Department Of Archaeology

The Department of Archaeology is a Grade II* listed house that incorporates part of the North Gate of the castle. It is a 17th-century building with early 19th-century alterations. The structure features coursed squared sandstone and incised stucco with painted ashlar dressings, topped by a Welsh slate roof. It stands three storeys high with two wide bays and a narrow third bay that is two storeys tall. The left side of the second bay has a renewed double door set in a deep reveal, while the right end bay contains an early 19th-century nine-panel double door with a patterned overlight, situated in a deep panelled reveal with corner paterae. The building has sash windows with glazing bars, three of which on the ground floor have been renewed. There is a projecting stone sill for the window in the right bay, a sill band on the second floor, and a wide first-floor band that may have been altered to serve as a shop fascia. The roof is steeply pitched.

Inside, fragments of the barbican of the North Gate can be observed in several basement cupboards and rooms, including three and four chamfered courses of plinth and several courses of masonry. The interior also features a 17th-century closed-string open-well staircase that spans four floors, complete with a wide moulded handrail on graduated barley-sugar twist balusters and square panelled newels, with the handrail moulding continuing with the newel caps. There is a secondary staircase of early 19th-century design in the right end bay. The building is graded for its association with the North Gate and for its staircase.