Tamworth, rather an Early English than a Norman structure, was long the actual residence of a considerable family. It is still inhabited, and contains some crowded and curious buildings, an open court, and a well. Connected with the keep is an earlier curtain-wall with some herring-bone work. The approach to the keep lies along the rampart of this wall. The actual entrance is a small, plain, pointed doorway. At Lincoln the keep is a mere Norman shell. It is nearly circular, and has two original doorways, one (the larger) opening from the castle area, the other opening upon the outer ditch. The mound stands upon the _enceinte_ line of the place, and at the points at which the two curtains abut upon the keep are two mural chambers, which appear to have been garderobes. At Clare the shell was a polygon of fourteen faces, and at each angle was a buttress, triangular in plan, and of three stages, dying into the wall. The shell was 52 feet internal diameter, and the walls 6 feet thick and 25 feet high, with four tiers of putlog holes. The foundations of this keep are of the unusual depth of 6 feet. There is said to have been an underground chamber, which may be doubted. The material is flint rubble, with ashlar buttresses and dressings, but the actual masonry, though, no doubt, generally on the old lines, does not look later than Edward III., if so old. The mound is 53 feet high, and on the _enceinte_, and traversed by the curtain. The base is about 870 feet in girth, of which about 600 feet are outside, and 270 feet within the area.