earth about 15 ft. high. This bank has been removed to allow houses to be built up to the wall, which now, therefore, stands like a Roman aqueduct. The foundation is excellent, so that this plan was adopted solely to save material and to profit by the older bank. The roughness of the masonry shows the height of the bank, above which the remaining wall rises about 4 ft. It is much to be regretted that this curious piece of Norman wall has been so badly treated. About 90 yards of it remain, including eighteen arches. It stops at the Castle Lane, where was the main gate of the Castle, removed at the end of the last century.
The wall, beyond the gate, was continued up the mound to the keep and beyond it, till it reached the Southern gate, whence it was continued till it again struck the town wall. Thus the keep was upon and formed part of the enceinte, as was usual. From the South gate, also removed in the last century, a winding road, commenced from the wall, led down to Simnell-street, a few yards within the postern.
Besides these two gates, the castle had a small water gate in the wall towards the shore, reached probably by a flight of steps or a subterranean passage, as the outlet was so far below the platform of the castle. To the North of this gate is a large subterranean vault, now closed; and, judging from the openings in the wall, there was a corresponding vault to the South. Probably these were connected with the gate.
The whole area of the castle is high, and much of it has been still higher, the mound having been lowered, the ditch partially filled up, and the bank along which the wall was built having been removed.
To judge from the material evidence afforded by an inspection of the works, it would appear that the castle represents the Saxon or Danish earthwork, probably the earliest strong place, and was composed of a truncated mound, its circular ditch, and a bank of earth encircling an area of which the mound or a moiety of it made part.
The Normans, probably in the reign of Henry I., enclosed the castle and town in a rectangular wall, and dug the East and North ditches. Also the castle was enclosed with a wall built in part on arches, and a shell keep placed on the flat summit of the mound. The wall of the castle, and much of the West wall of the town, and the two houses in Blue Anchor-lane, may be attributed to this period.
Then it became necessary to strengthen the town wall, and this was probably done in the reign of King John, who, it appears, remitted to the citizens £200 out of their fee-farm rents for the enclosure of their town and the thickening of the wall, and perhaps the West and Spur gates were begun at that time.
Much must have been done to the fortifications during the reign of Henry III. or Edward I. To this date are probably due the older drum towers and much of the wall connected with them, and the recessing of the Bar-gate and the addition of its flanking towers.
It appears that the town was attacked by pirates and sacked in October, 1338, 12 Edward III., and in consequence it was strengthened in the next year. The South and East gates may have been of this date, and the Spur tower and its gallery, unless this latter be, with the completion of the Bar-gate, the work of Richard II. This king seems to have done much to the castle.
The vault indicated on the plan as on the North side of the water-gate
