Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/157

Of the Shell Keep. 1 41 turnpike stairs to the ramparts, and a chapel over the entrance, much altered in the Decorated period, and which, as is not uncommon, serves as a portcullis chamber. At Hawarden, a small and close, but very curious keep, the oratory is over the entrance. Tamworth, rather an Early English than a Norman struc- ture, was long the actual residence of a considerable family. It is still inhabited, and contains some crowded and curious buildings, an open court, and a well. Connected with the keep is an earlier curtain-wall with some herring-bone work. The approach to the keep lies along the rampart of this w^all. The actual entrance is a small, plain, pointed doorway. At Lincoln the keep is a mere Norman shell. It is nearly circular, and has two original doorways, one (the larger) opening from the castle area, the other opening upon the outer ditch. The mound stands upon the enceinte line of the place, and at the points at which the two curtains abut upon the keep are two mural chambers, w^hich appear to have been garderobes. At Clare the shell was a polygon of four- teen faces, and at each angle was a buttress, triangular in plan, and of three stages, dying into the wall. The shell was 52 feet internal diameter, and the walls 6 feet thick and 25 feet high, with four tiers of putlog holes. The foundations of this keep are of the unusual depth of 6 feet. There is said to have been an underground chamber, which may be doubted. The material is flint rubble, with ashlar buttresses and dressings, but the actual masonry, though, no doubt, generally on the old lines, does not look later than Edward III., if so old. The mound is 53 feet high, and on the enceinte, and traversed by the curtain. The base is about 870 feet in girth, of which about 600 feet are outside, and 270 feet within the area. At Alnwick the whole inner ward is a shell keep built upon a natural knoll. The main buildings, being the lord's lodgings, are built against and form part of the wall, and the centre is an open court. The gatehouse is Norman, and part of the foundations of the wall, but most of the superstructure has been rebuilt twice over, though upon the old lines. There is a well in the wall, probably original, but encased in late Norman masonry. Alnwick being a sort of Castle Dangerous, and always open to sudden attack, the lord habitually lived within the keep, which was far more commodious than usual. Tickhill keep was a decagon, of which the foundations remain, to the top of the plinth, with the base of a flat pilaster capping each angle. The entrance was by a small door, just within which was the well. The mound stands on the enceinte, and the curtain runs up it on each side. About a quarter of the