fairly level, and including a productive soil layer (W 101), had accumulated against the curtain, which, on falling, had carried some of its chalk-bed with it,^40a and leaving the tail of it under the strata. Then, clearly after some interval, but not long enough to damage the rendering, the bulk of the platform was piled up as a low mound with sloping sides, thus creating the channel or gulley between it and the curtain. A thin clay-capping visible in κ [k], λ [l], and β [b], west, was added shortly before the demolition of the Old Tower, and the solid yellow-brown capping after the building of the Hall, marking the transition from Phase X to Phase Y.
   The Old Tower: external Conditions. The base of section ϕ [f] showed that the inner face of the Tower was also founded on a bed of chalk, but that the outer face did not reach the same depth, and was apparently trench-built down to a possibly natural bed, above which was an accumulation topped by humus and almost certainly equivalent to the level basal strata in β [b] and λ [l]. Only above this is it well-rendered, having been buried, almost to its top in the 'second mounding', which comprises a variable accumulation of clay, gravel and brick-earth, topped by the clay capping noticed in κ [k], λ [l] and β [b], and, over that, another flint and gravel surface, all within the lifetime of the Tower. It appears, then, that the Tower was founded after the fairly level strata had begun to accumulate against the curtain (probably a short enough time to treat them as consecutive), that a humus layer (W 101) accumulated against both, and, after a moderate interval, the second mounding buried the whole external face of the tower but left the channel round the curtain. All wares associated with these phases of building and mounding are treated as 'W', and show no perceptible development. The first presumption, that the Old Tower, on a very low motte, preceded the curtain was disproved.
   Interior Conditions of the Old Tower and its Yard. That the Tower was not completely embedded in the second mounding was evident from the attached walls under the solar undercroft (bb, dd) and from the fact that all was demolished except the south wall, protected by the mound. In fact, it had a yard which formed the emplacement of the Hall and provided its deep undercrofts, and the platform, though extensive on the south, was reduced on the other sides to a mere inner ring round this yard. Neither Tower nor yard can be fully recovered in plan, but some indications are given by the section of β [b] immediately west of the Hall, by the section of δ [d] at the north end of the solar undercroft, by the distribution of rubble under the footings of the hall and by a point of depression in section a just east of the
   ^40a  Fig. 4 here shows the saltire (greensand) symbol; it should be crosses (chalk), and W101 on section λ [l] should be taken as the horizontal layer included below, not level with, the marking.