rested. Owing to the low springing of the main timbers the roof had from within the appearance of a very high pitch, which the water table shows not really to have been the case. It is on the first floor, and approached from the court by a broad exterior staircase, opening in the south wall near its west or lower end. In the north wall are three long narrow windows of one light each, trefoiled, and crossed by a heavy transom, and in the east end of this side a small door leads, probably, into a guardrobe. The view from these windows is up the Teme and Corvedale. In the south wall are three large windows looking upon the court. They are of two lights, trefoiled, and crossed by a transom. Their recesses have equilaterally arched heads, and the angles are replaced by filleted beads. One window only has a stone seat. The great door, towards the west end of this side, matches with the window recesses, though a little lower. In the west end are two buttery doors of unequal size, and at the north-west corner a door opens, as at Pembroke, into a well stair to the roof. In the east end of the hall, near the north-east corner, and high up, is a combined door and window-a sort of hatch, by means of which those in the upper state room could either look into the hall or step down into the gallery that ran across above the dais. The central south window has been blocked up, and converted into a late Tudor fireplace. No doubt the original grate, as at Penshurst, stood in the middle of the hall.

West of the hall is the buttery tower, a very fine group, which occupied the north-west angle of the ward. Part of it projects boldly, and caps the northwestern angle of the curtain. The part within the ward is also rectangular. The part connected with the curtain is Norman, and was a large rectangular tower with an open gorge. In its base are two roundheaded doorways, now nearly buried, whence mural passages led to guardrobes in the curtain. The older part has been raised, and a pointed arch turned, and upon it a wall built closing the gorge at the second

floor. This tower has had large additions on its inner face, and is now a part only of the building of which the basement seems to have been a store; and the first floor, 33 feet by 27 feet, a serving-room and buttery attached to the hall. This room was entered by a sidedoor on the great hall staircase, so that the dishes were brought from the kitchen up the great stair, but not through the great door of the hall. In the buttery is a large fireplace.

At the other or east end of the hall are the state rooms, contained within a grand and lofty structure, rectangular in plan, and projecting beyond the hall. Whether the foundations are Norman, or whether, like the superstructure, the whole is of Decorated date, is doubtful. The material is excellent ashlar. There are a basement and two upper floors. In the first is a grand fireplace; but the principal apartments were on the second floor. The door and window openings are numerous and varied. Some are excellent Decorated, with lancet and segmental arches; others are insertions in florid Perpendicular; and others, in wretched taste and of base materials and workmanship, are of Tudor date. The upper room has also a large fireplace, and the abutments of the hood are two carved heads. The north window is of one light, and of great length, divided by transoms. The south window is of similar character, but has two lights. This upper room had an open roof of low pitch, supported by three pairs of principals.

Next to these rooms, on the east side, is a smaller pile of buildings, also rectangular, which fills up the space between the state rooms and the north-eastern tower. This, probably, was appropriated below, to servants' apartments, and above, to the principal bedrooms. There are in the basement three fine early Perpendicular windows of two lights, trefoiled, and with the centre mullion carried through the head. Windows of this size, so low down in an outer wall, are rare, and what is also curious, they open from two rooms by no

4TH SER., VOL. VIII.

13

means remarkable for size or ornamentation. This part of the suite, originally Decorated, on perhaps a Norman foundation, seems to have been remodelled or rebuilt in the Perpendicular period. Connected with these buildings and with the state apartments, and abutting upon both, is the guardrobe tower-a grand rectangular structure projecting from the curtain, and wholly of ashlar, and of Decorated date. It is composed of a basement and four upper floors. The basement is occupied by several guardrobes, the spacious outlets of which have already been described. The upper floors seem to be connected with the state rooms, and in the walls are many small chambers not accessible. The windows are of one light, trefoiled, usually with a transom. Between this building and the hall, projecting outside the curtain, is a multangular turret containing a staircase.

The north-eastern tower caps the angle of the ward. It is rectangular in plan and of Norman date. It forms a part of the two curtains of the middle and outer ward, standing upon each. In its base a door leads into a mural passage in the east curtain, now blocked up with rubbish, and in its first floor is a guardrobe in the north wall.

