7 feet thick and 12 feet apart, and these form the back part of the present building. Of the upper floor a fragment remains outside the west wall, carrying on corbels the overhanging vent of a garderobe. To the plain rectangular tower the front drums and lateral chamber were added. The mouldings of the original structure are early, and of the later, more perfect Decorated; but the work is of an inferior character. The whole structure seems to have been originally built and added to in haste. On its east side, this gatehouse was joined by the ward curtain, here 6 feet thick, of which a few yards have been removed. On the west, the curtain passes back straight and then turns westward at a right angle, forming a shoulder, by which means the long southern face is flanked. Near the angle is a postern door descending by steps to the lake. In the rear of the gatehouse is a shaft upon a culvert, which seems to have brought water from the lake into the lower floor of the Water Tower. There may have been a mill thus fed within the outer ward. In front, the eastern drum of the gatehouse is connected with a long curtain wall, which crested the edge of the dam to the east, and abutted upon the gatehouse, closing one of its loops. In this curtain, near that end, a small Decorated doorway gave access to the lower lake. Passing westwards from Mortimer’s Tower, the curtain is seen to rest upon ground a few feet above the level of the lake and a few yards distant from its margin. It is of all dates from Norman to Perpendicular, and is from 20 to 30 feet high outside, and inside less by 6 or 8 feet. Opposite Leicester’s buildings, where the wall is 5 feet 6 inches thick, are three loops, of 1 foot opening, placed in full-centred recesses splayed to 5 feet. They have lighted some original Norman building now destroyed. Of the buttresses outside the curtain, some are original pilaster strips, others are from 6 feet to 14 feet broad, and of a projection from 2 feet to 4 feet, with many sets-off, and of a character decidedly Decorated. On the south face there are altogether fourteen buttresses. At the two south-west angles the wall is capped by two broad, flat buttresses, 10 feet broad and 2 feet projection. They may be late Norman. In the space of 30 yards between these is a shoulder-headed window, of 2 feet opening, and a late Decorated postern, which corresponds with the postern below the great hall. Beyond this a depression in the ground causes the wall to be 40 feet high. This western part is about 112 yards long, and terminates in the Swan Tower. In it is a large archway of Perpendicular date and 18 feet opening, corresponding to the “Plaisance” of Henry VIII., and perhaps intended for the purpose of allowing a boat to be thence launched upon the lake.