328 MedicEval Military A^'chitecture. is in rather better condition. The portal has been broken away below, but the hollow semi-piers connecting it with the horn-work remain. The front of this gatehouse, of great thickness, is perfect, and is garnished with a pair of chimneys ; its inner part has been destroyed. The windows in the front are the only vestiges of the upper story. On the north front of this ward the curtain is much shattered by the fall of the inner towers, and, as all the bastions have been ruined and blown up, their exact line of boundary is scarcely traceable. Upon the southern side, the wide lake and the strength of the outbuildings have, in some degree, preserved the curtain, but the doorway of the water gate, which opens in it, is much injured. A few feet below its sill, a long black stain marks the height of the water in former times, and gives about 9 feet as the average depth of the lake. The gallery, kitchens, &c., which occupy this side, are much injured ; but in front of the great oven a portion of the parapet remains, here about 12 feet high, and furnished with a loop. The tank remains, though nearly choked up with stones and brambles. Since the fall of the adjacent wall of the bastion, its position has been insecure. Recently its wall has cracked, and, unless repaired, it may be expected soon to fall into the moat. Ascending from the eastern gatehouse, across a mass of almost untraceable ruins, the central ward of the castle is entered. With the exception of a partial breach on the northern side, the curtains of this inner ward have suffered but little, and the height of the parapet and rerewall may still be inferred, by the projections at its junction with the towers. The eastern gatehouse has been separated by a blast into two portions of which the inner, towering to a prodigious height, still remains tolerably perfect ; while the outer, broken into fragments, has crushed the lower gatehouse beneath its weight, and still en- cumbers it with its ruins. The western gatehouse has been more fortunate ; the staircases, however, are broken and irregular, and the vaulting injured. Through the floor of its central apartment a hole has been broken into the vaults of the portal, and of one of the lodges beneath. In the floor of the Braose or triforial gallery are two large holes which open upon a staircase and passage below. The buildings within the court have suffered severely. The hall is covered by a temporary roof, but the structure of its ancient roof is apparent from the remaining corbels. The pavement has been long removed : the sills of the windows have been cut away, and the tracery and mouldings which adorned them are broken and defaced. A window and door at the east end have been shattered into one, and the vaulted passage leading to the oflices is a shapeless and rugged hole.
