The great gate in Quarry Street, though large, is at present a mere opening, perhaps of the age of Henry III., in an older, and probably Norman, curtain. Whether it was connected with the gatehouse is uncertain, but there is, as already stated, an indication in the masonry that such was the case. Also the portcullis groove is large, and so heavy a grate could not have been worked without a chamber above carrying a winch. Outside the gate are two buttresses, which have a late Norman aspect. One is nearly perfect, the other has been replaced in brick, but probably upon the old base. The south-west angle of the Quarry Street front is marked by the not inconsiderable remains of the postern tower, adjacent wall, and a large buttress, all pretty clearly late Norman. Towards the north and east the walls are entirely removed, but in these quarters the line of the ditch affords a clue to the original boundary. The _enceinte_ thus laid down measures about 535 yards; its greatest north and south diameter, 170 yards; and east and west, 140 yards. The Quarry Street front is straight and 138 yards long, with the gate nearly in the middle. From the postern tower to the end of the keep causeway is 213 yards, and thence to the “King’s Head” angle, 184 yards. Captain James has detected traces of a line of wall parallel to, and about 30 yards south of, the High Street, which may not improbably have been the boundary of an enclosed area appended to the castle, as may the extra-parochial lands on the east and south-east, but the actually defended area of the castle seems to have been as above described. It may further be observed that Quarry Street, which runs along the foot of the west wall of the castle and lay between it and the river, seems to have been defended on that side by the low cliff and talus already mentioned, supported probably by the retaining wall, of which traces and the jamb of a gate remain; while there is a tradition of a gate crossing the street near the postern of the castle, which probably guarded the approach to the town from the south, the only quarter from which a hostile approach would be apprehended. Not only are the remains of the domestic buildings of a late Norman character, but among the repairs of the hall, in the reign of Henry III., two of the piers are mentioned as out of the perpendicular, a tolerably conclusive evidence that the hall resembled Oakham and Leicester and was of Norman date. Altogether, it is sufficiently evident that the whole area of the castle was enclosed by its original founder, and is not later than the middle of the twelfth century, the detached fragments of walls and buildings being in substance of the same date with the keep. The castle is in St. Mary’s parish, bordered on the north-east by Trinity and on the east by the extra-parochial plot, the origin of which is not known. Probably the _enceinte_ took in the whole of the residence of the royal Saxon owners.