The view from the summit of the Round Tower is beyond description
magnificent, and commands twelve counties--namely, Middlesex,
Essex, Hertford, Berks, Bucks, Oxford, Wilts, Hants, Surrey, Sussex,
Kent, and Bedford; while on a clear day the dome of Saint Paul's may be
distinguished from it. This tower was raised thirty-three feet by Sir
Jeffry Wyatville, crowned with a machicolated battlement, and
surmounted with a flag-tower.
The circumference of the castle is 4180 feet; the length from east to
west, 1480 feet; and the area, exclusive of the terraces, about twelve
acres.
For the present the works are suspended. But it is to be hoped that the
design of Sir Jeffry Wyatville will be fully carried out in the lower ward,
by the removal of such houses on the north as would lay Saint George's
Chapel open to view from this side; by the demolition of the old
incongruous buildings lying westward of the bastion near the Hundred
Steps, by the opening out of the pointed roof of the library; the repair
and reconstruction in their original style of the Curfew, the Garter, and
the Salisbury Towers; and the erection of a lower terrace extending
outside the castle, from the bastion above mentioned to the point of
termination of the improvements, and accessible from the town; the
construction of which terrace would necessitate the removal of the
disfiguring and encroaching houses on the east side of Thames Street.
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