Jim,
I must confess that I do not fully know why the cells are not displaying in the exact widths. One problem is that your columns did not always lign up exactly. When you add to that the fact that you have designed a rather complex table, then problems seem to show up and compound upon themselves.
I worked with your design for a long time, trying to get it to work, but eventually had to try another route: nested tables. Indeed, I do not like working with nested tables, but I cannot see any other solution (other than a lot of DIV's). Perhaps some of the more capable web gurus out there can provide an answer.
Back to the nested tables...
For the main table, I use a 3 column, 5 row layout, arranged like this:
Row 1: 3-column span cell, the header.
Row 2: 1 picture cell, 1 image-link cell, and 1 picture cell
Row 3: 3-column span cell, the top of the arch picture
Row 4: A table containing all of the center information
Row 5: 3-column span cell, the footer.
In Row 4, I put a 1 row, 3 column table. In the first column's cell, I put another table with just the navigation buttons and scroll bar. The second column's cell contains a table holding the graphical information (the castle) and the text area.
I have attached a text file with all of the modified code, as well as a few comments to help you see what is going on.
This is not the only way to do this. In fact, you probably don't have to use 3 nested tables, but this was the quickest solution I could come up with by modifying your code.
A few other notes: I didn't include all of the heigth and width instructions in each tag. In my opinion, they aren't needed in the <table>, <tr>, and <td> tags, because the <img> tags provide all of the necessary spacing. In fact, omitting the redundant information makes your source file (HTML) a lot smaller.
Secondly, you should consider optiminzing your graphics. Right now, one must download almost ONE MEG of images in order to correctly view your site. That's too much, and takes far too long to download, especially if you must use a dialup connection (like those of us who live in the middle of nowhere are forced to use).
I suggest that you:
1. reduce the color count, or use a different file format.
2. Eliminate multiple copies of the same file. You have two scrollbars. If they are the same, then why download it twice? The same goes for the space between each of the buttons: downloading the same picture with seven different file names, rather than downloading one picture and using it seven times.
In closing, I hope this helps, and good luck on the rest of your website!