The top of the mound is oval, about 34 yards north and south by 40 yards east and west. Upon it has stood a shell-keep, either circular or many-sided, about 30 yards diameter. Although no masonry remains, the outline of the keep is plainly indicated by the trench which has been dug while the foundations were being grubbed up. The keep seems from this to have stood, not in the centre, but nearer the eastern margin of the mound, probably to allow room for a couple of exterior towers, or perhaps a gatehouse, which seems to have stood where now are some circular pits. Towers would be well placed on this the weakest side, so as to give a still greater command over the approach along the high ground. There is no trace of any regular ascent to the keep,—no mark of an original winding path up the mound, that now in use being evidently very modern. The side is so steep that no wheeled carriage could ascend it, and scarcely any heavily-laden horse. Probably the way up lay by a direct flight of steps, as at Hawarden and Carisbrook. There is no trace of a well. The material of the keep was evidently a hard schistose bed of the old red sandstone, fragments of which are seen in the excavations. The outer ward or crescent-shaped platform, below and west of the keep, runs out to a point towards the southern end, but to the north or north-west it is stopped at a breadth of about 42 yards by the prolongation of the keep ditch. The breadth of the ward at its greatest is about 60 yards. Along the north-west front it is strengthened by large earth-banks thrown up from the contiguous ditch, but elsewhere the natural slope of from 30 feet to 40 feet, steeply scarped, needed neither ditch nor bank. This ward had a curtain wall along its outer edge, of which the foundation diggings remain open. The north-west end was continued up the mound, and probably the circuit on the opposite side was completed in a similar way, so as to make the mound and keep, as at Tamworth and Durham, a part of the general _enceinte_. A group of excavations shows that this ward contained a considerable number of domestic buildings placed in its north-eastern and eastern part, near to the curtain wall. At the foot of the mound to the north is a sort of notch in the line of bank, possibly indicating a postern. The main approach evidently rose gradually from the village bridge, and skirted the foot of the eastern slope of the outer ward nearly to its south end, where it turned inwards and entered that ward by a roadway or slight cutting. There is no trace of masonry to be seen within or about the castle _enceinte_; the material seems to have been in request as building-stone, and to have been everywhere collected and even grubbed up with most covetous care. There is a limekiln on the south side, near the line of the entrance, no doubt built of the materials of the castle, and a sort of house, now a shed, between it and the brook, but the material shows no mark of the tool and no old mortar.