The Castle West Range

The Castle: West Range

This range comprises the castle kitchen and hall, together with a garden staircase and grand staircase. It now serves as college accommodation. The building has an 11th-century hall undercroft; a late 13th-century hall built for Bishop Bek, extended southwards around 1350 for Bishop Hatfield; a kitchen and buttery remodelled for Bishop Fox, with a hatch dated 1499; a 13th-century garden staircase in front of the kitchen, with later additions linking it to the hall; and a grand staircase wing added in 1662 for Bishop Cosin, who also added a porch to the hall. The building underwent 19th-century restoration and alteration.

The structure is built in coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. The left staircase block rises three storeys across two bays, connected by a two-storey link also of two bays to the hall. The hall itself has a basement and one high storey (except in the first bay, which has windows on four levels) across four bays. The right staircase block is four storeys tall with two windows, enclosing the north gallery and linking the north and west ranges.

The garden staircase wing features a chamfered Tudor-arched surround to its central door and a square-headed window with two segmental-headed lights and label moulds. A flat Tudor-arched door in a set-back link lies beneath a two-light window and low gable. The hall is approached by eight wide octagonal steps leading to a second-bay Ionic porch with paired columns, dentil cornice and open segmental pediment, within which are the arms of Bishop Cosin. A leaf-carved tympanum rests on panelled pilasters. The hall bays are defined by four octagonal turrets with ogee domes topped by central fleur-de-lis finials and outer ball finials. The undercroft features small round-headed windows with a square-headed door at the left and a shouldered-arched door at the right. The first bay contains a three-light window below a two-storey oriel, with a single window above flanked by square-headed two-light windows, all with label moulds. The blank bay above the porch displays the arms of Bishops Cosin and Hatfield, Archdeacon Westle and Dr Robert Grey; the two right bays have tall Decorated three-light windows with a floor string below. The parapet is battlemented on a string course. The extruded stair wing has square-headed windows with two segmental-headed lights and label moulds. The canted corner displays two panels bearing Cosin's arms. A rainwater head dated 1662 on the pipe has lugged fixings.

Interior

The kitchen contains wide fireplaces with segmental moulded stone arches set within a battlemented brick wall, with pointed relieving arches of crossed soldier courses. The rendered firehood has a central brick buttress and stone corbelled shaft carved with an imp. The ceiling is panelled in wood. One fireplace contains a Norman arch at its rear. A studded buttery screen with carved spandrels is dated and inscribed "Est Deo Gracia". Much original ironwork remains in use. The first bay of the hall, which contains the servants' hall, has one flight of closed-string stairs with moulded string and grip handrail, chamfered square newels with ball finials, and a balustrade of flowing foliage on a wavy rail carved to resemble a branch. A two-centred-arched door in the hall leads to the original screens passage, now enclosed within the porch, which has two deeply-moulded orders on detached shafts. The great hall features two round balconies at its south end on the east and west walls, two 14th-century windows and a 14th-century roof; 19th-century windows occupy other positions, with the northernmost containing glass by Kempe. The interior includes 19th-century wainscoting, a south screen and gallery. The right wing contains the "Black Staircase", a majestic structure rising through three floors in a square open well. It has a moulded closed string and wide grip handrail; the balustrade displays richly-carved fruit and foliage swirls, and the well face is enriched with a wreath-carved pulvinated frieze below the handrail. The well face of the string is also enriched, as are the square newels, some crowned with fruit-bowl finials, straps and pendants gathered to a blackberry drop. Later round wood columns support most newels. Similarly-carved dado and a doorcase to the Bishop's rooms on the north landing feature a strap-bracketed beam.