BUILDINGS 19

which latter led right into the Bar and so to the
corresponding wall on the other side. Each of these
entrances to the city was protected by barbican,
portcullis, and gate. Each evening the Bars were
closed and the city shut in for the night. Defenders
used a Bar as a watch-tower or a fort. They could
walk along the high crenellated walls of the Barbican
and shoot thence, and stop the way by lowering the
portcullis.1

Near the Castle there were the Castle mills,
where the machinery was driven by water-power.

Outside the walls there were strays, or common
lands. Some of the land immediately around the
city was cultivated or used as pasture. There wrere,
besides dwellings, several churches and hospitals,
just outside the city. Beyond this suburban area was
the forest.

The most notable of the Religious Buildings is
" the Minster, which was practically completed in the
fifteenth century, when the work of erecting the
three towers was finished. The architectural splen-
dour of this mighty' church must have appealed very
strongly to the people of the fifteenth century, for
did they not see the great work that had gone on for
centuries at last brought to this glorious conclusion ?
It rose up in the midst of the city, always visible
from near and far. The inside was even more
magnificent than the exterior. The fittings and
furniture were of the richest. The light mellow tone
of the white stonework was enhanced by the fleeting
visions of colour that spread across from the sunlit
stained-glass windows, which still, in spite of time
and restoration, add enormously to the beauty of
the interior.

1 The winch and portcullis are still in existence in Monk Bar,
and in working order.