Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/142

126 MedicBval Military Ai'chitechire in England. but they must have destroyed the privacy of the hall and made it very cold. Above the main floor was an upper floor, probably occupied as private rooms, bratticed off by partitions of wood. Where this floor was not a part of the original building, to gain it seems to have been one object of the addition. It was placed immediately below the roof The original roof seems to have been inclined at a moderate pitch, such as was necessary to carry off the water from a covering of shingles. The gables did not rise above the parapet, so that there was thus a great loss of space. In the smaller keeps the roof was a simple ridge with lateral gutters ; where there was a cross wall the roof was double, with a central as well as lateral gutters. That this was the usual arrangement is clear from the old weather mouldings, which remain in the end walls wherever these have been raised. The original roof having its ridge rather below the parapet, had its side gutters in deep hollows. Of course, no military engine could have been placed on such a roof Where the walls have been raised the roof has been replaced by a floor, and an upper story introduced with either a flat, or nearly flat, and leaded roof. These additions are almost always late Norman ; but at Brougham they are Decorated. At Ludlow, where there was a central ridge with two lateral gutters, the interior has been re-arranged, and a flat roof laid at the ridge level of the old one, gaining a floor without raising the walls. The gables never seem, as in the Scottish towers, to have risen above the parapet. Probably one reason why the Norman roofs were lifted and flattened was to allow of military engines being placed upon them, and the use of lead must have come in rather suddenly just before the close of the Norman period. The floors of these keeps are almost always of timber ; thick rough planks, resting upon stout balks 12 inches or 14 inches square, placed about 2 feet or 3 feet apart, and resting either on a ledge or in regular joist-holes. Such floors exposed the keep to be burned, and once well on fire it would certainly burn till it was gutted. The basement is now and then vaulted, but the vaulting is very rarely original, and when it is so the keep is late. The vaulting at the Tower and at Dover is modern brickwork ; the Ludlow vault seems Early English ; that at the lower part of Carlisle, that of Por- chester. Brougham, Bowes, and Richmond, Decorated ; the vaulting at Middleham, Newcastle, and Mitford may be original. The vaulting at Norham, a late keep, may be original, but was more probably inserted at an early period by Bishop Puiset. That of Bamburgh is an insertion.