Bouncy Castle Hire Business - Why Start One?

Bouncy castle hire business - the rewards

Hiring out a bouncy castle or another type of inflatable for children’s or adult’s parties can be a highly profitable and enjoyable business that won’t take up much of your time, or cause you sleepless nights. As an example of the financial rewards that can be yours, if you were to operate only three bouncy castles on part time hire at weekends, with each bouncy castle going out at around £65 per day, you could bring in £390-400 per weekend, amounting to £1,690-£1730 per month gross. With business expenses at around £200 per month, you could end up with a net profit of around £1,500 a month. And this is from just a few hours work a week.

A part time business run from home

Many successful bouncy castle hire businesses operate from home and are run by people doing full time jobs during the week. To run the business you only need to devote a few hours to it each week, and you won’t need to make a huge financial investment to get things started. The bouncy castle business is ideal for home operation: you only need to be available to deliver and collect the bouncy castle at the end of the day, and have somewhere to store your deflated bouncy castles when they are not in use.

But will there be enough demand to make the bouncy castle business worth while?

Of course there are no guarantees in business, but keep in mind that children have birthdays every day of the year, and every year there are more and more children out there. Adults are pretty fond of bouncy castles too. Hire for parties in back gardens will be good in the summer and autumn, and in the winter and spring, hire for indoor parties, for example, in community halls, or church hall, will ensure that your bouncy castle business runs all year round. The truth is that competitors often find that demand for bouncy castle hire exceeds supply -- especially in the summer months. There is normally plenty of room for everyone to operate in a medium to large sized town, or city. In a busy area, you will even find rival companies passing over enquiries to each other when they are fully booked! You might even find that there are no competitor bouncy castle businesses operating in your area.

A business that can grow

Many bouncy castle hire businesses start out small, say, operating one or two bouncy castles, but then expand within a few years to operating and handful. Ten years later the business might be operating as many as twenty. However, remember that how big you grow is largely up to you.

Upnor Castle

Upnor Castle belongs to the genre of Henrician cosastal forts but is an Elizabethan addition to the chain. It was begun in 1599 to guard the approach to the new dockyard at Chatham, lying two miles away near the estuary of the River Medway. Sir Richard Lee interrupted his work on the fortifications at Berwick-on-Tweed, to come and design this fort, but construction dragged on for eight years. In 1599-1601,

Upnor was enlarged but it had to wait until 1667 to face enemy action. In that year, the Dutch, under Admiral de Ruyter, sailed into the Medway and set fire to much of the English fleet. The castle was unable to offer any effective resistance and in the following year a new chain of defenses was begun, Upnor being relegated to the role of storehouse and magazine. Military occupation of one kind or another continued until the Second World War.

As originally conceived, the castle comprised an oblong blockhouse, set in the middle of a curious screen wall terminating at each end in a stair turret. This building provided accommodation for the garrison, defense being concentrated upon the low, pointed bastion facing the Medway.

Pointed bastions were devised as a defense against artillery in Renaissance Italy. Sir Richard Lee built several along his new ramparts at Berwick, but the Upnor bastion does not have the characteristic "arrowhead" plan resulting from a narrow collar. Its riverside setting made that unnecessary. However, since only one side of the bastion faces upriver, there were insufficient gun emplacements to fire effectively on an approaching fleet-this was the problem in 1667.

The late Elizabethan enlargement provided defenses on the landward side. A walled courtyard was created in front of the blockhouse, with towers where the new curtain joins the screen wall. The courtyard is entered through a gate tower retaining the traditional obstacle of a drawbridge.

Southampton Castle

One of the chief ports of medieval England, Southampton preserves a wealth of medieval domestic architecture. Its flourishing Dark Age predecessor was abandoned in favor of the present site in the tenth century, and excavations have shown that this new town had earth and timber defenses from the beginning, no doubt as a defense against the Danes.

Over a mile in length, the walled circuit enclosed a roughly rectangular area. It had numerous bastions, mostly semi-circular, and larger towers ar the angles. Today, only the wall survives, along with parts of the north wall and a length near the southeast corner of the circuit. A tour of the wall may conveniently begin at the Bargate, the northern entrance to the old town and a very imposing one. The machicolated front is an early fifteenth century addition.

