Elsdon Tower Interior : The Second Floor
Returning to the newel stair, this rises to another square-headed opening of the same type as that giving access to the first-floor lobby, which opens into a small lobby giving access to the second floor. Here there is a single large room, its ceiling at a much higher level than the lobby, with two separate small chambers or closets opening off its west end. Prior to 1995 this large room had a small sealed-off 19th-century Gothick fireplace on the east; this was removed, along with the late 18th century plaster frieze of pendant arches above (although the contemporary cornice was retained.
Behind the fireplace the remains of the segmental rear arch of the original second floor window (visible externally) were exposed, part having been cut away to allow for the flue of the 19th century fireplace; the inner parts of the opening, with a flat slab top, were intact, although the internal sill appeared to be a reconstruction. This opening has now been restored and re-opened. Above it was second fireplace, which served a former third floor. This had a triangular arch with sunk spandrels, and a raised letter 'M' in a sunk panel on its lintel; the lintel is rather damaged, and may have had further carving.
A second fireplace at the same level was discovered in the north wall in 1995, but later covered over again. This was 1.85 m wide within the chamfer, and 1.30 m high; its head was of shallow Tudor-arched form, with a four-petalled flower, a length of cable moulding in the exposed eastern spandrel, and an ‘hour-glass’ stop at the base of the exposed eastern jamb. Rather puzzlingly, the lintel was jointed at the centre, and in addition there was a secondary crack near the east end. The extrados of the lintel was concealed by the 18th century plaster cornice.
At the same level as this fireplace there are two shallow recesses with four-centred heads in the south wall, which may represent former windows. Also at this level a blocked opening 1.4 m wide and 0.87 m high was exposed in 1998 at the south end of the west wall. It had cut blocks forming its north jamb and a timber lintel. This was presumably once a window, although like the putative south windows, it opens directly behind the present parapet. The timber lintel is presumably secondary to the opening, as above it an upper section of the same opening remains open, as an access hatch into the attic from the parapet walk.
In the partition wall are two doorways with shallow four-centred arches of the same form as that opening into the main room from the entrance lobby; in the small rooms beyond, the southern had a cupboard at the west end of the south wall, formed in a former garderobe. This was opened up in 1995 to expose a square-headed doorway with chamfered and rebated jambs, which is slightly distorted through secondary structural movements. It had a chamfered surround; its dressings are large blocks of sandstone, five to each jamb. The lowermost block of the western jamb bore what is presumably a mason’s mark, of rather unusual form, an incised cross with bifurcate terminals approximating to the heraldic Cross Moline.
The L-plan garderobe chamber, curving round the south-west corner of the tower, has its floor c 0.12 m above that of the present second floor. The passage walls retained old plaster, although not original as a small loop window on the south, visible externally, was concealed. The plaster continues onto the internal jamb of a former window , of uncertain date, opening westwards; this is now infilled by masonry that is presumably contemporary with the adjacent 18th century (?) sash, the insertion of which has destroyed the end of the garderobe chamber. The shaft of the garderobe was exposed in the floor below this inserted window, and remained open for the full height of the wall.
Stripping of plaster from the wall face in May 1998 revealed a blocked opening 0.57 m wide and 0.86 m high, immediately to the north of the northern jamb of the window that cuts through the garderobe. Its sill was 0.94m above the present floor. The northern jamb was composed of large roughly-squared blocks. The southern jamb, only 0.20 m from the window reveal, was of smaller roughly-shaped stones, and seems almost certain to be secondary, reconstructed when the window was inserted. The lintel was a single large block, with a chamfer which, oddly, correlated with the secondary southern jamb but continued 0.18 m beyond the line of the northern. Beyond the large blocks of the northern jamb was an area of walling that appeared disturbed, although its actual extent was difficult to ascertain.
It is not clear what this feature represented; it would seem most likely to have been a locker or wall cupboard of some form It may have been retained, but reduced in width, when the adjacent window was inserted; it is possible that the builders found it easier to displace the lintel laterally rather than cut its southern end away, which would explain the present discrepancy between the north jamb and the lintel chamfer.
The northern of the two sash windows in this wall, unlike the southern, has some large stone slabs above its timber lintel; it is not clear whether these represented the internal lintels of an earlier opening in the same position.
The northern room has a cupboard in the north wall, formed from the internal splay of the blocked window seen externally, its head and sill cut away by an inserted flue. Internally the splayed recess of the window accommodated a cupboard, but in 1998 it was restored, the damaged head and sill being replaced in new stone. As a new window had already been fitted, it was not possible to inspect the jambs for evidence of iron bars etc, although a drilled hole 25mm in diameter on the internal face of the east jamb may be associated with some sort of shutter arrangement.