Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)Clark, George Thomas
History
Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 1 (of 2)
Clark, George Thomas
Architecture -- England; Architecture, Medieval; Military architecture
In the smaller keeps, and some few of the larger ones, there is no
forebuilding, and the entrance is by a plain arch, as at Clitheroe,
Goderich, Bowes, Guildford, and Malling. This entrance was on the
first floor. In the latter case it is, indeed, in the basement,
but nevertheless 10 feet above the ground level. The approach in
these cases seems to have been by an external staircase of timber.
At Chepstow, Carlisle, Bamburgh, and Ludlow, the entrance was by a
single doorway at the ground level. In almost all the larger keeps it
has been found convenient—probably when they ceased to be used solely
as military buildings—to have a large direct entrance at the ground
level. Such have been made at London, Rochester, Norham, Kenilworth,
Porchester, Guildford, Clitheroe, Hedingham, Colchester, Goderich,
Canterbury, Brough, and Malling, and probably Chepstow. Some of these
are evidently insertions, taking the place of a loop; others seem to
have been original doors opening from the basement of the keep into
that of the forebuilding, made external on its destruction, as at Corfe
and, perhaps, Kenilworth. At Richmond the removal of the forebuilding
has laid open a large Norman arch in the basement which opened into
it. Besides these main doors, Ludlow has two doors opening from the
keep upon the ramparts of the curtain; and at Rochester is a small
door whence probably a plank drawbridge, six feet or eight feet long,
dropped upon the adjacent curtain. There is something like this at
Helmsley, and in the Norman keep of Adare, in Ireland.
Most keeps contain an oratory; some a regular chapel. Dover is peculiar
in having two, both in the forebuilding, in its lower tower. Newcastle
has one in its forebuilding, under the staircase and upper tower.
Middleham has the remains of a very handsome one at the head of the
outer staircase. At Rochester the chapel seems to have been in the
forebuilding, high up, beneath the kitchen. At Castle Rising it is on
the first floor of the keep, at one end of one of the large rooms. At
Guildford and Brougham it was in the wall. The finest and earliest
castle-chapel in England is that in the White Tower. It is large, has a
nave, aisles, and semi-circular apse, all vaulted. This chapel occupies
two stories, and below it are two floors of vaulted crypts, intended
for prisons. The chapel at Colchester, though smaller and ruder,
resembles in position that in the White Tower.
Of the three drawings here given, the first gives the plan of the White
Tower, London, at the second or chapel floor. The three well staircases
are there seen, and the outer and cross walls. Here also is shown, in
the south wall, the small mural staircase which ends at this level, and
affords the only communication with the main floor of the chapel.
[Illustration]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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