The entrance to this keep is peculiar. Usually, as at Tamworth, Lincoln, York, Cardiff, and Arundel, the entrance to a shell-keep was at its ground-level, and that of a rectangular keep, as at Castle Rising and Dover, at its first or second floor. Here, however, both conditions may be said to be fulfilled, for although the entrance is on the ground level as regards the interior of the keep, it is the full height of a first floor above the ground outside, and this height is gained by an exterior stair, guarded by a middle and lower gate, and above the latter by a regular tower. This forebuilding is common to rectangular keeps, but does not occur elsewhere in shell keeps. Here the _Forebuilding_ is 72 feet in length, and is applied to the south-east side of the keep, or that within the court. In breadth it varies from 15 feet to 10 feet. Five steps ascend to its outer gate, a large full-centred archway contained within a plain chamfered moulding. As the doorway has been blocked and reduced in size by a perpendicular work, its jambs are concealed or may have been removed. Within is a vaulted passage, carried through the gate-tower, which is 15 feet square, and has an upper story. From the doorway twenty-four steps ascend to an open platform, having on the right a high and pierced parapet, and on the left the wall of the keep. At the stair-head a ledge on the right serves as a way to the upper floor over the gateway. This is a small chamber lighted by two windows and a lancet loop. The two larger windows and the door are of Tudor date, as may be the whole room; but, if so, it is a rebuilding, for the original tower must have been on the same pattern. In the room is an ancient bed and some hangings of needlework or tapestry, very early, but scarce of the age of Edward II., whose chamber this is reputed to have been. A little beyond the stair-head, against the walls, right and left, are seen the rebates of the middle gate, and in front, in the wall of the Oratory Tower, is the weather moulding of a roof. Hence it would seem that the staircase, as at Castle Rising, was covered all the way up. The main entrance to the keep opens upon the platform at the stair-head. It is a handsome, full-arched doorway with closed tympanum and flat head. It was flanked by highly ornate shafts, of which one remains. This portal opens into a vaulted passage through the keep wall, and enters the keep under an original archway, segmented with Norman mouldings. The jambs are worked in a very bold chevron pattern. From the exterior platform a narrow stair is continued to the battlements of the curtain over the bakehouse; but this may be an addition, for usually every part of a Norman keep was complete in itself, and had no direct communication with any other part of the castle. There is another and parallel stair in the wall, but opening outside and leading to the room above the bakehouse. This is not original.