Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/36

20 a loop above them. With this exception there are no mural chambers on this floor, which is singular, seeing that the wall is quite thick enough to carry them. There is however in the west wall, near its north end, one jamb of a walled-up door, which may have been meant to communicate with the stair, or with a mural chamber. It seems never to have been completed. The four angles of this room are quoined in chalk ashlar, as in the room below, and the window recesses had, and one still has, round-headed arches. This floor is very inaccessible, but was visited when these remarks upon it were recorded. The walls are evidently, in the main, original, though much pulled about by the Carter family when they lived here. The recesses also are original, but the windows themselves are cut brick insertions of two lights, arched.

It will be observed that the eastern wall, though very thick, is pierced by no galleries, and, with the exception of two windows, is absolutely solid from base to summit. Probably the object was by placing this mass of firm masonry on the solid ground to give support to the other three sides, and thus prevent them from sliding down the slope of the mound, as was the case with some much lighter and later buildings in a similar position at Cardiff.

It has been stated that the keep stands upon the south- eastern slope of the mound, consequently there is to the west, and in front of its entrance, nearly the whole table summit. This was enclosed by a circular wall, like a shell-keep, about 25 ft. high, which, springing from the south-eastern angle of the keep, seems to have been carried round the mound, commencing at about half its height, until it reached the north-east angle of the keep, at which junction there seems to have been a gateway. Of this circular wall about one-half, either actual or in foundations, remains. The fragment of wall, about 5 ft. thick and 20 ft. high, is evidently of the date of the keep, the same thin red tiles being used in its chalk masonry. Also in this wall is an original garde-robe, apparently of three stages: one at the ward level, one halfway up, and one on the battlements; the three seem to have united in a common shaft, the vent of which is seen outside the base of the wall.

The space thus enclosed by the keep and the circular curtain was the inner ward. How the main door of the