The Castle North Range

THE CASTLE NORTH RANGE

A complex of castle chapels, the Constable's hall and galleries, now used as a college. The building spans several centuries of construction and alteration. The lower chapel probably dates to around 1072 for William I. Around 1100, Bishop Flambard initiated construction. The 12th century saw rebuilding by Le Puiset. The 15th and 16th centuries brought additions by Fox and Tunstall, with further 17th-century work by Cosin and Crewe. Significant alterations and interior redecorations were carried out by the architect Sanderson Miller for Bishop Trevor between 1753 and 1771.

The exterior is constructed of coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. The roofs are not visible from the exterior descriptions.

The tall hall extends for seven bays and rises two storeys with a high storey above, alongside a five-bay gentlemen's gallery also rising two storeys. A projecting stair wing at the right links the hall to a two-storey, five-bay chapel.

The gallery features a renewed Tudor-arched surround to the door in the fourth bay. Buttresses define each bay. The first three bays each have a door in a chamfered Tudor-arched surround, with two-light ground-floor windows and three-light mullioned-and-transomed first-floor windows. A ground-floor drip string and first-floor label mould run across these bays. Similar windows appear in the fifth bay, with a five-light window positioned above the door. The arms of Bishop Tunstall are displayed in the third bay. A battlemented parapet on a string course completes the gallery.

The hall above features Tudor-arched windows with intersecting glazing bars in hollow reveals beneath ogee dripmoulds. The sixth bay displays a large coat of arms. The hall is topped by a battlemented parapet on a string course, with a high square turret at the right end.

A battlemented polygonal stair turret has a flat, Tudor-arched door in its left return and two-light front windows beneath a clock. Floor strings and a battlemented parapet on a string course complete this tower.

The chapel displays irregular fenestration across three floors in the first bay, with Tudor-headed lights and label moulds. Three slightly-stepped lights under elliptical dripmoulds appear in the other bays. A buttress rises between the second and third bays. The chapel is finished with a battlemented parapet on a string course. A rainwater head dated 1661 on the left has lion masks on lugged fixings; another dated 1699 on the right bears a mitre, crown and lions on its fixings.

Interior

Much early fabric survives, notably an 11th-century chapel at the north-east containing two arcades of four bays. Round piers with historiated capitals support groined vaults. Herringbone paving probably dates to the original construction.

The 12th-century hall entrance comprises three richly-moulded orders. The south wall of the hall displays an upper-level chevron-moulded arcade with alternately-blind arches on paired shafts. The west wall reverts to stepped groups.

A north-west corner turret contains a vault dating to around 1350, keeled in form with closely-set wide ribs.

A passage from the hall door features chevron string. Behind and to the right lie the Octagon room and the Senate room, both with panelling. A Jacobean chimney piece, re-sited from the Old Exchequer building on Palace Green, stands here. The west end of the hall contains the Bishop's Rooms, decorated in the mid-18th century with richly-carved flower and ribbon decoration on corniced chimney-pieces and rococo plaster on beamed ceilings.

An early 16th-century chapel opens off the east newel stair. It was extended in the 17th and 18th centuries and contains 17th-century woodwork of high quality: a west screen, panelled ceiling, and stalls from Auckland Palace with misericords and poppyheads. The east window was installed in 1909 by Kempe.

Behind the west end of the gallery, a rich single flight of stairs dating to the 17th century leads to the Senior Common Room. This room was decorated in 1751 by Sanderson Miller in the Gothic revival style, when it served as the Bishop's dining room.