The 12th-century stone keep is set out on the line of the south Roman wall and above the level of the first floor it is in ruins. The keep is of a curious shape and had two apsidal projections on the west, one on the north, and three on the east, one of which may have been a chapel.

 

 

The view here is of the keep, middle to right of photo, and the east Tower entrance can be seen to the left of the photo. The couple in the photo are standing on the well of the castle lined with stone to a depth of over 50 feet which has never been fully excavated.

 

Here would have been the domestic apartments of the castle situated within it's once great tower. Little survives today and only the bases can be seen, it's ruined twin rounded towers facing the gatehouse, silent sentinels on the grassy lawn. Most of what you can see in the photograph above was buried under a great mound of earth and rubble until earlier this century and the remains you can see still pose an architectural puzzle waiting to be resolved.

 

A closer view of the right base of the tower shows the dressed exterior stone and the interior fill of mortar and flint rubble. It is the solid construction that has enabled the remains to last as long as they have.

The design of the keep is unusual among Medieval castle keeps and as there are no similar buildings giving a better example, it is difficult to imagine the layout of this structure and how it would have looked to the human eye.

 

Documents refer to a 'tower' or keep at Pevensey as early as 1130, was this the remains we now see or did this refer to the gatehouse or indeed one of the other towers that surround the inner bailey? The keep was radically altered in about 1325, when the Medieval eastern tower along with a section of Roman wall was replaced by two new towers. At the same time, a skin of Medieval masonary was built along the remaining length of the keep's Roman east wall. Other alterations were carried out over time and is has been suggested that these were due to major structural failure as the result of seige damage and had to be shored up in some fashion.

 

The base of the keep from the east still holds strong against the elements. On the top centre of the photograph you can make out the World War II gun enplacement with its long slit staring out over the surrounding countryside.

 

 

 

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