PEVERELS CASTLE IN THE PEAK. I39 



Saxon strongholds were invariably built of wood-stockades 

 of felled trees, supported by earthwork; the herring-bone design 

 which is supposed to indicate Saxon work may have been 

 supplied by Saxon masons working under Norman masters. 

 Similar herring-bone work has been found in Norman erections 

 at Lincoln.* It is only necessar}' to compare the donjon with 

 similar edifices in England and Normandy to be satisfied that 

 the keep was built in the century succeeding the Norman 

 Conquest. 



Ascending the steep hill by a zig-zag path on the north 

 side next to the town, we enter the castle yard, or ballium, 

 by a ruined gateway. The castle yard forms an irregular 

 parallelogram surrounded by walls, measuring roughly two 

 hundred and twenty feet in length from east to west, and 

 one hundred feet and sixty feet in width at the west and 

 east ends respectively. It is a sloping platform which has been 

 levelled up to the north wall to the height of about eleven feet. 

 The north wall, which was about six feet thick, is now almost 

 destroyed, but on reference to Ashmole's drawing it will be 

 seen that the Castle was entered .by a gateway surmounted 

 by a Norman arch ornamented by dog-tooth moulding. On 

 the right hand was a bastion to defend the entrance to the 

 gate. The curtain wall extended across the slope of the hill 

 to the precipices overlooking the entrance to the Peak Cavern, 

 ending in a square tower at its north-west angle. As the north 

 was the only accessible part of the hill, this wall was, no doubt, 

 of considerable height, battlemented, with an inside parapet for 

 the use of its defenders ; the bastion and tower would also 

 be of great strength. To judge by the sketch, the tower 

 must have undergone some alteration in later and more peaceful 

 days, as the windows seem to have been enlarged and the build- 

 ing adapted to some un-warlike purpose. No other defensive 

 works appear to have existed on the walls which surround 

 the area on the south, east, and west sides ; nor would they 



* Brit. Arch. Journal, 1900, pp. 272-3. 



