Page "Kenilworth Castle" Paragraph 5

To the south-east of the main castle lie the Brays, a corruption of the French word braie, meaning an external fortification with palisades.

Only earthworks and fragments of masonry remain of what was an extensive 13th-century barbican structure including a stone wall and an external gatehouse guarding the main approach to the castle.

The area now forms part of the car park for the castle.

Beyond the Brays are the ruins of the Gallery Tower, a second gatehouse remodelled in the 15th century.

The Gallery Tower originally guarded the 152-metre ( 500-ft ) long, narrow walled-causeway that still runs from the Brays to the main castle.

This causeway was called the Tiltyard, as it was used for tilting, or jousting, in medieval times.

The Tiltyard causeway acted both as a dam and as part of the barbican defences.

To the east of the Tiltyard is a lower area of marshy ground, originally flooded and called the Lower Pool, and to the west an area once called the Great Mere.

The Great Mere is now drained and forms a meadow, but would originally have been a large lake covering around, dammed by the Tiltyard causeway.