I think that it was in this tower that we found the castle oven,
an immense cavern, big enough to bake bread for an army. The railway
passes exactly at the base of the high rock, on which this part of the
castle is situated, and goes into the town through a great arch that has
been opened in the castle wall. The tubular bridge across the Conway has
been built in a style that accords with the old architecture, and I
observed that one little sprig of ivy had rooted itself in the new
structure.
There are numberless intricate passages in the thickness of the castle
walls, forming communications between tower and tower,--damp, chill
passages, with rough stone on either hand, darksome, and very likely
leading to dark pitfalls. The thickness of the walls is amazing; and the
people of those days must have been content with very scanty light, so
small were the apertures,--sometimes merely slits and loopholes,
glimmering through many feet of thickness of stone. One of the towers
was said to have been the residence of Queen Eleanor; and this was better
lighted than the others, containing an oriel-window, looking out of a
little oratory, as it seemed to be, with groined arches and traces of
ornamental sculpture, so that we could dress up some imperfect image of a
queenly chamber, though the tower was roofless and floorless. There was
another pleasant little windowed nook, close beside the oratory, where
the Queen might have sat sewing or looking down the river Conway at the
picturesque headlands towards the sea.
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