Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/462

 426 Mediceval Military Architecture. left of the staircase door is a smaller door, which opens into a garderobe which shares the turret with the staircase. It is 15 feet 6 inches long by 10 feet 4 inches broad, barrel-vaulted, with loops to the west and north, and beneath each a seat and a shoot in the wall. The loops have been enlarged into windows, and the chamber is used as a record-room. Outside, in the north wall of the turret, close to its junction with the curtain, is a bold deep bracket, com- posed of seven stones and a tile, at the top projecting about a foot, w^hich may have supported the shaft of a garderobe from the battle- ments, or may have been connected with some sort of bretasche or timber erection. Its use is not clear. The east wall of the lobby divides it from the modern library, which stands over the ancient ante-chapel, and was probably the principal private apartment in the keep. It had three recesses, no doubt with loops, in its south walls. Two are now windows, and one a fireplace. Outside this chamber, to the north, is a modern corridor, the space of which was apparently a part of the ante-chapel. In its east wall is a round-backed niche 10 feet broad, through which a passage has been broken, most injudiciously, into the chapel. From the ante-chapel a lofty round- headed doorway opened into the west end of the chapel. The chapel is composed of a nave and apse, and of four lateral recesses or side chapels. It is in length 45 feet and in breadth 15 feet, and 17 feet 6 inches high to the crown of its barrel vault. The apse is semicircular and semi-domed, of the same height with the nave. The westernmost pair of recesses are 14 feet wide and 1 2 feet deep, with semi-domed ends. The eastern pair are 1 1 feet wide and it feet and 14 feet deep, and both semi-domed. In the east wall of the south recess is a niche as for a side altar. The lateral vaults are accommodated to the main vault. The groins or lines of intersection are plain. The apse has a central recess, now a window, and two lateral smaller recesses with loops, unaltered. As the walls are everywhere very thick and the five original apertures could not have exceeded eight inches, the chapel must have been more than usually dark. It contains no ornamentation of any kind, not even an abacus or plinth. The masonry appears to be rubble of a very ordinary character. It is thickly plastered. This is a very curious and rare example of a castle chapel. The first floor, north of the chapel and the entrance lobby, is divided into a larger west and a smaller east chamber. The eastern chamber is 21 feet by 88 feet, the w^estern 61 feet by 100 feet, the increase of size over the lower area being due to a slight reduction in the thickness of the walls. The eastern chamber is entered from the western by a doorway in the dividing wall. In its north end is a loop, in its east wall two fireplaces ; north of the one are two loops and one south of the other ; between them is a fourth loop and a mural garderobe. This chamber, 3 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 3 inches, has an eastern recess 3 feet wide, and in it a small loop beneath which is the seat, and a shoot opening in the wall. There are two doors opening from the