[275] One feature of the defences of Berkhampstead is the series of earthen bastions, applied to the outer bank on the north side of the castle, probably at a date long after the foundation of the stronghold.
[276] The breadth of the “lists” or intermediate defence of the town-walls at Carcassonne varies. On the steep western and south-western sides they are very narrow, and in one place are covered by the rectangular Bishop’s tower. The ground-floor of this was a gateway, which could be used to shut off one part of the lists from each other. Of the castle and its defences more will be said later.
[277] At Newcastle the plan was nearly concentric; but the curtains of the outer and inner ward met at one point, and the outer ward was a large space, containing the domestic buildings, while the inner was nearly filled by the keep. The concentric scheme was therefore almost accidental, and no simultaneous use of both lines of defence was possible.
[278] Cf. the outer ditch constructed to cover the barbican at Alnwick, where there was possibly a further outwork next the town.
[279] All these gatehouses, like the gatehouse at Rockingham and others of the same period, have a central passage, flanked by round towers towards the field. Traitors’ gate, however, has an entrance of great breadth, wide enough to admit a boat from the river; and the interior is an oblong pool, without flanking guard-rooms. The round towers cap the outer angles, but are of relatively small importance in the plan. The interior pool is actually part of the ditch between the outer ward and the Thames, and the gateway is “a barbican ... placed astride upon the ditch” (Clark, ii. 242).
[280] These angle-towers appear to belong in great part to the end of the twelfth century: the Beauchamp tower is generally attributed to the reign of Edward III.
[281] These and the adjacent curtain are largely of the twelfth century: the Bloody tower was added in the fourteenth century.
[282] Thus protecting the quay outside Traitors’ gate. Cf. the spur-wall at Beaumaris.
[283] The thirteenth-century work in the great hall ([103]) of Chepstow castle is unusually elaborate for military work of the period: nowhere in English castles have we such splendour and beauty of detail as that of which there remain many indications at Coucy.
[284] It was begun about 1267 by Gilbert de Clare, eighth earl of Gloucester and seventh earl of Hertford (d. 1295).