the guard-room to join in
Divine service. In the west wall is a hagioscope, and from a room next
the chapel a newel staircase led to the priest's room on the floor
above. A little window with two cinquefoiled openings in his wall
enabled the priest to look down into the chapel., and the height of the
sill from the floor suggests that it may have served him as a
_prie-dieu_. The moulded base of a stone cross still remains over the
ancient belfry, which rises out of a mass of ivy.

There are a bewildering number of rooms, many now inaccessible, and the
height of the walls shows that there were two or three, and in the
north-east block four, stories. The banqueting-hall, forty-two feet in
length and twenty-three in width, has utterly disappeared, and only the
gable-marks of the roof against the buildings on the south side have
enabled Mr Roscoe Gibbs to draw his very careful deductions. In the
kitchen the huge fireplace, stretching the whole width of one wall,
still keeps its great fire-bars; next the kitchen is the steward's room,
above which two stories still stand, though the upper one is absolutely
in ruins.

Outside these rooms is a large open space, now grass-grown, and the
sprays and buds of a cluster-rose tap against the massive walls. Close
by lies a heavy round of granite, slightly hollowed out towards the
centre, which is shown as one of the stones used for grinding corn. In
an upper room is a hiding-place for treasure--two long, shallow cavities
in the floor, of which there cannot have been the slightest sign when
the floor was covered with planking. A vaulted passage leads to the
south court, and in one corner of this court rises a watch-tower over a
horrible little dungeon or chamber of torture.

The walls throughout the whole building are from two and a half to four
feet thick, and a thick and solid wall nearly twenty-four feet high
protects an inner court, where even in January the turf is firm,
springy, and close. At the farther end, on steps leading into the
garden, a peacock looks wonderfully appropriate, and some white fantails
strutting in front of the heavy walls add very much to the picture.
There is scarcely any sign of the old 'pleasaunce,' except a low and
fairly broad box-hedge, which runs each side of a path in the present
garden, where a few violets and one or two strawberry-blossoms are
tokens of the softness of the air.

The Castle has changed owners many times. 'Stephen' held it of Judha