146 peverel's castle in the peak. 



we give a photograph. The well staircase, situated in the east 

 angle of the building, rose right through the keep from the 

 basement to the belfry in the roof. 



Although a small and insignificant object when compared 

 with the lordly castles which are scattered over the length 

 and breadth of Great Britain, the Peak Castle affords us, 

 as I have already remarked, an almost unique example of 

 the Norman donjon of the twelfth century, unaltered to suit 

 the requirements of a more advanced civilization. It was built 

 with such jealous care and with such enduring materials that, 

 as we see by Ashmole's drawing, the walls of the keep remained 

 almost intact down to the end of the seventeenth century. The 

 floor and roof had certainly gone; some of the battlements 

 and the belfry tower had crumbled away; the wooden staircase 

 which gave access to the fortress had disappeared, and doubtless 

 the gap which now gives access to the building had been broken 

 through the massive walls ; but its main features remained 

 unaltered. It was left for an unsentimental and utilitarian age 

 to strip the venerable keep of its covering and leave it naked 

 but not ashamed, and still able for centuries to defy the 

 boisterous winds and snowstorms of the High Peakland. 



It is greatly to be desired that a careful and minute investiga- 

 tion should be made of the Castle yard. The foundations of 

 the bastion and towers might be unearthed. Let us hope that 

 this may be done at some future date under the auspices of 

 the Derbyshire Archaeological Society. 



Editor's Note. — The Illustration facing this page is from an old print 

 in my possession. For the photographs we are indebted to the kindness 

 of Mr. G. Le Blanc Smith. That of the Garderobe is the result of a 

 somewhat exciting adventure, for, finding it impossible to get a successful 

 position in any other way, he, and his camera, were lowered some 

 twenty feet down over the side of the rock on a rope, Castleton-inade, 

 by the custodian and his son. From that position, hanging in mid-air 

 over a precipice some 100 feet from the: ground, he managed, in a high 

 wind, after several unsuccessful attempts, to obtain the one which 

 illustrates this article. 