Behind it are twin half-round towers a century or so older, while the gate passage retains a Norman archway from an older structure. In contrast with the fortress-like outer face, the side facing the town has large windows lighting the story above the gate. This spacious chamber served as the guildhall in medieval times and later civic uses saved the gatehouse from demolition in later centuries. It was a major obstruction to traffic until the construction of a bypass in the 1930s, which relieved the problem but resulted in the destruction of the stretches of town wall on either side.

Beyond the Bargate, the wall leads west to the circular Arundel Tower, then soutward to the old quay. Shortly a kink in the circuit denotes the junction with the older castle wall. Southampton Castle was a royal stronghold first mentioned in the 1189s. Richard I and John rebuilt it in stone. The west curtain survives as the town wall, with a postern leading into a cellar from the castle's domestic buildings.

Walmar Castle

Walmar Castle is the most southerly of the three Henrian coastal forts which protected the Downs, that sheltered strait lying between the coast and the Goodwin Sands. It stands a mile from Deal Castle, to which it was originally connected by earthworks, and was built at the same time. Though resembling Deal in principle, it is simpler in design. It consists of a squat cylindrical tower closely surrounded by a lower curtain, the latter projecting outwards in four semi-circular lobes to form a quatrefoil plan. It was a plan shared by Sandown Castle, the northern member of the group and now almost totally destroyed.

Walmer Castle stands in its entirety but, in contrast to Deal and most of the other Henrician forts, it austerity has been mellowed by conversion into a stately home. In 1708, the militarily redundant castle became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, a medieval office which has survived to the present day as an honorable sinecure.

The transformation to a mansion is all the more remarkable given that the low, curved, immensely thick walls cannot have lent themselves easily to such a purpose. Fine gardens now surround the castle and encroach upon its deep, stone-faced ditch, while many of the gun embrasures have been converted into windows.

When first built, Walmer exhibited the usual Henrician defensive arrangements. Cannon would have been mounted on the parapets of the central tower and outer curtain, a third tier of fire being provided at the level of the ditch by gun ports in the curtain. These gun ports are linked, as at Deal, by a continuous fighting gallery in the thickness of the wall. The central tower provided the main accommodation for governor and garrison. The lobe containing the entrance was heightened in the 1860s to provide further accommodation.

Wolvesey Castle

As the capital of the kings of Wessex, who brought the whole of England under their sway in the tenth century, Winchester enjoyed the status of capital long into the Norman period, though eventually the pull of London proved too strong. It is therefore inevitable that William I should have founded a castle here soon after the Norman Conquest.

The castle occupied a curiously elongated site on high ground at the western edge of the walled city. It received stone buildings in the twelfth century but much restoration was necessary following the city's capture by Dauphin Louis in 1216.The early history of the castle is confused because a royal palace with another Norman keep stood near the cathedral. It existed until 1411. During those troubled years, Henry partially fortified his own palace, which occupied the southeast corner of the city, counter-balancing the royal castle on the west.

Wolvesey Palace, often called Wolvesy Castle, remained the chief seat of the bishops throughout the Middle Ages. It was finally abandoned in 1684, by Bishop Morley, who built the present Baroque palace alongside. The fine chapel is incorporated, but the rest of the old palace is very much a ruin.

On the south, there is a definite curtain wall entered through a sequence of gateways. Henry went on to build two square towers against the eastern hall block, creating an illusion of strength on this side. It is an illusion, for despite the circumstances of its origin, Wolvesey's defenses are really more for show than anything else. The so-called keep is really just a symbolic imitation of a keep as it housed a vast kitchen, and the smaller Wymond's Tower served as a latrine block for the adjoining solar. The gatehouse on the north side of the court was erected following Henry's return from exile in 1158.

St. Briavels Castle

St, Briavels Castle occupies an elevated site overlooking the Wye Valley and the Welsh Border. Niles Fitz Walter, Earl of Gloucester, first built the castle during the Anarchy, but Henry II took possession in 1160 and it remained a royal stronghold thereafter. Kings, especially John, came here to hunt in the Forest of Dean. It between times, it served as the administrative center of the forest, which was important for iron forges, and the castle became a stone house for the innumerable crossbow bolts made there.

A massive gate house dominates the castle, Built by Edward I in 1292, it must have been a good example of the keep gate house theme and a worthy counterpart to the gatehouses of Edward's Welsh castles. The effect is marred now by the loss of the parapet, long since displaced by pitched roofs, and the destruction of one side of the long gate passage.

