Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/378

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350 MedicBval Military Architecture, part, much as it did ten years ago. The south wing and the present kitchens were wanting, and the entrance was up a few steps and by an open terrace to the south-west corner of the pile. Entering, the visitor stood in the hall, 6i feet long by i8 feet broad, and 13 feet 6 inches high, with a flat ceiling. On the right was a door opening into the stair-turret ; on the left another, opening through the great wall into the Beauchamp lesser wing. Walking up the hall, the fireplace was on the left, and beyond it a passage leading into the Beauchamp tower; on the right, two bay windows and three .ordinary windows lighted the room, and near the centre was a closet occu- pying the middle turret. At the upper or north end of the hall, doors led into the private rooms, of large size, on both the hall and upper floors, and lighted with large mullioned windows, looking north into the garden, and west through a bay cut in the outer wall. In a second floor were the bedrooms, and, above all, a flat leaded roof, commanding one of the most lovely prospects in Britain. This description was drawn up in 1861. Since that time the castle has undergone great alterations ; several new towers have been added, and the interior has been completely remodelled. Over the vault of the basement is the library, and above that the hall. The details are in that semi-Italian style in which Burges was so great a master, and all that a very refined taste, on the part of both the owner and the architect, could devise, has been executed in a manner and with a profusion which more than rivals Alnwick. CARLISLE CASTLE. THE city of Carlisle appears first early in the ninth century, in the history of Nennius, as Cair-Luadiit, or Luilid, or the Castra Luguballia, one of the " octo et viginti civitates . . . cum innumeris castellis ex lapidibus et lateribus fabricatis," enumerated by that respectable authority. The fame of Carlisle, however, is due neither to this early mention, nor to the subsequent gift of the place by King Ecgfrid to St. Cuthbert, but rather to its name as a centre of the early cycle of Arthurian romance, well supported by its subsequent celebration in Border tales and ballads. Indeed, whether in fable or in fact, Carlisle enjoys no mean reputation. It played a part in the British, Roman, Saxon, and Danish occupations of the island, and, after having been held as a frontier fortress, by the Scots against the English, became, in its turn, the great strong- hold of northern England against the Scots, and the scourge of the wild tribes of the debatable land. City and castle are naturally strong. The castle occupies a bluff, projecting towards the north, in a position which no doubt created its early, and caused its long-continued importance. Across its front