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Bagenals Castle

Floor Plans 1570 - 80

The ground floor has details of the door openings. There may have been a portcullis inside the door of the stair tower. The interior is divided into two unequal rooms by a wall with a door at the west end. The northern room is the smallest and a vaulted ceiling may be indicated by the curved arcs on the drawing. A projecting tower at the north east angle may enclose a circular pit or have a brick ceiling but there is no entrance to it from the ground floor. A loop defends the angle between the west wall and the projecting tower.

The larger ground floor room has a deep fireplace in the south wall with a probable bread oven built in to its east end. A two-mullioned window opens to the east, suggesting that a defendable yard extended in this direction. This room is annotated as 10ft in height.

The first floor is also divided into two unequal rooms by a much thinner wall possibly a wooded partition. The south room has a fireplace in the south wall with alcoves on each side and a loop projects through the south east angle. There is a two-mullioned window in the east wall with indications of a brick or timber-lined embrasure and an opening through to a room in the projecting north east tower which has a loop projecting centrally from the south wall.

The southern room at first floor level is entered directly from the stair tower and has a fireplace in the south wall with a loop opening near the north east angle. There is a pair of two-mullioned windows in this room one in the east and one in the west wall. This room is annotated as 9ft in height.

The second floor is divided, like the lower two, into two unequal parts by a narrow wall of the same character as the floor below. This floor is also 9ft in height and has the two, three-mullioned windows in the east wall, one in each of the rooms. Fireplaces in the north and south walls echo the floor below as does the opening into the projecting wall tower. Defensive loops are placed in the south east angle (directly above the one below), in the projecting corner tower (south wall, same as below) in the west wall (over a window below) and to the east of the fireplace in the north wall.

The attic, or fourth room as it is annotated, has no wall openings except for a loop placed in the west wall of the projecting tower. The annotated height is unclear and may by quite low, 4ft or 5ft in height.