Tower (building)

“ Taken by itself, the tower is, both externally and internally, admirable, from the elegance of its form, and the richness of its details; but it jars with the rest of the building.
Placing this tower in the background, we will now repair to the west front. Here nothing is required to be added, or taken away, to afford the eye a feast as perfect as grace, symmetry, grandeur, and lightness, all combined, are capable of producing. Nothing can exceed the beauty of this front taken as a whole. ”

“ Nevertheless, since the tower is in its origin a building for strength of defence, and faithfulness of watch, rather than splendor of aspect, its true expression is of just so much diminution of weight upwards as may be necessary to its fully balanced strength, not a jot more. ”

“ Builders would hesitate to charge the surface of the artificial hillock with the concentrated weight of a large square tower. The encircling curtain was much better adapted to the plan of the mount, and distributed its weight more successfully over the edge of the surface. But, with the building of a stone wall round the summit, the necessity of a tower would be removed. ”

“ Branching from the northern and eastern sides of the great tower, extensive ranges of building contain the servants’ apartments, and an extensive suite of inferior bed-rooms, and the tower itself contains a study, and above it a nursery, over which, again, a leaded platform with parapets commands most extensive and diversified prospects of the surrounding country. ”

“ An old tower, forming part of the city wall, had once stood upon the spot the ruins of which in the lapse of centuries had first crumbled to rubbish, and then become consolidated into a compact mass which had to be broken up with the pick until the old foundation-wall was reached, which was to serve in part for the new building. ”

“ The chief aim is to build them as high as possible, the higher the more delighted is the builder. The blocks are either all used in this building or else piled up until the tower falls. The falling of the tower is enjoyed very much and often it is pushed over with great pleasure. These towers are built in various ways; sometimes two blocks are set upright and a third placed across the top, and others placed similarly on top of these. ”

“ Entering over a heap of rubbish at the base, we found within another Tower, distinct from the [83] outer one, and a stone staircase, so narrow that a large man could not ascend it. The staircase terminates against a dead stone ceiling, closing all further passage. The whole Tower was a substantial stone structure, and in its arrangements and purposes about as incomprehensible as the sculptured tablets. East of the Tower is another building, with two corridors, one richly decorated with pictures in stucco, and having in the centre an elliptical tablet. ”

“ An interior tower, rather more than twenty feet square, runs up the whole height of the Moorish portion of the building; between which and the external walls an easy ascent is contrived on an inclined plane. The necessity of introducing light throughout the ascent accounts for the different elevation of the windows and ornaments of the different sides; but the architect has so managed this difficulty, that no bad effect is produced in the external view. At the lower part of the tower the ascent is sufficiently wide to admit of the passage of two men on horseback abreast ”

“ The tower is placed at one corner of the building, so as to face the principal street, and to form the main entrance to the Town-hall. The Tower is surmounted by a spire of a remarkable design, which, in common with the whole of the building, displays a marked Renaissance character, while from its position it gives an irregularity of outline to the entire design, greatly at variance with the symmetrical arrangement observable in Sir C. Barry’s earlier Italian buildings. ”

“ This is a mixed building, with respect to its materials, as well as its form, part being of square stone, part of irregular stone, and part of brick. The body, which is square, is fifty-four feet in length, and the same in breadth; the height of the roof is thirty feet, and that of the steeple sixty. The windows are large and gothic, and every thing plain except the portico, which is formed of Corinthian pilasters, with an arched pediment. The tower, which consists of a single stage above the roof, is also extremely plain, and the turret wherewith it is crowned is well proportioned. ”

“ We go on voyages of discovery, and when in quest of any particular point, are likely enough to fetch up at some other. This morning I had difficulty in finding my way again to the top of the tower. One of the most peculiar rooms is constructed close to the tower, under the roof of the main building, but with no external walls on two sides! It is thus left open to the air, I presume for the sake of coolness. A parapet runs round the exposed sides for the sake of security. ”

“ A flight of steps, so deep and narrow as to be almost precipitous, leads up to a low portal in the south side of the tower, by which the adventurous antiquary may still, or at least could a few years since, gain access to a small stair within the thickness of the main wall of the tower, which leads up to the third story of the building,---the two lower being dungeons or vaults, which neither receive air nor light, save by a square hole in the third story, with which they seem to have communicated by a ladder. ”

“ In other words we find that the entire mass of the building concentrates among other things itself in them, in order that thus in its main towers it may be without hindrance uplifted to an incalculable height without thereby losing its character of repose and stability. Such towers are either placed in the principal façade over the two side entrances, while a third and broader main tower springs up at the point where the vaulting of the transepts, choir, and nave meet, or one single tower constitutes the principal façade and is raised above the entire breadth of the nave. ”

“ At a little distance is a fragment of another circular building, of the same sort of work, but smaller and more ruinous, and also more buried in its ruins. Enough remains to shew that the dome has been fluted, with a small fillet on the angle of each flute: the flutes have been rounded off in some degree at the bottom. The outside is of reticulated tufo, and seems to have been square. At the distance of a few steps is a building, which is of brick, and octangular below, and of rubble above, the outside covering having disappeared. A tower is built upon part of it, the residence of—I forget who ”

“ What are you able to build with your blocks?
Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
Rain may keep raining and others go roam,
But I can be happy and building at home.
Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,
There I'll establish a city for me:
A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,
And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.
Great is the palace with pillar and wall,
A sort of a tower on the top of it all,
And steps coming down in an orderly way
To where my toy vessels lay safe in the bay.
This one is sailing and that one is moored:
[94] ”

