302 ON the history and architecture of 



the angles add to its beauty, and are set in with considerable 

 skill. The stone roof and the provisions for carrying off the 

 water deserve careful examination. Over the low-winding 

 entrance-door on the basement are the remains of the original 

 portcullis, the like of which the most experienced archaeologist 

 will in vain seek for elsewhere. The grooves are also visible, 

 and the chamber where the machinery was fixed for raising it 

 is to be met with, even, as at Goodrich, where the holes in 

 which the axle worked, and the oil-way that served to ease its 

 revolutions, may be seen ; but at Chipchase there is the little 

 cross-grated portcullis itself, which was simply lifted by the 

 leverage of a wooden bar above the entrance, and let down in 

 the same manner." 



A few years since, in exploring the old Keep with the Eev. 

 Win. Greenwell, E.S.A., of Durham, we discovered among the 

 intra-mural chambers, a little chapel* in the thickness of the 

 walls, opening on the principal chamber. This is the third story 

 of the great tower, above the guard-room, which would be de- 

 voted to the use of the family of the castle. In the guard-room 

 itself, used by the soldiery or men-at-arms, beneath which, on 

 the ground floor, is the usual vaulted room for securing cattle 

 in the time of danger, may be noticed an open closet formed by 

 the insertion of a piece of earlier work, as Mr. Longstaffe sup- 

 poses. The closet is formed of two little arches, with mouldings, 

 which seem to be of Early English date ; and these (if not 

 insertions, but, as I incline to believe, contemporary with the 

 first erection of the tower,) would give us Peter de Insula as 

 the probable builder, whom the " Testa de Nevill" records as 

 the possessor of the Manor of Chipchase in the year 1275, f when 

 the Early English or Lancet order of architecture is presumed to 

 end. There is a window in the north face of the tower, which 

 is of the later perpendicular style, and about a century later. 

 There are no mason marks to be met with on the masonry 



* It is in the north-east angle, and alike in dimensions and furniture would resemble 

 the Prophet's "little chamber on the wall" at Shunem, 2 Kings iv. 10. 



t Hudgson, Hist, of Northumberland, Vol. I., Part iii., p. 206. 



