Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/447

 Cockermottth Castle, Cumberland. 413 shows this west wall of the kitchen before the great arch was inserted. The wall contains an immense hole or gap, above which, on the outside, is the weather moulding of the high-pitched roof of the hall. The kitchen was very lofty, and had an open timber roof the corbels of the hammer-beams of which remain. Above was the parapet, one side of which belonged to the outer curtain. Abutting from the west wall of the kitchen, in the rebuilding of which the moulding showing the pitch of the hall roof has been removed, was the east, or lower end of the hall, a building 30 feet wide by about 50 feet long, of which the curtain formed the north side. The south wall is levelled nearly to the ground, but its foun- dations show its exterior buttresses, and the place of the door in the basement near the east end of the wall. The western wall, dividing it from the withdrawing-room, is gone. The basement below the hall seems to have been about 10 feet high. It was covered by the timber floor. The entrance was in the south wall, close to the east end, probably by an interior stair. One jamb of the doorway remains, richly moulded in the Decorated style, though much decayed. The hall had three large windows in the north wall, which is strengthened outside by three buttresses, evidently added to the older wall when the hall was built. The windows are of the fashion so common in the halls of Decorated castles. They are of two lights trefoiled, with a transom, and in the head a quatrefoil. That next the east end has a stone window-seat, and the others may have been so provided. Outside, the windows have a good drip- stone. Probably the fireplace was in the south wall. In the east wall, near the south end, is a large plain trefoil-headed recess, not even chamfered, resembling a large piscina, with a stone shelf. It was possibly intended to place the dishes upon when received from the adjacent buttery-hatch. South of this a small door leads into a well-stair, which led to the roof, and is lighted by a small and very neat foliated circle. The cant or fiUing up of the adjacent angle of the kitchen is produced by this staircase. The hall had an open timber roof, some of the corbels of which remain. The rooms west of the hall extend to and include the western or angle tower. The room next the hall had two large Tudor windows in the curtain ; they are flat topped, of three lights, with a transom, and within flat-arched recesses ; they are evident insertions. The interior of the west tower is roughly four sided, and the gorge wall is gone. It had a basement with three loops, with large splayed and pointed recesses, and above were three floors, each with an excellent one-light trefoiled window of Decorated date ; the two lower are towards the west ; the upper, a marked feature in the view of the castle from the town, is towards the south. In the north wall a straight stair leads up to a mural garderobe, the opening of which is projected upon two corbels high up at the junction of the curtain with the tower. The lower part of this tower seems original ; the upper part has been rebuilt, no doubt in the Decorated period. Twenty-two feet in the rear of the tower remains the base of a