Semi-circular flanking towers rise from square bases which retreat back into the wall as short pyramidal spurs. This strengthening of the wall portcullises closed the gate passage, and smaller portcullises even barred the doorways leading into the porter's lodges. Beneath one of these lodges is a pit prison, and later the entire gatehouse served as a prison for those who had fallen foul of the harsh forest laws. Originally, however, the two upper floors of the gate house contained a hall and other apartments for the constable.

The gatehouse forms one end of the present house, which originated as a suite of royal apartments. Though much altered in the Jacobean period and later, the house preserves a lot of masonry from King John's time, notably a reset fireplace in the so-called Jury Room. An altered chapel projects into the bailey, but the hall that stood opposite has vanished.

St. Mawes Castle

St. Mawes Castle guards the eastern entrance to the estuary known as Carrick Roads. It is the companion of Pendennis and exactly contemporary. These two Henrician coastal forts offer some interesting contrasts. In each a squat round tower is the chief feature, but instead of having a square residential block slapped on in front of it, the St. Mawes tower is elaborated by three attached semi-circular bastions with parapets at a lower level. A distinctive stair turret caps the tower.

St. Mawes is unlike Pendennis but like the majority of Henry VIII's forts in being low lying and thus able to challenge enemy shipping at close quarters. Both castles share Henry's other fortifications, the rounded merlons designed to deflect cannon balls, the large embrasures for guns at several levels, and the emplacements for drawbridge and portcullis, the latter showing that the forts were intended to offer some resistance at close quarters if the enemy ever landed. Above the entrance we encounter again a panel of the royal arms. On the rocks in front of the castle is a semi-circular blockhouse matching the one in Pendennis, perhaps erected as an emergency fortification before the real work started.

In terms of size, the castles would appear to have been conceived as equals and their early governors were bitter rivals. With the Elizabethan enlargement of Pndennis, however, St. Mawes shrank into a subsidiary role. Its part in the Civil War typifies this. In contrast with Pendennis Castle's heroic stance, the royalist governor here wisely judged the castle to be indefensible from the land and surrendered without a shot being fired. The insignificance of St. Mawes has allowed it to survive in a very unspoiled condition. Not only has the stonework suffered very little, but within there is a surprising amount of original woodwork.

Tonbridge Castle

Guarding a crossing over the River Medway, the important castle of Tonbridge was founded by Richard Fitz Gilbert. It existed by 1088, when Rufus stormed the castle with the help of a native English army raised to quell the rebellion of Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Despite his involvement in this revolt, Fitz Gilbert retained possession.

The castle is an impressive example of a Norman motte and bailey - a layout curiously rare in Kent. On top of the great motte are the lower courses of a round shell keep. The bailey curtain dates from thirteenth century, probably from the time of the earlier Gilbert de Clare or his son, Richard. Owing to later stone robbing, it is now very ruinous and none of the flanking towers survive. The curtain is best preserved where it overlooks the river, four latrine chutes showing that residential buildings once stood here.

The Red Earl's gate house, by contrast, is still an imposing structure. Newly built in 1275, when Edward I visited the castle, the gatehouse is an outstanding example of Edwardian military architecture. Massive U-fronted towers, rising from square bases, flank the long entrance passage, which was protected by two portcullises, two pairs of gates and three rows of murder holes in the vault. Circular stair turrets clasp the rear corners.

The building is a classic example of a keep-gate house, which could be defended independently if the rest of the castle fell. Hence the inner gates barred access from the bailey and portcullises sealed off even the doors leading to the curtain wall walks. A hall occupied the whole of the second floor of the gatehouse. This awkward arrangement was necessary, since the chamber immediately over the gate passage would be clogged with drawbridge and portcullia winding gear. An eighteenth century house stands beside the gatehouse.

Wallingford Castle

The historic town of Wallingford lies within an earth rampart first thrown up in the reign of Alfred the Great or Edward the Elder, as a precaution against Danish attack. Wallingford was once believed to be a Roman town because the rampart encloses a rectangular area and the streets follow a grid pattern. The rampart can still be followed on the three landward sides but there is no evidence of any man-made defenses facing the river. In the Norman period the rampart was heightened, but the town then fell into economic decline so the timber stockades that lined the summit were never replaced in stone.

