story. This appendage is commonly applied to the east side of the keep. Sometimes, however, as at Prudhoe, Canterbury, and Ogmore, co. Glamorgan, the only entrance appears to have been by a small portal on the ground floor; in other cases, as Dover, Portchester, and Newcastle, both methods are employed.
The ground floor is sometimes vaulted; at Portchester, Newcastle, and Bowes, the groins spring from a central column. The upper floors are usually of timber. Newcastle is a rare instance of an apparently original vault in the upper story.
Large keeps, as London, are sometimes divided by a wall into two parts; but commonly, as at Hedingham, Rochester, and Beaugency near Caen, upon the principal floor an arch springs from wall to wall, with perhaps an intermediate column dividing it into two and carrying the upper floor beams.
The walls are hollowed out at different levels into staircases, galleries, chambers for bedrooms, chapels, sewers, and openings for various purposes[1]. The windows are splayed so as to form a large interior arch, and the galleries thread the walls and open in the jambs of the windows like the triforial galleries of a cathedral. Usually, as at London, Hedingham, and Newcastle, the uppermost gallery runs quite round the building, communicating with each window without entering the great room. At one angle a spiral stair rises from the base to the summit, and opens into each floor and gallery.
The mural chambers are sometimes ribbed, the galleries have the usual barrel vault.
The principal floors have fire-places with ascending flues. At Ogmore and Rochester, the fireplaces are handsomely worked; at Rochester the flue is wanting, and the smoke escapes outwards by a guarded vent a little above the hearth. At Bamborough there appear to be no flues. At Dover the flues are said to be original, but the fire-places are very late Perpendicular. They open from the mural chambers instead of from the principal rooms.
The well is commonly in the substance of the wall, through which its pipe, of from 2 feet to 2 feet 9 inches diameter,
- ↑ At Newcastle, the chapel, a beautiful one, is under the stairs. At Coningsborough, it occupies part of a buttress, and there is a piscina in each upper story, London and Colchester contain regular Norman churches. At Ludlow the chapel is circular. Bamborough has a chapel. The chapel at Dover is in the entrance tower; it is a fine example of late Norman.
