Caerphilly Castle, Glamorgan, 327 The tcte-du-po7it^ in which the southern curtain terminates, has suffered considerably. The curvilinear wall between the towers is levelled to a breastwork, and the side of the portal towards the lake has been blown quite away, as has been also the entrance and part of the floor of the neighbouring D-shaped tower. The northern limb of the bifurcated wall, proceeding from the postern, has been blown out of the perpendicular ; and, although there is no great danger of its fall, the loose stones adjoining its fissure are a source of danger to the antiquary who may attempt to scale it. Cottages are clustered against the outside of this wall, and its re-entering angle is occupied by a pigstye. South of the castle, west of the tete-du-ponf, the land on the back of the lake is partly in tillage, and partly occupied by cottages ; on the north, to the west of the sally-port, the wall between the outer and second moat is reduced to a line of foundation. The peculiar thickness of this wall, where it has served the purpose of a dam, is well seen. The outer moat has, in this direction, been encroached upon by the Nant-Garw road, which tops its counter- scarp for about loo yards. The mill is levelled to the ground. A dry watercourse, and the tunnel enlarged into a breach, still mark the ancient exit of its waters. The drainage of the lake was, of course, fatal to the mill. The modern miller of Caerphilly has removed to the outside of the great southern breach, where he takes advantage of the Nant-y-Gledyr. The horn-work covering the western entrance remains in excel- lent preservation, and its revetment, except where in part quarried, is nearly as sound as ever, although its gatehouse and western pier, if ever they existed, have been destroyed. They were probably of timber. The moat, to the west of the horn-work, being still in wet weather the channel of a rivulet, is overgrown with reeds and aquatic plants ; to the east or castle side it is swampy in wet weather ; and on the south is the bed of the ancient inundation, now a plain of sward, across which a path leads to a spring. Along the exterior line of defence to the north-west, the redoubt, fosses, and adjacent earthworks are obscured by young trees and brushwood, by the effects of tillage, and by the buildings of the castle farm. Entering the castle by the east water gate, the wall parallel to the curtain which formed the back of the northern or stable gallery is seen on the right, levelled nearly with the soil, and, consequently, all regular access to the buttress chambers is thus cut off. The counterscarp of the inner moat is in ruins, choaking up the moat. All vestiges of the eastern drawbridge between the grand front and the middle ward have disappeared. The flanking towers of the eastern gatehouse of the middle ward are destroyed, that on the south completely, and that on the north very nearly so, the ruins of the singular building attached to it having prevented its entire destruction. At the opposite or western extremity of this ward, the gatehouse
