fortifications
were surveyed, and the battlements repaired. At the same time the
queen's chamber was painted and wainscoted, and iron bars were placed
before the windows of Prince Edward's chamber. In 1240 Henry commenced
building an apartment for his own use near the wall of the castle,
sixty feet long and twenty-eight high; another apartment for the queen
contiguous to it; and a chapel, seventy feet long and twenty-eight feet
wide, along the same wall, but with a grassy space between it and the
royal apartments. The chapel, as appears from an order to Walter de
Grey, Archbishop of York, had a Galilee and a cloister, a lofty wooden
roof covered with lead, and a stone turret in front holding three or
four bells. Withinside it was made to appear like stone-work with good
ceiling and painting, and it contained four gilded images.
This structure is supposed to have been in existence, under the
designation of the Old College Church, in the latter part of the reign
of Henry the Seventh, by whom it was pulled down to make way for the
tomb-house. Traces of its architecture have been discovered by diligent
antiquarian research in the south ambulatory of the Dean's Cloister, and
in the door behind the altar in St. George's Chapel, the latter of
which is conceived to have formed the principal entrance to the older
structure, and has been described as exhibiting "one of the most
beautiful specimens which time and innovation have respected of the
elaborate ornamental work of the period."
In 1241 Henry commenced operations upon the outworks of the castle, and
the three towers on the western side of the lower ward--now known as the
Curfew, the Garter, and the Salisbury Towers--were erected by him. He
also continued the walls along the south side of the lower ward, traces
of the architecture of the period being discoverable in the inner walls
of the houses of the alms-knights as far as the tower now bearing his
name. From thence it is concluded that the ramparts ran along the east
side of the upper ward to a tower occupying the site of the Wykeham or
Winchester Tower.
The three towers at the west end of the lower ward, though much
dilapidated, present unquestionable features of the architecture of the
thirteenth century. The lower storey of the Curfew Tower, which has been
but little altered, consists of a large vaulted chamber, twenty-two feet
wide, with walls of nearly thirteen feet in thickness, and having
arched recesses ter
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