<g>Roof.</g>--The geometrical roof, which once covered this noble hall, is allowed by all writers on the subject to have been of admirable construction. It was of Irish oak of the best quality, nicely adjusted, elaborately carved, and so ingeniously framed and fastened together, that the whole appeared as firm as if it had been chiselled out of a solid block; yet withal so lofty, so light and airy in appearance, that it seemed rather to be suspended from the sky above, than to rest upon the corbel heads and walls which it covered and adorned. In the centre was a gothic louvre adorned with painted glass, through which the descending light streamed upon the assembled guests--their arms, dresses, and accoutrements, in all the colours of the rainbow. At the lower end of the hall is the Buttery, an apartment, thirty-two feet long by eighteen broad; and attached to this is another of equal dimensions, called the Pantry. <g>Officers’ Barracks.</g>--Opposite the door of the great Hall, on the south, was a range of apartments, used as lodgings for the superior officers of the garrison. During the siege these were razed to the ground by the enemy’s artillery; so that the area on which they stood is now confounded with that of the Fountain Court. The latter apartments are distinct from those already described. <g>The Chapel.</g>--The Baronial Chapel stands in the rear of the apartments named. It is a long narrow structure, running parallel with the great Hall, and forming the north side of the Fountain Court; but the vestiges that remain convey no distinct notion of its architectural style and decorations; which were, no doubt, in harmony with other sacred buildings of that age and its character of a baronial chapel. If, however, we may form any opinion from two rudely carved stone effigies[235] projecting from the wall on the north side, and nearly covered with ivy, we should form but a very unfavourable estimate of its ornamental sculpture: unless, indeed, the deformity they exhibit be the result of wilful violence; and as they are at a good height, and not approachable in the ordinary way, we had no means of ascertaining the fact by close inspection. But the corbel heads, from which the arches sprung, do not appear to justify a more favourable opinion; for the workmanship exhibits neither skill in the design, nor spirit in the execution. The Chapel, therefore, was of a date perhaps much anterior to the surrounding buildings, and coeval with that of the Keep, or “Tower of Gwent,” a work of the eleventh century.