When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar; where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position. There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from the castle yard. The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II. such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen (sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn. The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.