164 WOODSFORD CASTLE. 



on the site of which is a well. From the hall you enter a small 

 room to the south, which was a chapel, and contains a simple 

 but good piscina. South of this is a lofty room, now the 

 drawing room. From the hall, too, the newel stairs of the turret 

 begin. It is, you will remember, solid below. In the north- 

 east corner you enter the first floor of the north tower, containing 

 a room and a small cell* opening into it. In this room is 

 another sink with moulded sill. In the passage from the hall to 

 this room are stairs to the second floor of the tower, the only 

 mediaeval part of the existing second floor. Here is a small 

 disused room said to be haunted likely looking, too. Outside 

 this second floor on the north side is a large panel,, as it may be 

 called. By some this is held to be the place where by irons a 

 grate for a beacon fire or a lantern was fastened. This beacon 

 was to guide benighted wayfarers over the ford, near the present 

 Sturt's Weir hatches. The plan in Hutchins shows how you 

 would get your bearing by just "opening" that side of the 

 tower with its welcome flame. Owing to trees it is not very easy 

 to verify this now. As you look at the beacon place, you should 

 notice the fine parapet-bracket close by. Small corbels on the 

 east side of the tower and larger on the east wall of the de Bryan 

 part of the main building may, it is suggested, be imperfect 

 fellows of it. The large transomed window near the bracket is a 

 modern insertion. So, also, are the two northernmost of the 

 transomed windows on the west side of the castle. 



We now come to the i5th century half of the main building. 

 Hutchins does not define the point of junction ; and, as above 

 said, personal search for the slate courses of de Bryan's work and 

 for any other masonry mark of that point has, unfortunately, not 

 been made. Failing certainty, the idea is thrown out that all 

 the four southernmost rooms are Stafford's. It is true that to 

 outward appearance the castle is divided further south, so as to 

 include two of those rooms in de Bryan's castle. But may not 

 this appearance, the different level of roof and consequent gable, 

 be due to post mediaeval refitting? And the two rooms in 

 * A latrine no doubt. 



