The gateway opens into the _Great Court_ of the castle, a roughly rectangular space, having the circular keep encroaching considerably upon its north-west angle, and the remainder of the space set round with domestic buildings built against and completely concealing the lofty curtain. This court, which is, in fact, the castle, measures outside upon its south face 60 yards, and its east face 72 yards, these two being set nearly at right angles. The north and west faces are about 60 yards and 76 yards, but the north-west angle is occupied by the keep, which covers about 40 yards of the north, and 42 yards of the west face, forming a part of the _enceinte_. The buildings project about 30 feet, so that the inner and open part of the court is much reduced in area. The curtain, originally thick, has been strengthened outside, probably in the Decorated period, by nearly thirty broad and thick and very clumsy buttresses, some of which probably conceal the early Norman pilaster, for most of the wall is certainly of that date. Some of these buttresses are pierced by loops, showing an immense thickness of wall. On entering the court, on the left is the high plain wall of the keep, with its forebuilding and exterior staircase ascending to the entrance. On the right are domestic buildings, drawing-rooms, bed-rooms, &c., extending to the south-east corner. The face wall, though much altered, and pierced with Tudor windows, seems in substance Norman with large Decorated alterations. The pointed Norman arches may be traced in the wall. These buildings have a basement and two upper stories. It is uncertain whether they stand upon a vault. The chapel occupies the south-east angle. The hall is next to it along the east side, and the butteries, kitchen, and offices fill up the north-east angle and the north side as far as the keep. In the south wall, near the gate-house, but at the exterior ground level, is a small pointed doorway, probably a postern, and connected with it a small chamber, about 6 feet below the level of the court, of doubtful age, but with an old doorway. It has a flat roof, and wooden floor of the room above: being filled with the bins of a modern cellar, it cannot be examined. The _Chapel_, dedicated to the Virgin, rests on the vault of the great cellar, and measures 29 feet by 18 feet. It is entered by a modern door in the north wall, west of which are traces of what seems to have been the original entrance. It has a rather flat apsidal east end of three faces; the vestry, a mural chamber, opening in that to the south-east. The south side is the outer wall, 14 feet thick; it is pierced by a mural passage, a sort of aisle, at the floor-level, which opens into the chapel by four foliated arches, each corresponding to a window or loop in the curtain. There is a small Decorated piscina. Against the west wall is a sort of pew of two stages, the upper being an enclosed gallery for the family, opening from the principal rooms.