Dungeons and Keep

The Magazine lies below the inner bailey. It may have been the cellar to the original Great Hall of the castle. Later it was used a powder magazine. Civil War prisoners were kept chained up on a narrow ledge at the foot of the stairs. Some carved their names on the wall.

You can still see the pick marks made when the Magazine was excavated from the bedrock, an outcrop of coal measures sandstone known as the Pontefract Rock. You can tell that the workers who hacked it out were right-handed because of the lobsided lean to the tunnels. The Magazine is opened on a regular basis to visitors.

Walk around to the outer wall of the Keep and you'll see a door that leads to another castle dungeon. The access to this one is rather difficult and, at the moment, it is not open to the public. Peering inside gives you a glimpse of the inner life of a 12th century castle. Think about where that narrow staircase goes. First it climbs up inside the motte, then drops steeply down to it's centre. A well-worn plank crosses a 'bottomless' pit to a single stone cell where the prisoners were shut away in complete darkness. Another 5 cells were sealed long ago.

The Norman lord, de Lacy, who is likely the man who had this built was also responsible for Kirkstall Abbey. Abbey and dungeon, Heaven and Hell illustrate two sides of the medieval mind; while striving for heaven de Lacy made sure he had an efficient version of hell at his diposal, down there deep below his keep.

The castle was demolished with the full approval of the town's-people. The ruins of may still bear the scars of the Civil War Siege. Golf ball-size holes on this stone above the Sally Port may be holes made by musket shot, while a bucket-sized hole nearby might be the result of a Parliamentarian cannon ball during the Civil War Siege.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail; 'richard@daelnet.co.uk'