“ The lofty bell-tower rose upon a structure, grand in itself, in which the life of the city was throbbing--not upon a meaningless scaffold like the Paris iron tower, not as a sham structure in stone intended to conceal the ugliness of an iron frame, as has been done in the Tower Bridge. ”

“ The first glance at your feet falls on a broad simple carpet of turf, around which a softly winding gravel-walk leads to the entrance and exit of the gigantic edifice. Looking backwards, your eye rests on the two black towers, of which the oldest, called Guy’s Tower, rears its head aloft in solitary threatening majesty, high above all the surrounding foliage, and looks as if cast in one mass of solid iron;—the other, built by Beauchamp, is half hidden by a pine and a chestnut, the noble growth of centuries. ”

“ On the southern edge of the hill, and rising high above the rampart, the broad flat roof of the tower affords an off-look that scarcely has an equal for beauty of prospect and interest in historical association. ”

“ Beautiful for its figure and its decoration, is that spire, and so is the incomparable tower, from which it springs like a plant; and wherever the eye rests in wandering over the splendours of its surrounding walls, buttresses, pinnacle, arches, and gables, all is in keeping, and one spirit seems to animate the pile. I am sorry to confess disappointment as to the interior. It is so neglected, and has been so much impaired. The clustered columns that support the tower have yielded to its weight, and are visibly bowed and sprung from their piers. ”

“ The well-worn stone steps are narrow, and the turn of the spiral is sharp, for this tower was built when homes were fortresses, when space was precious, and when hundreds huddled within walls that will hardly hold 17 one thriving establishment of our day. In this steep ascent, we get scant assistance from our hold on the rude hand-rail, roughly grooved in the great central column—one solid tree-trunk, embedded in the ground, stretching to the top of the stairs. ”

“ The four towers have the defect of being almost exactly alike, of four stages, richly adorned with round-arched arcades, and rising hardly at all above the level of the ridges of the roof. The south-west tower retains its fine leaded spire, with four tall pinnacles at its base, and a cluster of eight spire-lights about midway: it is an exquisite example of lead-work, and still more precious to us as affording evidence of the extraordinary extent to which decoration was sometimes carried in the Middle Ages. ”

“ The red sandstone of the primitive structure, darkened and devoured by time, survives at many points in frowning mockery of the imputed need of tinkering. The great tower, however,—completely restored,—rises high enough to seem to belong, as cathedral towers should, to the far-off air that vibrates with the chimes and the swallows, and to square serenely, east and west and south and north, its embossed and fluted sides. ”

“ Why, that this tower, which seemed a mere mass of masonry, utterly forsaken and uninhabited, was not so at all. Within twenty feet of the top, some ingenious architect had planned a perfect little house, divided into four rooms—as by drawing a cross within a circle you will see might easily be done. By making skylights, and a few slits in the walls for windows, and raising a peaked roof which was hidden by the parapet, here was a dwelling complete; eighty feet from the ground, and as inaccessible as a rook's nest on the top of a tree. ”

“ Of the walls there remain only some scattered ruins; the stones of the watch-tower have fallen one above another into the moat, filling it to the top; in the court-of-arms grow briers and patches of yellow mustard; in whatever direction you look, you see only broken arches, blackened and crumbling blocks of stone; here a section of the barbican in whose fissures springs the ivy, there a round tower, standing yet, as by a miracle; further on, pillars of cement with the iron rings which supported the drawbridge. ”

“ The flying buttresses supporting the tower are of very great beauty and grace, two springing from each pinnacle of the main tower and resting against the angles of the octagonal lantern, above which rises the beautiful spire to a further height of 130 feet, the total elevation of the whole being just over 300 feet. ”

“ On all sides Corinthian columns, plain or fluted, little towers with crenelated tops, and a mass of kiosks meet the eye. Lions rampant are mounted on the battlements, whilst curious gargoyles protrude from every corner. From story to story we have the rise of the central tower, each platform being marked by the octagonal towers at the corners, and the winding flight of stairs. The dome which crowns the top is formed by the "intersection of two semicircular arches built up with steps and balustrades, which look not unlike arcs boutant or flying buttresses." ”

“ The long, finely weathered, leaden roof, and the great square tower, gravely magnificent, emphatic from the first view of it over the grey down above the hop-gardens, the gently-watered meadows, dwarf now everything beside; have the bigness of nature's work, seated up there so steadily amid the winds, as rain and fog and heat pass by. ”

“ Norman Central Towers are very low and massive, seldom rising more than a square above the roof, sometimes not so much, the ridge of the original roof, as shewn by the weather-table on the face of the tower, being only just below the parapet. ”

“ The old tower, standing in the midst of lonely, red plough-lands far from the highway, is at first only the convenient place where the young peasant studies astronomy; but as you read you feel the change coming; the tower is transmuted, glorified; every stone of it is aglow with mystic light, it is made the abode of the Lover and the Beloved; it is seen to be a symbol of Love, of an ecstasy remote, and passionate, and eternal, dwelling far from the ways of men. ”

“ The portion of the outer wall behind the above-mentioned sacred enclosure is built in the form of a circular arc with its two extremities at B and K, and its centre at P, and the tower stands midway between these points. Close to the great tower is the little one, and no reason for its position suggests itself ”

“ A tower may, indeed, have a kind of buttress, a projection, or subordinate tower at each of its angles; but these are to its main body like the satellites to a shaft, joined with its strength, and associated in its uprightness, part of the tower itself: exactly in the proportion in which they lose their massive unity with its body and assume the form of true buttress walls set on its angles, the tower loses its dignity. ”