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Rh works, which, like some similar ones in England, may be as early as the tenth century.

The keep, the curtain of the main ward, the hall, and perhaps the curtains of the spur seem to be of one date, the material employed being substantially the same, and the workmanship not unlike.

The range of storehouses in the main ward, the offices projecting from it towards the north-east, and the whole of the buildings of the foot entrance are of later date, and of different design, material, and workmanship. The material is a greenish sandstone, and the workmanship ashlar of the most expensive kind, dressed on every face, and laid in thin joints, with but little mortar. This excellence has proved fatal to the structure; for as the stones needed only to be lifted from their beds and laid, without any adaptation, into any new work, the temptation has proved too strong, and most of this later work has been carefully removed by hand, and not, like the older work, overthrown by gunpowder. In fact the lower walls that remain have much more the appearance of an unfinished than of a partially destroyed building.

There is a paper by the late Mr. Hartshorne in the fifteenth volume of the Archæological Journal, which, though it touches but lightly upon the topography of the castle, enters at some length upon the history of the Barons of Montalt, long its owners. From thence, and from other sources, it appears that Hawarden belonged, from a very early period, to the Earls of Chester, some of whom probably constructed it, and no doubt occupied it after the Saxon fashion. In their line it remained till the death of Ranulph de Blundeville, the last earl, in 1231, when, with Castle Rising and the "Earl's Half," in Coventry, it came to his second sister and co-heir, Mabel, who married William d'Albini, third Earl of Arundel. Their second son, Hugh, who inherited, died in 1243, when the estates passed to his second sister and co-heir, Cecilia, who married Robert de Montalt.

The Barons de Monte-Alto, sometimes styled de Moaldis or Mouhaut (Mold, where the mound of the castle remains), were hereditary seneschals of Chester and lords of Mold. Roger de Montalt, grandson of Robert and Cecilia, inherited Hawarden, Coventry, and Castle Rising. He married Julian, daughter of Roger de Clifford, justice of North Wales, but