PEVERELS CASTLE IN THE PEAK. I43 



ground outside, which level has been raised by accumulations 

 of soil and rubbish.* The principal room in the keep was 

 entered through this archway. This hall is twenty-twO' feet in 

 length by nineteen feet in breadth. In the thickness of the 

 south-east wall is a garderobe, well concealed from view by 

 a tortuous passage, and having formerly a door at its entrance. 

 This garderobe projects like an oriel window over the precipice 

 below, and is lighted by a small opening. These garderobes, 

 which are almost universal in Norman keeps, were evidently 

 latrines, and have the usual kind of outlet through a loop, or 

 by a vertical shaft in the wall, with an opening at the base. 

 Ignorant guides often describe them as oubliettes. It is a 

 curious fact that on the outer face of the wall there is inserted 

 an extra corbel (as will be seen in the photograph), which would 

 seem to suggest that the garderobe was originally intended to be 

 twice its present size, and that the plan was subsequently 

 altered and reduced. A narrow opening, formerly closed by 

 a door in the north-east wall, leads to a mural chamber, which 

 has two small windows, one on the north-east and the other 

 on the north-west. This room might be used either as a 

 bedroom or a storeroom. The hall, as we may call it, is lighted 

 and ventilated by three narrow windows, the highest of which 

 is in the south-east gable and ten feet above the floor. The 

 other windows are in the north-east and north-west walls. All 

 these openings, which I call windows, throughout the whole 

 keep are deeply splayed on the inside and slipped up to; they 

 are small, and the hall must have been badly lighted. At 

 night these apertures were covered by curtains ; the holes 

 which contained the ends of the curtain rods can still be 

 seen below the semi-circular arches which surmount the sides 

 and jambs. 



The different sections of the keep were connected together 

 by a well staircase of stone which ascended and descended 

 from the entrance doorway. By this staircase ascent was made 



* I take the measurements from the accurate survey of the building 

 made bv Mr. Addy. 



