TAUNTON CASTLE. 29 



witliin tlie inner moat; and that much of tlie walls now re- 

 maining, are Norman, though modernized and adapted to the 

 improved System of fortification introduced by Edward I. 

 Immediately to the west of Mr. Dyer's premises, flanked 

 by an enormous mass of ruined masonry, is a way leading 

 at once to the mill stream, through a door-way having a 

 segmeutal arch, which may perhaps be as early as the 

 latter part of the thirteenth Century, beyund which extends 

 a wall of very great thickness, having flat buttresses of 

 a very Norman-like appearance, which I believe to have 

 been the original curtain surrouuding the base court of the 

 Norman Castle. This wall now forms the north side of 

 the great hall which has been built against it inside, and 

 has been cut through to give space for the Insertion of the 

 large square-headed windows of the sixteenth Century, by 

 which the hall is now lighted. This hall is generally sup- 

 posed to have been built by Bishop Hörne, in the latter 

 part of the sixteenth Century, his arms,* with the date, 

 1577, being carved on a stone built into the wall of the room 

 now used by the grand jury. But this building is evidently 

 an addition to it, and though the height of the hall, rising 

 as it does considerably above the external defences, gives 

 reason to suppose that it was constructed in comparatively 

 peacefiü times, yet the high pitch of the original roof, 

 which is still to be seen against the square turret which 

 rises at its western extremity, induces me to think that it 

 is of considerably earlier date, and if not of the Edwardian 

 period, together voth the tower which contains a staircase 

 of communication between the hall and the upper story of 

 the western buildings of the inner bailey, more likely to 

 be the work of Bishop Langton, in the fifteenth Century, 



* Parte per Pale, Winchester and Hörne. 



