INTRODUCTION TO CASTLES
|enclosure now remain, incorporated in the rebuilt shell, which is of |
|much later date. |
|Late in the fourteenth century, by which time some additional |
|buildings such as the great hall and residential blocks had been put |
|up in the bailey, the castle passed to Earl Beauchamp who initiated a|
|fresh programme of works. These were substantially what can be seen |
|today. They included restructuring the great hall and a range of |
|other buildings on the south-east, a water-gate, and on the west |
|front a high and stout defensive curtain leading from a gatehouse to |
|a very tall polygonal tower, known as Guy's Tower, which is 39.4 |
|metres tall. The gatehouse is a remarkable building: a pair of towers|
|above the doorway passage, which had portcullises and murder-holes. |
|Projecting from the east side of the gatehouse is a tall rectangular |
|building leading to another tower. |
|This latter tower is 45.2 meters tall and capped by a two-fold system|
|of battlements with machicolation all round below the battlements. It|
|is called Caesar's Tower. The three main storeys in the tower are |
|each vaulted, and have stone fireplaces. |
|The castle is completed by curtain walling and further, much smaller,|
|flanking towers. The wall at the west leads up the motte to the |
|restored shell enclosure and down again southwards to the south |
|range. The whole is thus a powerfully defended enclosure |
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