BREADSALL PRIORY. 133 



From the entrance, steps would lead down, as at present, to 

 the ground floor, on which were the kitchen and, probably, the 

 bakehouse, butteries, etc. ; a flight of stairs would ascend to 

 the hall and parlour on the first floor. This plan of placing 

 the offices on a floor below the chief rooms was not very 

 common, but is occasionally met with in Elizabethan houses. 



On the second floor there would again be two large rooms, 

 one of which would be the great chamber, which, like the 

 hall below, is shown on the painting of the south side to be 

 lighted with a large window of eighteen lights. In the pro- 

 jecting bays the two lowest floors would probably be pantries, 

 while the upper floors would be occupied as bed chambers, or 

 " lodgings," as they are usually described on plans of the 

 period. The upper floors of these bays were approached by 



A. Victor\Haslam. 

 Breadsall Priory. Portion of carved stone panel. 



steps in half-external turrets corbelled out across the angles, 

 parts of which still remain, one of them being shown on the view 

 of the south front. Indications were recently found, on the first 

 floor, that the turrets continued to the floor below, and were 

 therefore not originally carried on corbels as at present. The 

 attic floor remains very much in its original condition, the 

 windows, with moulded mullions and transomes, being little 

 altered, except that a partition has been made along the east 

 side, so that the windows there now throw their light down 

 into the corridor on the floor below. The original position of 

 the stairs is rather puzzling. They would probably have been 

 nearly, but not quite, in the same position as the present principal 

 staircase. The evidence of the buildings tends to show that the 



