The interior of the castle gatehouse was as imposing as the exterior, with very high ceilings and carefully chosen furnishings in the two rooms that took up the bulk of the building's footprint. The other rooms (tiny kitchen, tiny toilet and one very narrow bathroom with a tub) were added on by the Landmark Trust. The bathrooms could only be accessed via the intimidating Spiral Staircase of Reckoning, which gave one pause in the evenings when pouring the next glass of wine.

Spiral staircase
I keep talking about the staircase, so here it is. My dSLR is shoved up against the central pillar and the camera body is lying on one of the steps. The ceiling (which is the top of that round structure on the battlements you can see in the previous post) is about three metres from the camera lens.

Alcove with wooden bowl, chair and table.
Alcove in the first-floor room with beautiful leaded glass windows. The wooden chair, table and bowl harmonised wonderfully with it. Not sure what Squishy Orange Cat was doing in the bowl. Anyway, if you look closely at the leaded glass you can see that some panes are delicately tinted orange and green.

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The wooden bowl from above.

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Keiki showing off his tummy at the dining table. Behind him you can see the opposing alcove with its large wooden bureau.

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Cousins in the bed together, watching Hey Duggee on the tablet after breakfast.

Spiral staircase
This is a view of the spiral staircase from the tiny toilet about six steps below the level of the first-floor room. Sorry for being so staircase-obsessed here, but conquering my fear of the darn thing enough to enjoy its craftmanship was one of my great achievements during our time here.

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Keiki and Humuhumu exploring the upstairs room, with twin beds. We had originally intended for this to be their room, but it ended up mostly being just Humuhumu's as we didn't trust Keiki not to come sleepily down the spiral staircase in the morning and suffer a tumble.

Night-time view
View of the blazing fire in the fireplace from the four-poster bed. Humuhumu is snuggled up in her "princess bed" on the sofa as close to the fire as possible.

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Here is Keiki asleep in said four-poster bed.

Humuhumu asleep on the "princess bed"
After taking the above photos, I may have hung over the sofa to check on the sleeping pink-cheeked Humuhumu one more time.

One of the privileges of staying in the castle's gatehouse was having access to the neighbouring banqueting hall. Its exterior was restored and made weather- (and trespasser-)tight but the interior has been cleared out and left roughly as it might have looked in the days it was in use, except without furniture.

Banqueting hall interior
Interior of the banqueting hall, where it's surprisingly easy to imagine a long table creaking under the weight of 400 roasted swans.

Keys to the banqueting hall
The first part of entering the banqueting hall was finding the keys, which are stashed away inside the gatehouse. Check out the size of them. Those are the bloke's hands.

Keiki and Humuhumu hold up keys
We have the keys to the banqueting hall!

Entering the banqueting hall
Having successfully deployed the keys, the bloke, Keiki, and Humuhumu entered the banqueting hall.

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The bloke watched patiently whilst Humuhumu and Keiki dashed up and down the hall.

Banqueting hall window mesh
The windows are without glass, but covered with sturdy mesh to deter trespassers. And, we presumed, pigeons.

Leaving the banqueting hall
After the children had run up and down the length of it shouting and occasionally falling over a sufficient number of times, we left the banqueting hall to its musty memories.
.

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