Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/366

340 MedicEval Military Architecture, of the north bank, is the Mound, a grand earthwork, which rises from a circular base of 60 yards in diameter to a height of 32 feet above the surrounding ground. Its summit is a platform, also circular, 36 yards across, and crowned by the remains of the keep, called by Leland the White Tower. This is a shell, or polygon of twelve nearly equal sides, 80 feet in diameter, the wall being 9 feet thick and 30 feet high, and constructed mainly of rolled pebbles. This wall is pierced by the putlog holes, so common in the older masonry, especially of this district ; and in one of the eastern sides is a fireplace of enormous dimensions, but the chimney of which appears as a mere recess in the wall, with no present traces of a fourth side or front. Near it is a sink, so that this was evidently a kitchen : a part, no doubt, of the buildings which the wall supported. The walls have never been strengthened by buttresses or pilaster strips ; but the exterior angles of the polygon are capped with ashlar quoins, which appear to be of the date of the Beauchamp alterations, with some recent additions, one of which may be the fireplace. The entrance was through a lofty and strong gate -tower, duly portcullised on the south side, and of which a part remains. The shell is probably the work of Robert Consul ; but the style and finish of the gate-tower testify to its being due to Isabel Beauchamp, or her husband, of Warwick. This gatehouse was connected with a cluster of towers of great strength, which occupied the southern slope of the mound, and terminated below in a second gateway, which was the first or outer entrance from the middle ward into the keep. Here, though in an older structure, was the reputed scene of the barbarity practised upon Curthose, and of his subsequent imprisonment. Meyric describes the rooms in these buildings as " not so fair as strong." They were probably barracks. Much of this building fell down late in the last century, and was removed. It was, no doubt, of Norman foundation, and probably altered both by the De Clares and by Isabel Beauchamp. Since this account was drawn up, the ditch of the mound has been carefully opened out, and once more supplied with water. This laid open the piles of an early bridge, and the arch of a later one, probably of late Norman date, with the base of a gateway at the foot of the mound, and a well close to it. Also were laid bare parts of the steps by which the mound was ascended, laid alongside of a cross wall as at Tickhill. The keep does not seem to have contained any central building. A plain stone stair, of which traces remain against the wall, led to the battlement, which was also accessible from the gatehouse. Probably an interior lean-to or shed surrounded the court. On the face of the opposite fronts of the gate-tower of the keep and of the Black Tower, are sections of the great curtain wall, which extended from one to the other. This wall, thus seen to have been 7 feet thick and 30 feet high, and embattled on each face, was probably not the work of the founder of the castle. It was removed