Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/488

 444 McdicEval Militaiy Architecture, the west front, and near the summit of the very fine Early English tower of Old Malton Church. Below each light is a trefoil-headed piscina of i foot 6 inches opening by 1 1 inches deep, of which that in the north wall has a minute nailhead moulding. The height to the crown of the vault is about 14 feet, gained by stilting the arch. The altar is gone. On the left, on entering the oratory, a small flat-topped doorway leads into a mural vestry of irregular form, about 9 feet long by 5 feet broad, with a splayed loop, and in the end wall a trefoil-headed locker 2 feet broad by i foot 6 inches deep. The vestry is very plainly vaulted, the arch being a lean-to against the wall of the oratory. Between the oratory door and the fireplace, to the north, a door- way of 3 feet 4 inches opening enters a lobby 3 feet 10 inches by 7 feet, whence a staircase of twenty-four stairs ascends, winding with the wall, to the battlements and the fourth story. The staircase is 4 feet broad, and vaulted with hanging ribs. The two lower stair- cases ascend from east to west by the north, this ascends from west to east, also by the north, and passes over the vestry. In the lobby is a door i foot 9 inches opening, whence a bent passage 3 feet 4 inches broad, leads to a garderobe, the seat of which rests upon an oblique or squint arch, which springs across the hollow angle between the tower wall and one of the buttresses, and is placed, inconveniently enough, over the loop at the head of the first flight of stairs. Over the seat is a loop. Garderobes so placed, over a hollow angle, are common in the Decorated period, but there is one on the outer wall at Kenilworth, probably late Norman.