Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/250

 226 THE CASTLE. 19 feet 6 inches in diameter. (2) The second ' zvall surrounded the inner wall, and was planned from five centres. It varied in thickness from 10 feet to 12 feet, and was about 29 feet high. Between it and the inner wall was a passage, varying from 6 feet to 10 feet 6 inches wide. The second wall had a much wider frontage towards the west than elsewhere. The object of this arrangement was to give all possible room for the soldiers on the side which, in the days of bows and arrows, was the most vulnerable. The slopes of the hill were on all other quarters too steep to be easily scaled by an attacking enemy. (3) The third line of defence was a wall about 6 feet high and 2 feet 8 inches thick, inclosing the second wall. Each of the three walls was battlemented at the top. The innermost ward had a flat lead-covered roof, about 5 feet below the embrasures of its battlements. Within the inner wall a series of thirty-two steps descended from its top to a landing, on each side of which was a door. The doorway on the right led to the roof above the passage between the first and second walls. The doorway on the left was the entrance to the Earl's Chamber, whose fireplace and well-formed smoke-flue still appear in the wall. North of this entrance was another opening into the chamber. The floor beams of the earl's room rested on corbels of stone. From the landing already mentioned thirty-six more steps, within the wall, descended to the ground-floor. The sixty-eight steps led exactly once around the building. At the bottom of the steps the door on the left hand opened upon a windowless dungeon immediately below the Earl's Chamber. Turning eastward, along the passage between the first and second walls, at a distance of about 16 feet, was the sole opening in the second wall to the outer defence. This opening pierced the wall at a part where it was nearly 12 feet thick. The entrance was narrow, both inside and outside ; but within the wall a chamber 8 feet square was