors above were timber. The walls of the southern rooms are mostly destroyed, those of the northern are tolerably perfect, and show the windows and fireplaces of a first and second floor, with small mural chambers in the north-east angle. The southern chamber abutted upon the curtain, in which is seen a rude round-headed arch, now a postern, but which has a Norman aspect, and looks as though intended originally for the recess of a loop. The small square bell-turret, of about 18 feet by 10 feet, at the south-west angle of this chamber, stands upon and slightly pro- jects from the exterior of the curtain. The basement looks of the age of the curtain ; the superstructure, of that of the cross buildings and inner gatehouse. At the other or north end of the cross buildings is the kitchen tower, a very remarkable structure. In plan it is nearly rectangular. It is composed of a basement and a first floor. The basement is reached from the upper ward by fifteen descending steps, down a vaulted passage in the wall, at the head of which is a round-headed door of Decorated date. The chamber is about 30 feet square, having a central octagonal pier without base or cap, whence spring eight ribs meeting eight other ribs which spring from corbels in the angles and form responds in the centre of each face. Each of the four bays thus formed is again spanned by ribs springing diagonally