is tolerably perfect. It is 7 ft. thick, and has been about 25 ft. high. It does not, as at Tamworth, so ascend the mound that its ramparts terminate at the level of the base of the keep, but it abuts against the keep at a height of 12 or 14 feet, and is so continued down the slope. Up the mound the rampart of the curtain, as at Windsor, was a flight of steps, but as the ramparts only abutted against, and had no doorway into the keep, the steps were merely to enable the defenders to man every part of the wall. On the north side, besides these steps there was a second flight, laid on the surface of the mound, behind and at the foot of the curtain, and probably covered over, as traces remain of a second wall. These led to the entrance to the keep, and were the communication between it and the main ward.
At the junction of this curtain with the keep is a postern, a small shouldered doorway with a door barred within, whence an enemy who had reached the foot of the keep could be attacked. About 90 ft. lower down are traces of a similar doorway, whence the base of the mound could be reached. Of the south curtain a fragment remains attached to the keep; it had no postern, and probably no steps behind it.
The main ward (B in the plan) is divided into two parts; the one a level platform, in which stood the hall and other buildings, round a court about 12.5 ft. by 92 ft., and into which was the main entrance, and the other, and much smaller part, is the steep slope of the mound, about 50 ft. broad, and which was probably left rugged and useless as we now see it. At the foot of this slope are the remains of four rooms, about 18 ft. deep from the face, probably for stores, each with a doorway to the Court; in the wall of one is a sort of rude drain as from a sink or trough. This range was evidently continued along the south end of the court, being built against the curtain and carried on to the hall. Of these extensions only the excavated ground-floor, some low walls, and the base of a well-stair remain. From the character of the stair it looks as though it had been of some consequence, and it shows that there was an upper floor, probably of rooms communicating with the hall, and perhaps connecting it with the keep.
At the opposite, or north end of the store-room range is the doorway at the foot of the stairs leading to the keep,
