follow the grand old wall till it ends upon the site of the Bigglesgate, where we turn eastward a little into the town and come to the Castle, of which, unhappily, almost nothing remains.  It consisted of a great Keep in the midst of an enclosure, entered by two gates, the Castle Gate upon the north-east where now is Castle Lane, and the Postern over the site of which we have entered the Castle Green.  The decay of this fortress dates, at least, from the sixteenth century, and apparently before the Civil War it had been pulled down.

The walls still enclose the Bailey of the Castle upon the west.  There, in some sort, still stands the Castle Water Gate, a mere fragment, within which is a great vaulted chamber some fifty feet long and twenty-five feet high, with only one small window.  From this fragmentary gate the wall sweeps away to the salient, for the most part Norman; but beyond the salient its character changes, two towers appear—­the Catchcold Tower of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century, and the fine Arundel Tower, now only a curtain of fourteenth-century work in the Decorated style.

It is in these western walls of the town that we shall get our best idea of what mediaeval Southampton was, and if we add to our impression by an examination of the two remaining gates, one upon the north and the other at the south-east angle, we may perhaps understand how formidable it must have appeared standing up out of the sea armed at all points.

Mediaeval Southampton had eight gates, of these, as I have said, but four remain, the most notable of which is undoubtedly the Bargate, upon the north.  This is a fine work of various periods in two stages, the lower consisting of a vaulted passage-way of fine proportions, a work of the fourteenth century and the upper of a great hall, the Guildhall now used as a court room.  The original gate, of course, was Norman, and this seems to have endured until about 1330 two towers were built on either side, without the gate, and a new south front added.  In the first years of the fifteenth century a new north front was contrived, and this remains more or less as we see it.  Of old the gate was reached by a drawbridge across a wide moat.

Beyond the Bargate we come to the Polymond Tower or the Tower of St Denys, beautiful with creepers.  This would seem to be in some way connected with the Priory of St Denys which held all the churches in the town, as we shall see.  As for its other name of Polymond, it would seem to get it from that John Polymond, who, in the fourteenth century, from which time the tower, as we see it, dates, was nine times mayor of Southampton.

As for the God’s House Gateway, to reach it we must cross the town.  It is a plain but charming work of two periods, the gate proper being of the thirteenth century, while the tower with the two-storied building attached to it is of the fourteenth.  From the beginning of the eighteenth century until 1855 it was used as the town gaol.