Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/476

 438 Medmval Military Architecture. at the ground-level is 66 feet diameter, from which its buttresses project 9 feet more, so that it covers an interrupted circle of 8o feet. Where the buttresses spring from, or are united to, the tower, they are 15 feet 6 inches broad. They taper in plan 6 feet 6 inches, so that the face of each is 9 feet broad. At 20 feet from the ground the battering base ceases, and the tower is there 52 feet diameter, and the buttresses project 8 feet, while their taper is represented by a base of 14 feet 6 inches, and a face of 9 feet. This is at the first-floor level, and here the walls are 14 feet 11 inches thick. The exterior of the tower from this level is vertical, being in fact a cylinder, and without any string moulding or set-off above the chamfered top of the base. Inside, the walls are reduced in thick- ness by three sets-off or ledges, corresponding to the four floors, each floor resting upon a ledge. The wall is thus reduced to 12 feet 6 inches in thickness at the summit. The tower is now at one point 90 feet high, and was originally probably about 120 feet to its conical top. The buttresses, when complete and battlemented, were about 94 feet high. The whole structure is built of a fine- grained light-coloured limestone, in blocks about 12 inches high by from I to 3 feet long, laid in courses, not regularly sorted, though the largest stones are in the base. Both inner and outer faces, stair- cases, and mural chambers, are also of excellent ashlar. The joints generally are rather open, the horizontal joints varying from half-an- inch to one-and-a-half inches, the vertical joints rather closer. The vaulting is mostly sound rubble. The mortar has fallen out of the joints of the ashlar, but the stone is fresh and sharp, and there are no settlements. The courses are all well defined, and may be counted both within and without. Outside, the base is composed of eighteen courses, and the cylinder of sixty-one, from which the but- tresses rise seven courses more. Inside, the first floor contains nine- teen courses, the second twenty-five, and the third nineteen, being sixty-three for the whole cylinder. The fourth floor is gone, or nearly so. The exterior of the building is perfectly plain, save the two small circular lights of the oratory, which have a sort of ball mould- ing. There are several loops, but in the whole building but one exterior doorway, and two main windows. All the arches are full- centred ; no trace of a pointed arch, and all is of one date. Nothing can be more substantial, plainer, in better proportion, or better suited to the purjDose for which it was built. The interior is divided into a basement and four stages, of which the uppermost was in the roof, and at the battlement level ; all are cylindrical. The basement is a domed vault, of which the floor is the natural surface of the rock. It is 22 feet diameter. The walls to the springing are 10 feet high, and both dome and walls are per- fectly plain. There are no loops, or even holes, or lateral recesses, or openings of any kind : no seats, no vents, no sewer, so far as can be seen. In the centre is the well, lined with ashlar, and rather above 2 feet diameter. It is said to be 105 feet deep, but is now partially choked up. It must have been sunk as a larger shaft, and