Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/321

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The Castles of Brottgh and Brougham. 299 the north end, also, on the first floor, are remains of a handsome door in the Perpendicular style, with a four-centred arch beneath a square head. The staircase may have been exterior. Grose shows some walls here in 1775, which are now gone. The Keep^ called in Countess Anne's time " the Roman Tower," the only remain of the original castle, is 44 feet square, and, in its present state, of unusual height. Its exterior plinth is confined to the north side. The two western angles are covered by pilasters, 12 feet broad and of 6 inches projection, one on each face, meeting so as to form a solid angle. Two other pilasters, balancing these, cover the east end of the north and south walls, but there are none on the east side, that having been covered by the forebuilding. The south face is prolonged eastwards 12 feet by a wall 5 feet thick, which rises to the third-floor level, and formed the south end of the forebuilding. The pilasters rise to the present summit of the wall, and terminated originally in four square turrets, of which traces remain at the two northern angles. The keep has a basement and three upper floors, of which the uppermost, if not an addition, has been recast. The walls are 1 1 feet thick at the base, and at least 10 feet at the rampart level. The parapet is gone. There is no external set-off. In the centre of each face, and near the top, are three or four bold corbels, which evidently carried a short machicolation ; and in. the angles, near the top, are several cruciform loops, slightly fantailed at the top and bottom, and with lateral arm.s ending in oillets, much resembling those at Kenilworth. Some of these are the lower half of those of the turrets, which, with the parapet, were standing in 1775. At the upper part of the south-eastern angle the wall is corbelled out 12 inches for a breadth of 15 feet on the southern, and rather less on the eastern, face. This is to give a little more space to a mural oratory, which has a loop on the south face, and a small trefoil-headed window towards the east, clear of the forebuilding. On the north face, near the east pilaster, a ver- tical line of six loops shows the presence of a well-stair from the first floor. The four lower loops have round heads ; the two upper have square heads, and are probably later. The basement is at the ground level. It has splayed loops to the north, west, and south ; and in the east side is a recess with parallel sides, and a trace of a rebate of a doorway. This, if original, must have led into a cell below the forebuilding, as at Rochester ; but it may be a Decorated insertion. It is nearly covered up with rubbish. In the north-east angle, which has been filled up with a short wall, is a small door opening into a bent passage, which now leads into the open air, at where was the foot of the great entrance- staircase. There may always have been a cell here, but the cross- wall and the outer door are not original. In the west end of the north wall is another recess opening into a garderobe chamber, 5 feet long by 3 feet broad, and original. This basement floor has had a vaulted and ribbed roof, springing from corbels at the angles, and from four others, in the centre of each side. There was, in