with detached shafts in the
jambs. Another original relic, unrestored, is part of the window nearest
the fireplace, which is valuable as evidence of the date of the erection
of the hall. The tracery is geometrical, and the shafts in the angles of
the splays are banded. About the year 1350 Bishop Hatfield enlarged and
altered Bek's hall. At the west end he inserted two light windows, which
are now blocked, though the tracery may be seen from students' rooms
inside, and partly from the outside. The open oak roof, with the
exception of some necessary later repairs, is of Bishop Hatfield's time.
Hatfield repaired and altered Pudsey's upper hall by the addition of
east and west windows, and probably a new roof. He also rebuilt the
#Keep#, which time and war had greatly injured. The existing keep,
which was erected in 1840, is similar to Hatfield's, and in many places
stands upon the old foundations. It is now used entirely as apartments
for students of University College.
Bishop Fox (1494-1501) is responsible for the next important changes. He
curtailed the great hall by a partition wall near its south end, which
still exists. The wall bears his badge in two places--a pelican feeding
her young with blood from her breast. He also adapted part of Pudsey's
buildings, near the south-west corner of the castle, to the purposes of
a kitchen, erected three fireplaces, and windows, and the oak buttery
hatch which opens from the kitchen, and which again has carved upon it
"the pelican in her piety."
Bishop Tunstall (1530-1558) built #Tunstall's Gallery#, which
extends from the great hall to the clock tower. It is entered by Cosin's
staircase (erected later) and by an eastern stair built by Tunstall
himself. A curious feature of this stairway is a port-hole which
commands the main entrance to the courtyard. The present beautiful
little chapel is also the work of Bishop Tunstall. It contains some
notable carved oak stalls, of earlier date than the chapel itself, which
were brought from the castle at Bishop Auckland. The carved devices of
the miserere seats of these stalls are curious and worthy of attention.
The doors in the gateway of the courtyard are the work of Tunstall's
time.
Bishop Cosin (1660-1672) found the castle in a dilapidated condition.
During the Commonwealth it had been sold to the then Lord Mayor of
London, who used it badly, to say nothing of the ruin caused by the
Scots. He spent large sums in its restoration. H
|