Portchester Castle Portchester Castle came from because the "Saxon Shoreline" fort of Portus Adurni. It's the best maintained from the chain of Roman forts erected across the southeast coast within the late third century AD. The reason behind their construction continues to be debated. Defense against Germanic raiders may be the typically the likely explanation plus they were certainly used for your purpose within the following century. The fort survives such good shape because it had been in ongoing use following the Roman departure, first sheltering a Saxon burgh after which just as one outer bailey from the medieval castle. Henry I restored the fort's falling apart walls, built the current gate towers, known as Land Gate and Water Gate, and produced an oblong inner bailey within the northwest corner from the fort. It's defended through the Roman wall on two sides, and alternatively two with a stone curtain having a projecting gate tower. Another square tower is situated diagonally in the vulnerable southeast corner. Portchester is thus an earlier illustration of a castle employing flanking towers, possibly inspired through the Roman bastions. The interior curtain is overshadowed through the high square keep, that has displaced a few of the Roman wall in the northwest corner from the castle. It's the product of two phases, as proven through the pilaster buttresses which disappear two-thirds of how up Obviously, Henry I's keep composed 3 tales plus roof space. Its heightening to four tales is related towards the Manduits, who held the castle just before Henry II's seizure. The keep is split with a mix wall and joined using a forefront building, that is another inclusion of the 2nd phase. Initially, the doorway was in the beginning floor level, the floor floor entrance as being a later insertion.