Mfiqfe 



1864.] 



The Pillar Towers of the British Islands. 



553 



and peculiar structure. They are from fifty to sixty feet in circum- 

 ference, and eight or nine in diameter throughout, and are divided into 

 from three to seven or twelve stages, forming apartments of different 

 heights. Their floors are supported in some instances by ridges 

 taken off the thickness of the walls, or by abutments or rests four or 

 six inches in size. In the older Towers, holes are left for the recep- 

 tion of beams to support the floors. 



Some of the Pillar Towers have holes in the lintel-stones to receive 

 the hinges of the door. In other Towers the door appears to have 

 been kept shut by a ladder resting upon the opposite wall, and against 

 the closed door ; in others again by a bar across the back of the door, the 

 extremities resting in holes behind it, to keep it shut ; which fact, with 

 the depth of the floor below the door, prove that security was attended 

 to. The different stages or apartments of the Pillar Towers were reached 

 by a ladder drawn up from the elevated door, and from floor to floor 

 as required, in times of danger. The entrance was from eight to twelve 1 

 feet from the ground, was generally wider below than above, and flat, 

 or rounded at the top. There were two kinds of windows ; those 

 near the top were generally four* in number turned to the cardinal 

 points of the compass, and below these were small oblong openings at 

 intervals, generally in opposite directions, to give light to the different 

 stages of the Tower. Their size, position, and number, vary considera- 

 bly in different Pillar Towers. The Towers are usually covered with a 

 conical top, sometimes laid with horizontal, and in other cases by 

 herring-bone masonry. 



Neither the number of stories, nor the direction of the entrance or 

 windows were of any material importance to the object of the building, 

 as they varied so much in different Towers. The Towers generally 

 resemble each other in the entrance being elevated seven, ten or thirteen 

 feet above the surface of the ground ; whereas the floor of the Towers 

 is often three or four feet below the level of the door • and up to 

 this elevation, the Tower is generally solid, sometimes with a projecting 

 ridge of four inches, on the outside, level with the ground. The 

 foundation descends two or three feet below the surface, except where 

 the Tower is built on the solid rock. 



m * There are nine in 



-J Dunnoughmore. 



the Pillar Tower of Clonmacnoise, and none in that of 



4 B 



