FLITT HUNDRED 



the inner court, probably the porter's lodge, and at 

 the south-east to another room of like size and 

 character. A stair which went up over the lobby 

 seems to have occupied the north-east angle of the 

 lodge, having a door into the gateway passage, and 

 the remaining space in the west turret was used as a 

 garderobe. The inner arch of the gateway is four- 

 centred, of plain brickwork, and opened to a court- 

 yard 46 ft. wide from east to west, having a wide 

 circular staircase at its north-west angle. It is clear 

 that there was a flat-roofed pentice or gallery over the 

 doorway, running right across the north side of the 

 court, and the doorways on the first floor from the 

 circular staircase, and from the room over the porter's 

 lodge, led on to it. These doorways have four-centred 

 heads of moulded brick with square labels, and that 

 at the foot of the stair is of the same character, 

 but wider and with better detail. The stair 

 itself has a central newel and radiating steps of 

 brick carried on a brick vault, with a hand rail contrived 

 in the wall and running spirally upward, following 

 the rise of the stair.'" To the west of this staircase the 

 buildings are en- 

 tirely destroyed, but 'P <? •<> 

 the bonding of the 

 west wall of the 

 court remains to 

 show its line. 



To the east of the 

 gateway is the chapel, 

 with a two-centred 

 doorway at its south- 

 west angle, opening 

 from a former range 

 of buildings on the 

 east side of the court. 

 The chapel is 34 ft. 

 by 1 8 ft., and at its 

 east end its walls 

 stand to their full 

 height, with an ex- 

 ternal brick cornice, 



and inside at the plate level a row of shield-shaped 

 brick corbels. The east window was of four lights 

 with brick tracery, now fallen, and at the south- 

 east was a like window of three lights. On either 

 side of the east window are trefoiled image niches 

 of brick, high in the wall, and at the south-east 

 is a piscina with a stone drain, which has had two 

 trefoiled arches in the head of its recess. On the 

 north side are two blocked windows, the eastern of 

 the two having its sill at a much higher level than 

 the other, while the heads of both are at the same 

 height. In the south wall, about half way down the 

 chapel, is a squint commanding the site of the altar 

 from a room on the south, now destroyed, the line 

 of its east wall being marked by its bonding near the 

 south window of the chapel. In the west jamb of 

 the entrance doorway are traces of the start of a thin 

 brick wall running across the chapel, and separating 

 it from the vestibule at the west. Just within the 

 doorway on the west is a recess for holy water, and 

 beyond it the jamb of a blocked opening which is 

 exactly equidistant from the centre line of the gateway 

 with the west face of the staircase at the north-west 



LUTON 



of the court. Whether this is more than a coincidence 

 is a matter for doubt, but there are signs of alteration 

 here on both sides of this range, whether in the 

 course of building or afterwards. A square-headed 

 window lighting the vestibule now takes the place of 

 the former opening, whatever it may have been. 

 The changes of masonry in the north wall of the 

 vestibule are chiefly noticeable from the outside. The 

 lower six feet of the chapel wall are of different brick 

 from the rest, and there is a joint in the masonry a little 

 distance to the east of the east turret of the gatehouse, 

 the work on the turret side being the older, and the 

 plinth one course lower than on the rest of the chapel. 

 The evidence points to the fact that the chapel was 

 built after the gateway, and some change of plan may 

 have been made in the interval, which must in any 

 case have been a short one. Over the vestibule was 

 a gallery or upper floor, doubtless reached by a wooden 

 stair. 



The lines of a rectangular earthwork to the west 

 and south of the buildings may perhaps mark the site 

 of an older building. There was evidently a second 



154! Cenlujy. 



Coarl^ird 



Plan of Someries Castle 



court here, with out -buildings, and there are traces 

 here and there of an inclosing ditch. On the east are 

 several cottages and &rm-house buildings, the materials 

 of which have in large measure been taken from the 

 ruins, and fully account for their present fragmentary 

 condition. 



The manor of STOPSLET" was in the possession 

 of the Hoo family during the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth centuries, and followed the same descent as 

 Luton Hoo (q.v.). Robert de Hoo held land in 

 Stopsley in 1245,'" and in 1291 one of the same 

 name obtained free warren in his demesne lands 

 there.'" He settled this estate on his son Robert,''* 

 whose son Thomas in 1338 received a confirmation 

 of free warren in Stopsley.'" Shortly afterwards the 

 association of this family with Stopsley manor appears 

 to have ceased, and all trace of it is lost until 1 41 6, 

 when Edward Brassington or Stopsley, heir of Alex- 

 ander Stopsley, granted the manor to John Gedney 

 and others.'" In 1573 a manor of this name was in 

 the possession of Thomas Catesby, who sold it be- 

 tween that date and 1593 to Edward Docwra,'" and 

 Thomas Docwra obtained confirmation of free warren 



'^'Thii has been dignified with the name 

 of a speaking-tube by imaginative visi- 

 tors. See Bitl. Tofog. Brit. (Nichols), 

 iv, 53- 



S7< Feet of F. Beds. 29 Hen. Ill, m. 2, 

 «75 Chart. R. 20 Edw. I, No. 85. 

 »'6 Feet of F. Beds. 35 Edw. I, m. 2. 

 '17 Chart. R. 11 Edw. Ill, No. 8. 



8/8 Close, 3 Hen. V, m. 23. 



87» Recov. R. Mich. 15 & 16 Eliz. rot. 

 937 ; Chan. Inij. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccjuotii. 

 No. 73. 



