Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/37

Rh keep was reached does not appear. There was not the usual barbican tower, as at Norwich or Rochester; the circumscribing wall, and the lofty position of the keep, rendered this unnecessary. A row of small holes at the door level may have belonged to a sort of timber landing, to be reached by a flight of steps of the same material. There is said to have been a well in this ward, about 6 ft. from the west wall of the keep, south of the door.

There remain two wards to be described. The line of the enceinte of the castle seems to have been much as follows: Commencing at the angle of Castle Street and Quarry Street, where the site of the present King's Head inn was probably marked by a tower, the west front took the line of Quarry Street, past the great gateway, to the tower containing a postern, which still marks the south-west angle of the enclosure. Thence the wall passed east till it reached the boundary of the extra-parochial ground, whence, in the line of that boundary, it probably took the curve of the counterscarp of the main ditch, in the direction of the Bowling-green Cottages. There, on the platform at the end of the causeway, was no doubt a barbican covering the direct approach to the keep. Thence the wall seems to have been continued along the line of the ditch, shown by the curve of Castle Street, until it again reached Quarry Street, thus enclosing what corresponds tolerably well to the area of the castle at the sale of 1612, which is described as 5A. 3R. 10P., or nearly six acres. Of this area the part north of the great gateway was shut off by a curtain, parts of which remain, and which seems to have run up the mound to the enceinte of the inner ward. In this, the middle ward, stood the hall and principal buildings, as is clear from the considerable, though fragmentary Norman walls still to be seen, two of which, forming two sides of a large chamber, are very perfect, and one is pierced by a very perfect Norman window recess and loop.

What stood in the area south of the gateway, into which the postern led, is not known. It long contained the gardens of the governor of the gaol, when the castle was employed for that ignoble use, and in it is the celebrated well, connected with the caverns.

The great gate in Quarry Street, though large, is at present a mere opening, perhaps of the age of Henry III., in an