Titus Groan the Countess. Here, Steerpike takes the opportunity to spy on the Groan family. Despite having led him there, the fiercely loyal Flay is angered by Steerpike's eavesdropping and locks him in a small room. Steerpike, however, escapes out of a window, risking his life above a sheer drop. He manages to climb up onto the roofs and towers of Gormenghast, and from there begins his rise to power. After spending twenty-four hours clambering over the enormous castle searching for a means to enter, Steerpike manages to climb in through a window into the secret attic of Lady Fuchsia Groan. Fuchsia,
Gormenghast (castle) inner buildings of Gormenghast owe much to the Gothic and Regency period mansions and to the various styles of English country house. The quadrangles and professors' quarters also owe something to the architecture of Oxford and Cambridge and to Eltham College where Peake was educated as a boy when he returned to England. Finally, the isolated Channel island of Sark, which retained a feudal system of government until 2008, may have influenced Peake, who lived there in the early 1930s and again in the late 1940s. The references to Gormenghast castle as a rocky island of many promontories and sheer