About five miles north-east of Berry Pomeroy stands Compton Castle, and there is a tradition that they were once connected by a subterranean passage. Compton is a very interesting example of a fortified manor-house, built in the early part of the fifteenth century. It stands low on the slope of a narrow, winding green valley, and on the west the hill has been cut back to make room for the walls. The castle faces east, a garden-plot lies in front, and the foundations of an ancient wall divide it from the lawn beyond. Close to the central door stands the base and broken shaft of a stone cross. The picturesque western front of the castle is gabled and embattled, and a very high archway is built in the centre of the wall. The colour is difficult to describe, for the castle is very much overgrown with ivy and a faint green lichen has crept over the stones in many parts, but the shades pass from a rich cream colour to a soft grey. A very marked feature is 'the great number of projections carried on machicoulis, through the openings of which stones and other missiles could be thrown on the heads of assailants.' Both the chief doorway and a postern gate to the south were defended by portcullises. On the north side an Early Perpendicular window marks the chapel. The central doorway opened into the large and almost square guard-room, and on the north side of this room a pointed doorway leads into the chapel, which keeps some of its special characteristics. At the east end a square space is sunk in the wall above the spot where the altar stood, and in this space the faint traces of a fresco can still just be seen. In the wall that shuts off the guard-room is a cinquefoiled piscina and a four-light window, the stonework of which is like that in the east window, and this window allowed anyone in the guard-room to join in Divine service. In the west wall is a hagioscope, and from a room next the chapel a newel staircase led to the priest's room on the floor above. A little window with two cinquefoiled openings in his wall enabled the priest to look down into the chapel., and the height of the sill from the floor suggests that it may have served him as a _prie-dieu_. The moulded base of a stone cross still remains over the ancient belfry, which rises out of a mass of ivy. There are a bewildering number of rooms, many now inaccessible, and the height of the walls shows that there were two or three, and in the north-east block four, stories. The banqueting-hall, forty-two feet in length and twenty-three in width, has utterly disappeared, and only the gable-marks of the roof against the buildings on the south side have enabled Mr Roscoe Gibbs to draw his very careful deductions. In the kitchen the huge fireplace, stretching the whole width of one wall, still keeps its great fire-bars; next the kitchen is the steward's room, above which two stories still stand, though the upper one is absolutely in ruins.