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Bridgenorth, Oldbury, mid Quatford, 277 deep by 3 inches broad, shows that the grate was of iron. The groove, as at Kenilworth, stops about 3 feet from the ground, the door having been reached by steps. The groove is not open at bottom, but runs up behind a covering wall, as usual, and was evidently worked from the rampart, as is still seen at the Fishergate postern, at York. The door jamb is about 6 feet from the keep. This was evidently the entrance into the innermost ward, in which, or rather upon the wall of which, stood the keep. A few feet to the west of the keep is a mass of masonry, clearly a part of the forebuilding which covered the entrance. Its face towards the keep is 13 feet long, and towards the south 16 feet. It varies from 3 feet to 6 feet thick, and is at present about 10 feet high. At present it is distant from the keep 3 feet 6 inches, but the two faces were evidently once in contact, and were displaced by an explosion. The mine by which the keep was destroyed seems to have been placed here. The material of the keep was rubble-stone faced with excellent fine-jointed ashlar. The exterior face of the forebuilding seems to have had a similar casing. It is not easy to obtain accurate measurements of the keep, so much has been removed, so much injured, and what remains is so obscured with ivy. Moreover, the interior is fitted up for two dog- kennels, kept in a very filthy condition, and with putrid carrion suspended from the walls. The ruins also stand in three distinct enclosures, all locked up. A mine has been sprung between the keep and the forebuilding, and the explosion has removed all the upper part of the latter, and so tilted the keep that it leans at an angle of fifteen degrees eastward from the vertical, and the upper part of the east and south walls are gone. Moreover, the keep seems to have been lifted bodily about three feet towards the east, and the north wall has a large open crack. About fifteen yards from the south-east angle stands a huge ivy-covered mass of masonry, probably the detached angle of the tower. What remains of the keep is held together by the excellence of the cement. The ruin is in a state of great filth and neglect, and it is much to be regretted that the whole area is not converted into a public garden. Judicious excavation would probably throw much light upon the details of the keep, and show the line of its contiguous curtain wall. The masonry and details of the keep answer very well to the date of iioi to 1 102, to which history assigns it. It is certainly not earlier. The curtain of the inner ward was clearly of the same date, and enclosed a court in the north-west quarter of the general area, of which the keep probably formed the north-east angle, and which w^as entered on the east side close south of the keep. All else is gone ; the "mighty North gate" of which Leland speaks is no more. The very ruins have perished, and the last trace of them, a good Norman arch, discovered while pulling down some houses in 182 1, has since been destroyed by local Vandals. The early history of Bridgenorth is exceedingly obscure. It is