Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)Clark, George Thomas
History
Mediæval Military Architecture in England, Volume 2 (of 2)
Clark, George Thomas
Architecture -- England; Architecture, Medieval; Military architecture
The _Middle Ward_ contains little of interest. On the north side it
is 15 feet broad, and hence, between its two roundels, 10 feet apart,
opened the postern, 8 feet wide, now walled up. On the west front, the
ward is 27 feet broad and forms a noble terrace overlooking the sea
and commanding the approach from the water-gate. The hall had windows
looking this way, and upon it opened the hall postern. Towards the
south end a few steps descended about 10 feet into the south-west
bastion. Probably there was a cross wall here with a doorway. Turning
the south-west corner, the ground again rises to a door in a wall which
crosses the south terrace near its west end. This side of the wall
has a central half-round bastion, the broken parapet of which shows
traces of a loop and of a garderobe. On the remaining or eastern side
is the great entrance. Here the gateway, which crowns a low salient, is
flanked by two roundels. The portal is broken down, and it does not now
appear how this was connected with the inner gatehouse. Probably the
short distance between the two was arched over and had lateral doorways
into the middle ward. From the inner gate, twenty steps descended to
the bridge, so that no horse or carriage could have entered this way.
The defences beyond the middle ward are the ditch, the outer ward, and
the water-gates and passage. The ditch covers only the east and south,
the two landward sides. It is quarried in the rock, and is about 60
feet broad and was 20 feet deep, with vertical sides. Its scarp is the
revetment wall of the middle ward, and the counterscarp, where the
rock was broken, is also lined with masonry. The ditch runs out at
either end upon the shelving face of the rock. Across it, to the main
entrance, led a bridge upon which it is said there were two openings
with drawbridges. The whole is now a solid causeway.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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