438 liANYHORN CASTLE. 



Whitaker remarks as to the eight towers. 



" The Castle consisted only of seven towers, as Leland had 

 corrected his 8 in the MS., these were not entire even in Leland's 

 time. The castle was "decaying for lak of coverture." It had 

 been long deserted, its roofs had fallen in, and its seven towers 

 had already begun to moulder away into ruin, of these however, 

 six were standing within 30 years before Mr. Tonkin's writings 

 or since the commencement of the present (18th) century. These 

 had stood all the beating rains, and shaking storms of a region 

 peculiarly exposed to the watery turbulence of the Atlantick for 

 a whole century and a half. But they had been crumbling in- 

 sensibly away under all : at last I suppose four of the six were 

 thrown to the ground in that great storm of November which 

 came sweeping with so much violence over the Atlantick, which 

 has made the year 1703 so memorable in our annals by its des- 

 tructiveness, and the fury of which must have been peculiarly 

 felt here. 



Two of its towers remained within the memory of some 

 living in 1780. These were adjoining to the water, one of these 

 was standing within the memory of Mr. Tonkin. This " was so 

 large, that if the others were equal to it, the whole building must 

 be of a prodigious magnitude," and, "I wish I had taken a draught 

 of it as I often intended;" this, however, was not the " body of the 

 whole ;" nor were the towers mentioned by Leland turrets and 

 appendages to this principal work. This was merely " the biggest 

 and loftiest." 



The whole castle, says tradition, spread over the higher 

 ground, immediately to the north. This indeed makes it a large 

 building. But so it must have been from its denomination of a 

 castell from its being the principal house of its Lords, from the 

 number of its towers and from the general extent assigned it 

 by tradition. 



The grand part of the castle in modern times, appears to 

 have been that tower ; which was so superior to the rest and 

 formed a distinct fortress of itself. This, says tradition, was 

 round in its form. It is stiU remembered by the appellation 

 of the Eound Tower, and the others were consequently square. 

 This was the keep or dungeon of the castle. It was the place 



