“This castle was defended by a wall surrounding it, built on the brow
of the hill on which it stands, and by three ditches; the outermost
of which reached on the west to the edge of the present Market Place,
on the north to London Lane, which it took in; on the east nearly to
Conisford Street, and on the south to the Golden Ball Lane. The
postern or back entrance into the works was on the north-east, by
which a communication was had with the earl’s palace, then occupying
the whole space between the outer ditch and Tombland. The grand
entrance is on the south, from which you passed three bridges in
going to the Castle. The first hath been immemorially destroyed; the
ruins of the second remained till the ditches were filled up and
levelled thirty years since; and the third still continues and
consists of one whole arch, exceeded by very few in England.”
Mr. John Kirkpatrick, who wrote an account of the Castle in the last
century, gives quite a different description of the earth works. He
notices the present ditch, and a second entrenchment lying between the
present ditch and the Shire house, which then stood near the old weighing
house on the hill. He also refers to the Shire house ditch as a distinct
entrenchment. He describes a bridge house on the inner side of the great
southern ditch in the middle of the present Cattle Market, and the line
of the houses forming the southern limit of the Cattle Market seems to
show the limit of the outwork.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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