Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/372

344 MedicBval Military Ai%hitecttire. It appears from Meyric's description, and the drawing, two cen- turies later, by Grose, that the entrance to the hall in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, was at its southern end, at the south-eastern corner, near which were the kitchens. The turret- stair seems then to have been either closed, or used only for com- munication between the basement, bedrooms, and roof. Grose shows its outer door, as nov/, partially below the level of the soil. At the upper or northern end of the hall, on the site of the present drawing-room, was " a fair dining chamber," and two other rooms ; and, above these, two other stories, this being the part of the castle in which the lord and his immediate family and attendants were lodged. It will be observed that all these arrangements, about the existence of w^hich there can be no doubt, leave the most highly decorated bay window, or oriel, and the staircase, at the lower end of the hall. This could never have been intended when the bay was constructed, and this, therefore, indicates an earlier and reversed arrangement. It is well known that Earl Henry, son of the Herbert purchaser, made considerable alterations in the castle lodgings ; but what they were has not been recorded, nor, as yet, inferred. It may, however, be safely asserted that he actually reversed all the internal arrange- ments. It is clear that in the hall of Richard Beauchamp, the south, with its heraldic oriel, w^as the dais end; and this will account for the group of buildings convenient to this end, which he raised outside of the great wall ; and thus, also, the entrance to the great tower would open, as was proper, upon the lower end of the hall. Meyric says the Herberts removed the flower-garden to the north from the south end of the building, where, no doubt, it had been placed for the convenience of the occupants of the dais. This also accounts for the turret-stair, which gave a ready egress into the lord's private garden, and an access downwards into the cellar, and upwards into the first floor, where naturally the safest and best bedrooms would be placed. Also, the drawing of 1776 shows certain broken walls about the southern end of the building, on the side of the modern offices, as though the entrance of the Herberts had been accomplished by the incomplete removal of old buildings, an infer- ence which is strengthened by a tower shown in the old oil painting in the castle. It is, therefore, I think, incontestable that the dais of Richard Beauchamp, and probably of the De Clares, was at the southern, as that of the Herberts was at the northern end. The north wall of the former hall is modern, built by the Stuarts ; but the south wall is original, and, from the considerable distance between it and the oriel, it is possible that there was a small with- drawing-room cut off from the hall, into which the staircase turret opened. The basement is composed of one spacious chamber, or cellar, 62 feet long by 18 feet broad, and spanned by a rather highly- pointed and four-centred vault, without ribs or groins, but of good workmanship, and as perfect as when first constructed. This proves,