As it now stands, in every quality of high merit ALNWICK CASTLE certainly yields to no other restored edifice of a similar rank. Of the castle of to-day it may truthfully be affirmed that, with a close approach to an exact fidelity, in its prevailing external arrangements and its general features it represents the grand old fortress of times long passed away. Time had dealt somewhat hardly with the Percy stronghold, and injudicious attempts to make good the ravages of the destroyer had aggravated the evil, when the recent great work of restoration was taken in hand. Then every vestige of the old structure was diligently and carefully examined, and every available early document was critically studied; the remains also of other castles then were investigated, and all that they could suggest was applied by the restorers of Alnwick to the furtherance of their great project. Hence the plan of Alnwick, as we now have it, while it can scarcely claim to be absolutely identical with the original plan, may be accepted as not greatly differing from it in any essential particulars. Whether Yvo de Vesci, the undoubted founder of the castle, was enabled fully to carry out his own original plans, we are not able at the present time accurately to determine; but, still it may be assumed that the plans of De Vesci, to whatever degree they may have been realised by himself, both in extent and in general configuration closely resembled those which were worked out by the Percies, when they had become lords Alnwick, as these, in their turn, were afterwards followed as their guides by the recent restorers who were employed by Duke Algernon. [Illustration: _Bond Gate: “Hotspur’s Gate.”_] The great epochs in the architectural history of Alnwick Castle may be thus distinguished. I. DE VESCI, about A.D. 1150: the original founding of the castle, and its erection as an Anglo-Norman stronghold. II. FIRST PERCY, from 1309 to 1315: the second founding and great reparation of the castle, with either the complete rebuilding or the original erection of many of its most important parts. At this period were erected the Barbican, the Gate-House, the Western Garret; the Abbot’s, Falconer’s, Armourer’s, Constable’s, and Auditor’s Towers; also the Postern and the Ravine Towers, the Gateway between the first and second baly, with the adjoining curtain-walls both east and west, a great portion of the east side of the Keep, the Well, and the grand Baronial Hall. III. SECOND PERCY, from 1315 to 1352; the completion of portions of the works of the preceding period, and the erection of the two flanking towers (No. 8 in plan) in advance of the Norman entrance to the Keep: these towers are represented in our engraving. IV. THIRD PERCY, ending in 1455: various important reparations and additions, most of the latter having been removed by the first duke in the next period.