The northeast quarter of the town enclosure became the site of Wallingford Castle. William the Conqueror crossed the Thames here in 1066, during his march on London, and he may have founded the castle in passing. It certainly existed by 1071. This important royal fortress fell into the Empress Matilda's hands during the Anarchy and resisted King Stephen in three great sieges. The platform of a siege fort from this time can be seen across the river.

The castle showed its strength again in the Civil War. It resisted the might of Parliament until July 1646 - virtually the end of the war - and even then surrendered honorably. Six years later it was destroyed as a potentially dangerous stronghold. The earthworks comprising a large motte between two baileys are still quite impressive but almost all the masonry has disappeared.

A number of English kings contributed to the defenses, notably Henry II and John, resulting in an impressive castle with a shell keep on the motte and two towered curtains. A section of the outer rampart has been turned into a public garden and this carries an excavated length of wall and one round tower. Castle House now occupies the inner bailey.

Trematon Castle

Trematon Castle stands on an eminence rising steeply above the River Lynher, two miles southwest of Saltash and the Tamar estuary. Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall probably founded the castle. It is referred to as his in the Domesday Book. At that time Trematon was a place of some importance whereas now it is scarcely a village. The castle saw action in the Civil War and, earlier, in the course of Kilter's Insurrection which broke out in Cornwall in 1594. The rebels laid siege to the castle and managed to lure out and capture its defender, Sir Richard Grenville.

Trematon is a fine example of a motte and bailey castle. It is even more notable for the excellent preservation of its late Norman masonry, almost certainly the work of Henry de Dunstanville. An oval shell keep crowns the motte and a plain curtain surrounds the bailey. Both keep and curtain retain their crennelations, the latter having unusually narrow merlons. Until 1897 the curtain stood complete, but in that year a long portion was removed to supply materials for the house that stands in the bailey. Consequently, there is now a long gap between the gatehouse and the southwest corner of the bailey.

At the foot of the motte is an original postern. He main entrance is through a perfectly preserved gatehouse added by Reginald de Valletort around 1250. Its square plan is decidedly old-fashioned at a time when round-towered gatehouses predominated. Nevertheless, the gatehouse projects entirely outside the line of the curtain, so that it acts as a powerful flanking tower, and the gate passage was defended by two portcullises and a pair of gates between them. The ascent through the gate passage is an obstacle in itself. Note the first arrow slits of the castle, both the cross-slits on the keep parapet and the slits with roundels in the gatehouse.

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is one of England's largest, containing thirteen acres within its walls. It has enjoyed favor as a royal residence from Norman times to the present and is the only royal castle to have made the transition to palace. Most monarchs have contributed in some way to its splendor and every century except the eighteenth has left its mark on the fabric. The result is a magnificent but extremely mutilated stronghold.

The castle owes its position to William the Conqueror. He chose the elevated site on a chalk cliff above the Thames in 1067 and his earthworks have since dictated the layout of the castle. Although raised on the grand scale, Windsor is a typical motte and bailey fortress, with two baileys or wards of roughly equal size on either side of a motte fifty feet high.

The west front has three D-shaped towers, named Curfew, Salisbury and Garter. Henry VIII rebuilt the gatehouse leading into the lower ward in 1510. The heavily restored Henry III and Edward III towers rising at the foot of the motte were built in the thirteenth century. Five Norman flanking towers also remain - the York, Augusta, Clarence, Chester and Prince of Wales towers. Mural towers were by no means a new invention, but Windsor's are spaced closely enough to methodically flank the curtain. These simple square towers may be compared with the round towers flanking Windsor's west front to appreciate the progress of fifty years.

The route towards the upper ward passes the Winchester Tower overlooking the river.

At the foot of the motte is the so-called Norman Gate which leads from the lower ward into the upper. This gatehouse has the veneer of newness characteristic of all the castle's defenses, but the vault of the gate passage, the porticullis and one of the twin flanking towers go back to Edward III's reign in 1359.

Tattershall Castle

Tattershall Castle posses one of the most splendid of later medieval tower houses. It has justly been described as the finest piece of medieval brickwork in England. Ralph, Lord Cromwell, erected this tower in the years 1434046. Rising over a hundred feet to the top of its corner turrets, with a view stretching from Lincoln Cathedral to Boston Stump, it dominates the surrounding fenland, all the more so because the rest of the castle has perished.

