The Royal House is the only building in the town that stands without being propped up by another building, and naturally this gives it an imposing appearance. Picture to yourself columns of quaintly carved oak surrounding an audience chamber on the ground floor and supporting the spreading-out part of the stories above. On the first floor are the private apartments, the dining-hall (with a sufficient minstrel’s gallery giving elbow room for four minstrels to perform the most energetic pieces) and the room where the regalia is kept in a padded box. On the floor above live the Court officials, three of them, and on the third or attic floor, are rooms for the domestic staff and one large room containing odd matters that are bound to collect in any large household, such as chairs wanting a leg, damaged pieces of armour, swords with loose hilts, old pairs of bellows, and the like. The kitchen is in another building, connected to the dining-hall by an overhead passage which is covered in so that the victuals will not get chilled on the way. Altogether a neat and commodious dwelling for a king in a small way of business.
The marvellous land of Snergs · E. A. Wyke-Smith