Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/514

 468 MedicBval Military Architecture, is a lodge with one cruciform loop to the front, and in rear traces of a stair which led to the curtain, and thus by continued steps along its ramparts to the keep. The other tower rises from the crest of the outer slope, where it appears as a mural defence, upon the west front. Within is a small lodge with three loops, one to the front, one on the flank towards the field, and one, now closed up, to the rear, into the middle ward. The portal has no jambs, but is entered under a segmental arch, double chamfered, springing direct from the flanking towers. This recedes 4 feet i inch, and is succeeded by a rounded portcullis groove, 9 inches broad by 6 inches deep, but having, while within the arch, a flat margin of 3 inches on either side. These margins cease above the arch, and the chase is of the breadth of the groove only. Behind the portcullis is a second arch, 2 feet 9 inches broad, succeeded by a machicolation, 14 inches broad, and divided by four septa into five square holes. These are placed immediately before the jambs of the gate proper, where the passage is reduced by about I foot 8 inches. Behind the jambs an arch of high spring and flat segmental curve accommodated the folding-doors, when open. These were of wood, and the bar-hole behind them is about 1 1 inches square. The hinges are gone. Behind this last arch the passage was roofed with wood, and is now open. In the rear are parts of the groove of a second portcullis — "altera securitas " — so that there was probably a stone face to the back front of the gatehouse, all now destroyed. The arrangements of this gateway as far back as the lodge are shown in the accompanying section. See woodcut, Fig. 11. In the wooden roofed space are the doors of the two lodges. The south is square-headed, with shoulders. The north, of the same shape, is protected by a semicircular relieving arch in the wall above. This arch, in design and material, has a very Norman aspect, and may have been preserved from an older work. There are no remains of battlements on this gateway, but on its front are stone corbels, probably intended to carry the hoarding, a feature of military architecture so well described by M. Viollet-le-Duc.i In the exterior portal, near the floor, and a few inches in front of the portcullis groove, is a round hole, 5 inches across and 3 inches deep, which seems to have carried the iron axle of the drawbridge. Above it is another similar hole, no doubt connected with the working of the same defence. Entering the gateway the road rises rapidly. On the right is the exceedingly steep scarp, at the top of which is the bastion of the keep. On the left is the curtain of the west front. Higher up the way turns to the right, to reach the inner ward, and skirts on the left what seems to have been a formal garden, indicated by a level
 * " Dictionnaire de I'Architecture," torn. vi. " Hourd."