There had, in fact, been a castle here since 1231m when Robert de Tattershall obtained a license to crenellate. Weir moats enclose an inner bailey and a concentric platform, which is divided into two outer baileys. Unfortunately, the thirteenth century curtain has been totally destroyed though excavations have left on view the stone bases of two rounded flanking towers.

The corner turrets rise well above parapet level and are finished off with decorative brickwork emulating machicolations. Between the turrets on all four sides is a covered fighting gallery projecting outwards on genuine machicolations. The gallery has embrasures in its outer wall and there is an embattled parapet above. This elaborate crown gives Tattershall its unique dignity, but the present isolation of the tower is misleading. Originally, it was connected to the main residential buildings of the castle and that is why the angle turrets do not project at all on the bailey side. The tower basically formed a suite of apartments for Lord Cromwell's personal use so it was not a self-contained keep in the old sense.

There are five stories in the tower, including the vaulted basement, each level comprising one grand apartment with extra accommodation provided in the angle turrets. The first floor contained a hall. The second floor is conjectured to have been Lord Cromwell's audience chamber. Above that was the solar.

Sudeley Castle

Sudeley Castle stands in beautiful gardens to the south east of Winchcombe. A castle here was besieged during the Anarchy but the present structure is an amalgam of a late medieval castle and an Elizabethan mansion. Ralph Boteler, commander of the English fleet in Henry VI's reign, built it reputedly with the ransom of a captured French admiral. In 1458, Boteler received a pardon for crenellating Sudeley without a license, but he did not find favor with the ne Yorkist regime. He was compelled to sell the castle to Edward IV, who granted it to his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucestoer, later Richard III.

Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's widow, lived here as the wife of Thomas Seymour. She is buried in Boteler's chapel, which stands just outside the castle. In the 1570s, Lord Chandos rebuilt the outer courtyard as an up to date mansion, and the inner courtyard was slighted following the surrender of the castle to the Roundheads in 1644.

The castle's two quadrangles were not quite in alignment with each other. Ralph Boreler's outer quadrangle was probably a "base court' with lodgings for retainers, but the existing ranges around it date from the Elizabethan reconstruction. Only the gate passage is original.

His inner courtyard has fared better, though not much better because of slighting. The western corner towers, both square, survive along with the much restored curtain between them. The slender Portmare Tower is named after the French admiral. Dungeon Tower is considerably larger, its name suggesting that it served as a donjon or tower house.

The only other remnant is part of the east wall, which clearly belonged to a very fine building, often assumed to be the hall but more probably a suite of state apartments. Because this work is superior to the rest, it is believed to date from Richard of Gloucester's tenure.

Tiverton Castle

According to tradition, Richard de Redvers, Earl of Devon, first raised a castle here around 1106, but if so nothing remains of it. Hugh Courtenay built the present stronghold soon after 1300, and the quadrangular plan is very typical of that era but would be unlikely in a Norman castle.

We may compare Hugh's reconstruction of Okehampton Castle, where his work was conditioned by the old motte and bailey layout. Tiverton's quadrangle was surrounded by a curtain wall, which remains on three sides. There were towers at the corners but only the two southern ones remain. The southeast tower is circular and rather picturesque with its later conical roof; the larger southwest tower is square and ruinous.

Windows piercing the curtain between them, some retaining their tracery, show that important buildings stood here, the largest marking the site of the chapel. These windows and the relatively slight projection of the angle towers show that the castle, though a product of the Edwardian age, was not too serious a fortress. The gatehouse in the middle of the east front exemplifies this. Though undeniably strong, it eschews Edwardian defensive principles, being a simple tower with one floor over the vaulted gate passage. The part, which projects in front of the curtain, is a slightly later extension.

Hugh Courtenay became Earl of Devon and Tiverton was the favorite seat of subsequent earls until their attainder in 1539. On the Courtenays' reinstatement, the castle was not restored to them but passed instead to the Giffards. They abandoned the old residential buildings on the south and west and built an Elizabethan house in the northeast corner of the courtyard, backing onto the old curtain. This house still exists in a much-modified form. Afterwards, the west side of the castle was torn down but the rest was left intact out of courtesy to the occupants.

