The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book. The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient sculpture, finely executed in wood, exhibiting the bearings, crests, badges, and devises, of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms, set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding and imagery.' There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512 and later. From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book: 'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii Cariages allowid theime.'