The defences on the south require special notice. From Mortimer’s Tower a bank of earth is thrown straight across the valley. It is 80 yards long, 15 yards broad, and about 20 feet high on the upper or western side. The lower side is strengthened by a ramp in the slope. About a third of the way across, a deep and broad cut, now bridged, lets off the water and has drained the lake; but whether this was the position of the sluice is doubtful. Mortimer’s Tower closed the inner end of this dam, and a curtain wall 4 feet thick defended its eastern face. At its further end are the remains of the floodgate or gallery tower, an outer gatehouse, beyond which is a deep ditch across the dam, which was evidently intended to take the overflow of the lake, and perhaps to drain it if necessary. It was crossed by a drawbridge, the piers of which still remain. This gatehouse is attributed to Lord Leicester, who probably recast it. In substance it is certainly much older. A grand block of stone, worked with Decorated mouldings, has been used in its repairs, and is probably part of the older building, though also thought to have been brought from the chapel. A flight of steps from this gatehouse descended to the lake, and is superseded by a modern farm road. [Illustration: KENILWORTH CASTLE. GENERAL PLAN. Wyman & Sons, Gᵗ. Queen Sᵗ. London.] It was by this gateway, between the Brayz and the tilt-yard, that Queen Elizabeth made her celebrated entry. Dugdale’s drawing of 1620 seems to show a wall on the upper side of the dam, but of this there is now no visible trace. The broad and level surface of the dam was well suited for a tilt-yard and seems always to have been so employed, as was also, no doubt, the Brayz. Such exercises, being attended by numbers of armed men, were usually held at the barriers, or outside the main gate of the castle, as a precaution against a surprise. The effect of the dam was to form a sheet of water 90 yards to 100 yards across, half a mile long, 10 feet to 12 feet deep, and covering about 111 acres. Below the dam, where the valley is rather broader and the ground naturally low and marshy, a second, lower and smaller lake has been formed, the dam of which, of a slight character, may be seen along the upper side of the road from the station to the castle. This lower lake must always have been shallow, but it served to protect the great dam, to cover the south-east angle of the castle, and to guard the rear and eastern flank of the great outwork. At Ledes there was a “Stagnum Regis” below the dam of the lake, and at Caerphilly the waste water from the lake was made to cover the principal front of the castle. There remains, finally, to be noticed the great outwork which completed the defence of the castle on the south side, and formed a noble _tête-de-pont_ beyond the lake. It bore the name of the Brayz, possibly from “Brayda,” a suburban field or broad place.