The kitchen, wholly of Decorated date, is a large rectangular building, placed against the wall of the inner ward, but free on the other three sides. It has two large windows to the east, and an excellent door in the north wall, opposite to the hall staircase. The flagging of the floor remains, and parts of the large fireplace on the west side, with a couple of small side ovens. It has had divers Perpendicular additions. The back kitchen was to the west, and it is probable that a breach in the adjacent wall of the inner ward represents a late doorway, communicating with the well and the great

oven.

The gatehouse is approached from the middle ward by a bridge over the ditch, of which the inner end was broken by a drawbridge, flanked by walls with loops. The gateway has a low-pointed arch, on a tablet above

which are the arms of Elizabeth and those of Sir Henry Sydney, with the date 1581. As the curtain is 7 ft. thick, and bonded into the keep, it is evidently original, and the door fittings are an insertion. There is no portcullis. The entrance door opened into a passage, having the porter's prison and the entrance to the keep on the left, and on the right the gatehouse chambers. The building is of the age of Elizabeth, and very inferior to the older work. Probably the original entrance was by a mere archway in the curtain, as at Kenilworth and Bridgenorth.

The chapel, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, is the most remarkable part of the castle. It stands out in the centre of the middle ward, between the gatehouse and the hall. All of it that remains is the circular nave. This is 28 ft. in interior diameter, with walls 4 ft. thick. It has an entrance door to the west, and a large chancel arch to the east. The rest of the interior is occupied by a mural arcade of fourteen arches, seven on a side, resting on a low stone bench. The arches are alternately chevron moulded and beaded, the capitals cushionshaped and roughly ornamented. Above the arcade was a timber gallery resting upon twelve corbels, of which one is decided Norman and one Early English. Light was admitted by three windows, to the west, north, and south. That over the door was roundheaded, with plain flanking detached shafts, and round the head a chevron and double billet moulding. Outside, these windows rest upon a billeted string, the flanking shafts are engaged, with small plain-caps and bases, and the ring-stones, of considerable breadth, rest upon an abacus, and are worked in chevron and billet mouldings. The north and south windows are quite plain.

The west door is a fine example of enriched late Norman work. Outside it stands in a double recess, having detached nooked flanking shafts, two on each side, with fluted capitals, and the semicircular spaces above the flutes are covered with a small indented

pattern, a sort of hollow nail-head. Of the four, all the caps and one shaft remain. The actual doorway has plain square jambs. Above, a bold simple abacus, the under chamfer of which is hollow, has the face carved with the rudimentary dog tooth ornament. Over the door is a deep chevron moulding. The next ring, over the inner shafts, has a bold beading, and the outer, and much the broadest ring, has a chevron moulding reduplicated, and above it a double billeted drip.

The chancel arch is large, round-headed, and of three ribs, beneath a double billet moulding. The style of ornamentation resembles generally that of the west door. On the west face are two nook shafts on each side, and in addition two half shafts are placed as pilasters in the actual archway supporting the middle rib. This arch and that of the door have become slightly flattened by settlement, as is shown by the gaping of the soffit joints near the crown. The east face of this arch is quite plain, save that the abacus is returned. The original chancel, 42 ft. long, had a high pitched roof, and there is a mark of a second and later one less steep. The side walls are gone. The curtain formed the east wall, and has no window. Outside, the nave is divided into two stages by a billeted string, on which the windows rest, and which is considerably above the top of the door. Above is a plain battlement of no projection, with embrasures one half the breadth of the merlons.

Two arches of the nave arcade have been pierced for Tudor windows, and a third, to the north, has been converted into a doorway. The north window has also been made a doorway, and it is evident that a light gallery of two stages was laid from the domestic apartments to the chapel, the upper opening on the circular gallery. The original way to this circular gallery must have been by a wooden stair within the building. The chancel was standing in the reign of Charles II, and had two Tudor windows in its north wall and windows in the roof, also the nave had a saddleback roof, of