[Illustration: The Gate-House Stokesay Castle.] We now proceed to the Gatehouse, a beautiful structure of timber and plaster dating from Tudor times. Grey, worn, and weather-stained as they are, its solid old oaken timbers bid fair to outlast many a long year yet; while the huge angle corbels and the spandrils above the gateway are boldly carved with the quaint, humorous conceits of the mediæval craftsman. The story goes that in the last century this Gatehouse used to be frequented by a fugitive, outlawed in the days when forgery was a capital crime, who hid snugly away in some secret closet of the interior until the hue-and-cry was well on its way elsewhere. Let us now make our way within. A substantial oak door, nail-studded, and loopholed for the use of muskets, admits us into the courtyard; beyond whose level greensward rise the picturesque gables of the ancient Banqueting Hall, its mullioned windows flanked by massive buttresses, and surmounted with a wavy old stone-slated roof beautified by lush green mosses and splashes of golden lichen. Passing within, we find ourselves in a nobly proportioned hall, whose open-timbered roof is supported by sturdy oaken beams springing from stone corbels of elegant design. Upon either side rise lofty traceried windows; and in the floor we see the stone slab which supported the brazier, whose smoke has blackened the rafters overhead. At one end of the hall a rude sort of staircase, composed of solid oak steps, gives access to other rooms in the northern wing of the castle; and in the opposite wall is a shouldered doorway, leading to storerooms and nondescript cellars. High up in this wall are seen two tiny, shuttered lights, which give upon the Banqueting Hall from an upper chamber. To this apartment, known as the Solar, we now make our way; climbing thither by a flight of stone steps out in the open courtyard. With its magnificent carved oak mantelpiece and handsome wainscoting, the Solar must have been far and away the most sumptuous chamber in the castle, and was probably used as a kind of parlour, or withdrawing-room, for ladies, and guests of the better sort. This view is strengthened by the presence of the two 'peep-hole' windows before mentioned, whence the occupants of the Solar could, themselves unobserved, keep an eye upon the festive scenes that went forward in the Banqueting Hall below. The mantelpiece above mentioned is quite a marvel of elaborate ornamentation, of that rich, florid style, in vogue towards the close of the seventeenth century. The base of the structure, surmounting a plain stone fireplace, is effectively carved with bold, conventional foliage, and a pear pattern in the spandrils; while the upper portion is divided pilaster-wise, by grotesque figures, into panels enriched with masks surrounded by intricate strapwork. A sketch of one of these panels may be seen by turning to p. 59, where it forms a tailplate to the chapter.