There remains to be mentioned the well-stair, which occupies the north-west angle of the keep, commencing at the first-floor level and ascending to the roof. This stair does not communicate directly with the main chamber, but opens by a small, round-headed door in the jamb of the adjacent north window, where three steps in a short, narrow passage lead up into the base of the well-stair. The stairs are gone, but the cylinder of the well-stair, 8 feet diameter, remains. As high as the second floor it is lined with excellent chalk ashlar, and lighted by two loops on the west side. A door and passage, similar to that below, ascends by four steps into a recess, not a window, in the north wall of the upper floor. This side door is pointed, but this seems the effect of modern cobbling. It should further be mentioned that the four hollow angles of the first or state floor are quoined with chalk ashlar. The floor rested on no set-off, the walls being of the thickness of the basement. The second, or upper floor was about 15 feet high. There is a set-off at the floor level, reducing the east and west walls by about 2 feet. In this floor are four windows in broad recesses. Those on the west and east and south faces are central. The fourth window is towards the east end of the north wall, the centre of that side being occupied by a fireplace much modernised, but which the displacement of the window shows to be original. In the south wall, close to the south-east angle, a door leads into a small mural garderobe, with two vents corbelled out over the exterior wall and a loop above them. With this exception, there are no mural chambers on this floor, which is singular, seeing that the wall is quite thick enough to carry them. There is, however, in the west wall, near its north end, one jamb of a walled-up door, which may have been meant to communicate with the stair or with a mural chamber. It seems never to have been completed. The four angles of this room are quoined in chalk ashlar, as in the room below, and the window recesses had, and one still has, round-headed arches. This floor is very inaccessible, but was reached by a ladder when these remarks upon it were recorded. The walls are evidently, in the main, original, though much pulled about by the Carter family when they lived here. The recesses also are original, but the windows themselves are cut-brick insertions of two lights, arched. It will be observed that the eastern wall, though very thick, is pierced by no galleries, and, with the exception of two windows, is absolutely solid from base to summit. Probably the object was, by placing this mass of firm masonry on the solid ground, to give support to the other three sides, and thus prevent them from sliding down the slope of the mound, as was the case with some much lighter and later buildings in a similar position at Cardiff.