Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/453

Rh whole spur-work is good Perpendicular. Leland calls this the South gate, and the spur-tower the Castellet. Grose gives a view of it about 1770. From the Spur gate the town wall is tolerably perfect as far as the first half-round tower, 60 yards. From hence the wall may be traced 35 yards to a flat buttress, 14 ft. broad and 3 ft. deep, of which there are some remains. Beyond this, at 37 yards, is the site of a rectangular tower, 30 ft. broad and 24 ft. deep. These two are said to be additions of the time of Edward VI. They look much older.

From hence to the North-East angle of the tower the wall has been pulled down, but its line may be traced, partly by occasional foundations, partly by its materials which have been used in the houses built on its site, and partly by the direction of the lane called "Back o' the Walls," which runs along its rear, and by the parallel road which runs along the counterscarp of the ditch, and is called "Canal-walk," from an abortive canal which was carried along the line of the ditch at the commencement of the present century.

The East gate spanned East Street, and was taken down in 1772. Grose gives a drawing of it, and attributes its erection to the year 1339, 13 Ed. III. Between this gate and the North-East angle was one mural half-round tower.

Of Polnymond Tower, which caps the North-East angle, there are considerable remains. It is a three-quarter drum tower, about 28 ft. diameter. From it to the bar, 160 yards, the wall, or part of it, remains, but so clustered with buildings as to be inaccessible to ordinary visitors. Here are remains of two half-round towers and a breach in the wall, called York Gate, probably representing a postern.

The East ditch is marked by a depression, in part due to the canal. The North ditch is completely obliterated and built over, and its breadth is not recorded, and has not been ascertained by prolong. If Hanover Buildings mark its counterscarp, it was 46 yards broad; but if, as is much more probable, its limit is marked by Cold Harbour, it was only 24 yards, which tallies with that along the East front.

The Castle was very probably the oldest, and perhaps the only, præ- Norman fortification connected with the town. It occupied nearly the whole of the North-Western quarter of the walled area, and included also the highest ground. In plan it was a rough semicircle, the chord of 124 yards being the town wall, and the arc measuring about 300 yards. There is, however, also a considerable knoll, on the South-East of the area, of about 45 yards diameter, about half of which lay outside the curved enceinte.

This was the keep. Leland calls it the dungeon (donjon), and the "glory of the castle." "It is," says he, "both large, fair, and very strong, both by works and by the site of it;" and other writers describe it as a lofty mound. As usual, in forming such works, advantage was taken of high ground to make it the base of an artificial mound encircled by a deep and broad ditch. The keep, no doubt a shell of masonry like Arundel, towered above the rest of the works. Of the curved wall of the enceinte a part remains to the North. It was built on piers about 8 ft. square and 9 ft. apart, a round-headed arch with a tendency to a point connecting these. The tops of these arches were about 12 ft. above the base of the piers, and upon them rested a wall, which carried the battlement. The arches were buried in a bank of