186 The Bishop's Palace at Salisbury. 
remained a ruin until Bishop Seth Ward took the restoration in 
hand, just two hundred years after Bishop Beauchamp had com- 
pleted his great works. 
The central portion of the palace:as we now find it was entirely 
re-modelled, probably almost entirely re-built, by this Bishop, and, 
as has been already mentioned, he also restored and re-arranged the 
remains of Bishop Beauchamp’s hall; he reduced its width from 
north to south by placing a great staircase against the south wall, 
and he constructed three large bedrooms in the upper part of the 
building, access to which was obtained by the staircase here men- 
tioned ; at the foot of these stairs he placed a wooden colonnade right 
across the hall from east to west to support the front of the first 
landing, which must have been open to the hall throughout its 
entire length, with no doubt a balustrade and hand-rail in front of 
it, similar to the corresponding features of the staircase itself. Al- 
together this arrangement must have had a very pleasing effect in 
the restored hall, but it was done away with at the end of last 
century by Bishop Barrington in order to obtain an extra set of 
bedrooms between those formed by Bishop Seth Ward and the hall. 
It was by this last alteration that the hall was reduced to its present 
unsatisfactory condition, and Bishop Barrington, besides reducing the 
height of the apartment to about 9ft., also filled in between the 
columns of Bishop Ward’s colonnade with a solid partition, whereby 
the whole of the remaining architectural features of the hall were 
finally swept away. The columns still remain, but they appear 
only as shallow pilasters. 
Bishop Ward’s staircase is a good one; it starts from the ground 
and from the first landing with two flights of steps, one to the right 
and the other to the left; these meeting on the half landings be- 
tween the floors are carried up in each case in one single broad flight 
in the centre; it is entirely composed of oak. A flight of stone 
steps, still extant, gives access to the garden from a doorway on the 
first half landing above the ground floor, but it is doubtful whether 
this is original. 
Probably the front staircase in the centre of the palace was also 
executed by this bishop ; it is also of oak, and the details are very 
