popular with old architects from Greek and Roman to Norman and English times. The Norman castles in England were at first usually built with square keeps and towers, but the round soon became as common as the square. In looking at these defences we see the strongest buildings in the oldest or Lower Ward, and these are by far the most ancient.

In almost all the strongholds of our ancestors, the keep, or main strength, was sufficient on one side without further defences. The massive walls, thicker than any other around them, were guarded by deep ditch and outer palisade. Sweeping down the slope was a space enclosed by barriers, which contained lodgings for the men-at-arms, a chapel, and any other buildings necessary as for the lord and the knights. Clustering around the foot of these lower defences the town grew under the shelter of the castle. If there were space on the open ground beyond the keep, the area was used for the parades and exercises in arms of the garrison and of their officers. Where the present Upper Ward is, there the "place d'armes ' was, and it was only after the fortress had grown to be a king's palace for generations that the place of exercise became part of the ground occupied by buildings. We see this to have been the growth of such castles in many instances. Often the abrupt character of the hill on which the first towers were raised allowed of no such extension, and Gaillard, Arques, and other French châteaux, should be

studied to understand the beginning and growth of the British-Norman fortalice.

THE LOWER WARD (pp. 27, 29),

that is, the part containing all the buildings immediately in front of the window of the "White Hart" Hotel and up to the neighbourhood of the Round Tower, is the portion of the Castle which retains most of its old character. The walls have not been covered by dark flint dividing-lines. They look more as if of one piece, when viewed from a little distance.

The Norman work can be known by the manner in which the lower part of the wall slopes forwards, buttress-like, so as to give greater strength to the portion above. If you look carefully at the works you will see where the Norman work ended, some ten or twelve feet below the present summit line. High battlements probably crowned the old summit. This fine front towards the town and river, must have looked even better than it does now, for when it was first raised the present broad roadway at its base existed only as a bridle track, and the slope of the ground, which is now interrupted, broke away clear down to the river at a sharp angle.

There is a remarkable sallyport and excavated passage leading to it, between the Belfry Tower and the central" Garter" Tower. It is not now shown to visitors, as its commencement in the interior of the

SUBTERRANEAN SALLYPORT

41

Castle starts from the cellars of one of the private houses within the wall. There in the cellar is a low door, and, on this being opened, a steep, wide and lofty passage leads down by flights of broken steps along the face of the wall and then under the sward at its foot to a place beneath the present roadway. There the Gothic arches that support the roof, at the doorways placed at intervals in the passage are seen above the heaps of rubbish which choke further progress. The walls are hewn in the chalk and there are marks that indicate the time of Henry II. and Richard I. as the probable date of the work. There are so many stories telling of secret passages in connection with many old castles that it is curious to observe that those at Windsor were apparently not carried beyond the outer works, and were accordingly made to open on the further side of the ditch, whose side towards the enemy could thus be manned without the knowledge of the besiegers.

At the basement of the Belfry Tower there is a fine vaulted chamber, in which is still preserved a relic far more modern, indeed, than the stonework around it, but a relic of a custom probably as old-namely, the "stocks," the two heavy planks with holes in them to imprison the legs of culprits, who were thus in their helplessness exposed to the gaze, the jeers, and possibly the missiles of the mob. This great chamber was a guard-room, and the long loopholes seen in the wall of the Belfry Tower are its only