Thornbury Castle

The Thornbury Castle has been described as the last genuine castle, or rather private house with defensive features, ever raised in England. This is probably true if we ignore Scottish border territory. It is testimony to the ambition of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who began building here in 1511. Ten years later, Henry VIII had him executed on a charge of treason. It was alleged that the duke had raised a private army in the Welsh Marches, in defiance of the Tudor laws against such practices, and Thornbury Castle may have been another factor weighing against him.

The castle follows the standard quadrangular layout of later medieval times, and is provided with an outer courtyard large enough to house a sizeable body of retainers. So here, as elsewhere, the hired levies were kept away from the duke and his personal household, though whether this arrangement reflects mistrust or the social hierarchy is a moot point.

Two long ranges of retainers' lodgings back onto the outer curtain. This curtain has three square flanking towers, the angle tower is set diagonally, several intermediate turrets and a liberal supply of gun ports and arrow slits. The main entrance, flanked by semi-octagonal turrets to front and rear, was furnished with a portcullis in traditional fashion. The south wall of the outer courtyard was never built and on the east lies the inner quadrangle.

Clearly, the west façade of the inner curtain was intended to look uncompromisingly defensive, with massive octagonal towers at each end and a twin-towered gatehouse in between. However, this front appears woefully squat because it was left in 1521 at less than half its intended height. The north range, with square flanking towers, is similarly truncated and the east range, which would have contained the hall, was never even begun.

Tintagel Castle

The legend of King Arthur has made Tintagel a hallowed place. Geoffrey of Monmouth, writing about the time when the castle was in fact founded, chose it as the setting for Arthur's conception. That is his only link with Tintagel, but it has lasted in the popular imagination. The beauty of the site is no doubt the reason why. This rocky, sea-battered headland is an unusual setting for a medieval castle but a very likely one in which to find an ancient hill fort. It comes as a surprise to discover that no evidence has been found of any fortification before the Norman period. Instead. The headland first became the retreat of Dark Age monks who were drawn to such inaccessible spots. The foundations of several groups of monastic buildings are scattered across the summit of the headland and its eastern slope.

The Tintagel headland is nearly an island, but is connected to the mainland by a narrow neck of rock. The castle occupies the junction of the two and has a bailey on either side of the isthmus. Originally a bridge connected the narrow chasm between them, but over the centuries the causeway has eroded and the castle is now divided into two distinct halves, connected by precipitous stairways. Today the castle is very ruinous. Simple curtains protect both baileys, at least on those sides where the natural defense is merely a steep fall as opposed to a sheer drop.

There is no keep. The shattered gate tower leading into the outer bailey is preceded by a narrow passage. This is overlooked by an elongated walled enclosure on an outcrop of rock so that attackers could have been showered with arrows from above. In the inner bailey on the headland are the ruins of a fourteenth-century hall within the footings of a Norman predecessor.

Wigmore Castle

According to the Domesday Book, this was one of the strongholds founded by William Fitz Osbern, Earl of Hereford. Soon after the castle was granted to Ralph de Mortimer. Henry II captured the castle from Hugh de Mortimer in 1155, and it was here that Prince Edward obtained refuge following his escape from Hereford Castle in 1265.

The most notorious of the line was Roger Mortimer, first Earl of March, who played a leading part in the deposition and murder of Edward II. In concert with his lover, Queen Isabella, Mortimer ruled England for three years until being overthrown by the young Edward III. He died on the gallows at Tyburn and Wigmore was given to the Earl of Salisbury, but the Mortimers regained their lands and title by marriage. They served with distinction during the Hundred Years War, but in 1425, the Mortimer line died out and the castle more or less died with them.

The castle is in a very precarious condition nowadays, its walls overgrown or buried in debris, and threatening to crumble further unless essential work is carried out. If the remains were to be excavated and consolidated, Wigmore would be a castle of considerable interest, but at present there is just an atmosphere of desolation. It is a powerfully sited, motte and bailey stronghold with a lot of masonry still standing. The oval shell keep on the large motte incorporates Norman portions, but all the other stonework belongs to a reconstruction of about 1300, probably undertaken by the infamous Roger Mortimer. There are three towers on the line of the bailey curtain, two oblong and one half round. The largest tower contained a suite of chambers and is divided by a cross wall. Note the arch of the gatehouse, half buried in an accumulation of earth.