Built around 1200, its upper floors were later reused for accommodation. An entrance of lesser status than the main gatehouse, the gate's position next to the kitchen suggests it was a tradesmen's entrance, used for conveying supplies to the castle. The Carrickfergus Tower in the south-west corner partially collapsed in the 18th century. The square Little Stair Tower was the entrance from the bailey to the withdrawing rooms south of the great hall.
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It consists of a centre with wings extending in a curvilinear form, and presents an extensive and very imposing frontage. A flight of steps, with balustrade, conducts to the hall which is of good dimensions, and is adorned with coupled Corinthian columns supporting a frieze. Amongst the principal apartments, of which five are en- suite, are two withdrawing-rooms; the walls of the smaller were decorated and painted, as also the ceiling, by foreign artists. The library is a very splendid room, being ornamented with a profusion of gilding on a blue ground.
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This first expansion of the original d'Evercy house, probably on the site of the present staircase hall ("K" on plan), occurred in 1460, when the Sydenhams added the south-west block ("B" on plan). This held the house's first reception rooms other than the hall, consisting of a solar and retiring or withdrawing rooms for the lord of the manor and his family. Until then the whole household would have lived and dined together in the hall. This wing has been much altered, having been given a new window arrangement in the 17th century, when the south wing was built.
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Tinniswood (1999), 48–49. Either side of the Saloon are two smaller drawing rooms (8, 10), which would originally have served as private withdrawing rooms from the more public activities which would have taken place in the Marble Hall and Saloon. One of these rooms, now called the Tyrconnel Room (10), was transformed into the principal or state bedroom during the occupancy of Lord Tyrconnel in an attempt to create a more fashionable suite of Baroque state rooms on the first floor. After his death in 1754, it became a Billiard Room, until the 3rd Earl Brownlow had it refurnished more than a century later.
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From the 15th century onwards halls lost most of their traditional functions to more specialised rooms, first for family members and guests to the great chamber and parlours, withdrawing rooms, and later for servants who finally achieved their own servants hall to eat in and servants bedrooms in attics or basements).Michael Thompson, The Medieval Hall (Aldershot, 1995), p. 186. The halls of late 17th, 18th and 19th-century country houses and palaces usually functioned almost entirely as impressive entrance points to the house, and for large scale entertaining, as at Christmas, for dancing, or when a touring company of actors performed. With the arrival of ballrooms and dedicated music rooms in the largest houses by the late 17th century, these functions too were lost.
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The contemporary social commentator of the day Roger North lauded back stairs, of which Belton has two examples (5 and 14 on plan), as one of the most important inventions of his day.Jackson-Stops, 60; Marsden, 23. The principal room is the large Marble Hall (1) at the centre of the south front; this hall is the beginning of a grand procession of rooms, and corresponds to the former Great Parlour or Saloon (9) on the north front. The Marble Hall is flanked by the former Little Parlour (11, now the Tapestry Room) and the Great Staircase (2), while the Saloon is flanked by two withdrawing rooms (8, 10). The bedrooms are arranged in individual suites on both floors of the two wings (3, etc.) that flank the state centre of the house.
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It was improved during the 17th century with the addition in 1615 of a pair of wings but was abandoned circa 1677. Thomas Machel visited the castle in 1677 and described it as > An Elizabethan building consisting of an inner quadrangle surrounded by > buildings, and an outer court to the north protected by a thick and high > curtain wall. The entrance to it was approached through a gateway at the > head of a flight of steps from the road. Directly opposite an archway opened > into the inner court; on the left, or east side, was the kitchen and > buttery, with the hall beyond, entered by an external stair from the court; > the south end was occupied by the chapel and withdrawing rooms; whilst on > the western side there was a long gallery lighted by a large oriel window > facing the quadrangle Another sketch from 1692 shows a thick, high curtain wall enclosing a square outer court, with an inner court enclosed by three and four storey buildings.
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