centre of the east side, that towards the road. The angles are, as usual, slightly rounded. The castle stands a few yards north of the camp, the adjacent parts of the latter having been cut away and levelled in forming its outworks. The castle is, in plan, a very irregular four-sided figure; the south and west sides meet at less than a right angle, and are in length 80 yards and 77 yards. The north side, at right angles to the west, and upon the river, is 50 yards. The east side has been partly rebuilt, with a low salient angle. It is in length about 40 yards. This area is the main, or rather the only, court of the castle. The keep originally stood clear within the court, near to its northeast angle; a large gatehouse now occupies that angle, and much of the north front, and is connected with the keep, which, therefore, is no longer isolated. The hall and domestic buildings stand against the south wall, and are continued a short distance along the east wall. A large square tower is placed at the south-west angle, and covers a postern. The west wall is free, and seems to have been low. The castle is about 50 yards from the river, and 30 feet above it. The entrance was from the east, along the bank of the river. A ditch, wholly artificial, and probably filled with rain-water, protected the west, south, and east fronts. Towards the west it is broadest and deepest, that being the exposed front. Towards the river the natural fall and the marshy character of the ground were a sufficient defence. The entrance is, and probably always was, in the east wall, at its north or river end. This part of the enceinte wall is built with a shoulder or re-entering angle, so as to command, for some yards, the approach to the outer gate. The moat is now traversed by a causeway of earth, replacing the earlier drawbridge.

The gatehouse, rectangular in plan, and 90 feet long by 39 feet broad, occupies the space between the keep and the north wall, and extends either way beyond the keep. It is composed of two parts,-one, a block of chambers, lodges,

&c.,

&c., forms, or rather abuts upon, the curtain; the other, connecting these chambers with the keep, contains the vaulted entrance. The entrance is broken transversely into two parts, separated by a small open court. The outer passage, 34 feet long, belongs to the outer gate; the other, 36 feet, to the inner gate. The keep forms one side and the lodges the other. Thus, there are really two gatehouses,—one abutting on the north-east, and one on the north-west, angle of the keep, each with its own defences and gates, the buildings on the north communicating with both. The exterior portal is in the east wall. It has no flanking towers, being protected by the curtain. The northeast angle is capped by a square buttress, placed diagonally. The gateway has a plain flat segmental arch over it. Upon a stone are the words, "This made Roger," and above are two tiers each of two good decorated windows of two lights, with trefoiled heads and a quatrefoil in the head, and divided by a transom. Between the two upper windows are three bold corbels, intended to support a machicolation resembling those on each face of the keep. It is said that formerly the arms of Vaux, "checquy," were carved over the entrance; but it seems probable that they were the arms of Clifford, "chequy, a fess," or it may have been "a bendlet." The passage within, 11 feet broad, is vaulted. The first defence was a portcullis, of which the square groove, 6 inches broad by 4 inches deep, remains. Within this is the rebate for a pair of gates, and on the right the small door of a lodge. At the inner end of the passage was a second pair of gates, opening towards the first pair, and beyond them the open court, with the keep wall on the left. Above this outer gateway is a large room, 21 feet east and west, by 32 feet long. In its west wall is a fireplace, and a door opening into the middle chambers. In its north wall a good decorated window looks upon the river; in the east wall are two windows overlooking the outer gate, and between them, over the gate, a recess for working the portcullis. Beyond

Beyond the open court is the second part of the gatehouse, which commences by a portcullis, backed by a pair of doors, within which is a passage 20 feet long by 16 feet broad, vaulted in two bays with transverse and diagonal ribs springing from six corbels. There are no ridge ribs ; the inner or further portal also had doors. The left-hand lodge is a vaulted cell, II feet long by 3 feet 3 inches broad. On the right the room is much larger, and leads to the north postern. The exterior or north front of these two gatehouses forms a handsome block, and is pierced by various openings at different levels. At its north-east corner is an angle buttress; then follows one in section a half square, set on diagonally; and west of this, again, is a large square buttress, in one side of which is the north postern, a small shoulder-headed door at the foot of a flight of stairs.

The lofty tower at the south-west angle of the court is about 35 feet square, with an appendage on the east face. It has thick walls and mural passages, and projects but little from the curtain. It has a basement and three upper floors. The first floor was entered by an exterior flight of stairs, which also communicated with the rampart of the west curtain. At its junction with the tower is the postern, the approach to which is guarded by a loop, while nearly over the door discharges the shoot of a garderobe.

Along the south wall are the domestic buildings, of which the chief was the chapel, about 35 feet by 20 feet. This was on the first floor, with a timber floor and open roof. The chamber below was entered from the court by a lancet door. The chapel had a large east window, of which the jambs remain; and in its south or curtain wall are two long trefoil-headed windows, splayed within. Towards the east end are three sedilia, also with trefoiled heads and trefoils in the spandrels, the whole beneath a flat top. There is also a piscina of late Decorated aspect. Near the chapel, towards the south-east angle, the remains of a large

large fireplace seem to indicate the kitchen, and along the east wall are two windows, and traces of a fireplace between them, all which seem to belong to the hall. At the north end, also, on the first-floor, are remains of a handsome door, in the Perpendicular style, with a four-centered arch beneath a square head. The staircase may have been exterior. Grose shows some walls here in 1775, which are now gone.

The keep, called in Countess Anne's time" the Roman Tower," the only remain of the original castle, is 44 feet square, and, in its present state, of unusual height. Its exterior plinth is confined to the north side. The two western angles are covered by pilasters, 12 feet broad and of 6 inches projection, one on each face, meeting so as to form a solid angle. Two other pilasters, balancing these, cover the east end of the north and south walls, but there are none on the east side, that having been covered by the fore-building. The south face is prolonged eastwards 12 feet by a wall 5 feet thick, which rises to the third-floor level, and formed the south end of the fore-building. The pilasters rise to the present summit of the wall, and terminated originally in four square turrets, of which traces remain at the two northern angles. The keep has a basement and three upper floors, of which the uppermost, if not an addition, has been recast. The walls are II feet thick at the base, and at least 10 feet at the rampart level. The parapet is gone. There is no external set-off. In the centre of each face, and near the top, are three or four bold corbels, which evidently carried a short machicolation; and in the angles, near the top, are several cruciform loops, slightly fantailed at the top and bottom, and with lateral arms ending in oillets, much resembling those at Kenilworth. Some of these are the lower half of those of the turrets, which, with the parapet, were standing in 1775. At the upper part of the south-eastern angle the wall is corbelled out 12 inches for a breadth of 15 feet on the

southern,