The wall in which this and other gates of the cathedral close were inserted was built in the thirteenth or early fourteenth century, to protect the close and the canons. The gateways were all double, except the “Potter Gate,” which is the only other one now extant. It is said that the Romans had a pottery near it; at present the road to the Minster Yard goes both through it and round one side of it. [Illustration: _The Pottergate, Lincoln._] [Sidenote: THE CASTLE] Passing from the Exchequer Gate you see a very pretty sixteenth century timbered house, with projecting story, at the corner of _Bailgate_, now used as a bank. Hard by on your right is the White Hart inn, and on your left you have a peep down _Steep Street_ to the _House of Aaron the Jew_, a money lender of the reign of Henry II. Near this was once the South Gate of the Roman city, and some of the stones are still visible in the pavement. The gate was destroyed in 1775. Looking straight ahead from the Exchequer Gate you see the east gateway of the castle, a Norman arch with later semi-circular turrets corbelled out on either side of it. Inside is a fine oriel window, brought from John of Gaunt’s house below the hill. The enclosure is an irregular square of old British earthworks, seven acres in extent. The west gate is walled up and the Assize Court within the castle enclosure is near it. In the angles on either side of the east gate are two towers in the curtain wall, one, “the observatory tower,” crowns an ancient mound, and on the south side is a larger mound, forty feet high, on which is the keep, a very good specimen of very early work, in shape an irregular polygon. The castle was one of the eight founded by the Conqueror himself, apparently never so massive a building as his castle, which is now being excavated at _Old Sarum_, the walls of which, built of the flints of the locality, are twelve feet thick and faced with stone. At Lincoln the Roman walls were ten to twelve feet thick and twenty feet high. Massive fragments of this wall still exist in different places, the biggest being near the Newport Arch. Near here too is “The Mint Wall,” seventy feet long by thirty feet high, and three and a half feet thick, which probably formed the north wall of the Basilica. Most of the fighting in Lincoln used to take place around this spot, as Stephen felt to his cost. The old West Gate of the Roman city was found just to the north of the castle west gate. The line which joined the Roman East and West Gates ran straight then, and crossed the Ermine Street, now called here the Bailgate, near the church of St. Paulinus, but the result of some destructive assaults must have so filled the road that the street now called ‘East Gate’ was deflected from its course southwards and has to make a sharp bend to get back to its proper line. [Illustration: _The Jew’s House, Lincoln._] [Illustration: _Remains of the Whitefriars’ Priory, Lincoln._] [Sidenote: THE JEW’S HOUSE]