Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/151

The Rectangular Keep of a Norman Castle, 135 Dover there is a very evident prison. At Carlisle, where the basement has recently been used as a prison, it probably was not one originally. Large as some of the keeps were, they were not calculated to be held against a long siege or a blockade, and all the spare room would then be needed for provisions and stores. The earlier keeps are very plain. The Tower has not even a moulding save in the chapel, and an exterior blocking over its main tier of windows. No doubt it has been much mutilated, but, had the ornaments been cut off, the courses of freestone that carried them would still be distinguishable from the ordinary rubble masonry. Some of the later keeps exhibit rather rich details, though usually marked by much simplicity, about the doors, windows, and fireplaces. Such is the case at Rochester, Hedingham, Dover and Newcastle, and specially at Castle Rising, one of the most highly ornamented of keeps. Bamburgh has a fine doorway early in the twelfth century ; Ludlow and Guildford some arcades ; Porchester some good windows. The exterior of Norwich is, or rather was, rudely panelled in tiers of arches. Goderich, otherwise very plain, has an exterior string of hatched or chevron work. In these keeps the arches are usually full-centred, but sometimes seg- mental, and where flat there is commonly above the lintel a relieving arch with a recessed tympanum, as at Chepstow. At Mailing, though there are no mouldings, the first-floor window on one side is the centre of five deep plain full-centred niches in the exterior face, which cannot have been meant for use, and in another face, also outside, are five other niches, all unpierced. Occasionally false arches are turned in the walls, as though a door had been closed up, or the possibility of a new opening provided for. Such are seen at Dover, Norwich, and Guildford. They are thought, but scarcely on good grounds, to be intended to invite an attack where the wall is specially thick. One or two keeps have buttresses of bold projection, greatly in contrast to the usual flat pilaster. This is so at Colchester and at Arques, where the exterior stair passes through one of them. At Arques also these buttresses are turned to account in the upper story, arches being thrown across from buttress to buttress, upon which are built chambers, and on one face a chapel, through the floor of which missiles could be dropped upon the assailants below. Arques, unfortunately, is built of chalk and flint with little or no original ashlar, and it is, in consequence, difficult to decide between what is original and what has been added. Norman keeps differ in workmanship as in material. The