the first Saxon monarch over this part of the kingdom,
in the year 575; but it appears, notwithstanding, from undoubted
authority, that Grecca, the father of Uffa, was the first sovereign of
East Anglia.

The monarchy, therefore, was probably established between the years 530
and 540, and the castle erected about the same period. In the year 642
it is said to have been a fortified royal seat of Anna, the seventh king
of the East Anglian line.

From this time till the reign of Alfred, we find little or no mention of
the Castle: but during the incursions of the Danes, it was frequently
possessed by them and the Saxons alternately; and it appears, that king
Alfred in his time, finding the walls and ramparts of Norwich Castle
insufficient to repel the attack of the Danes, caused others to be
erected with the most durable materials.

Norwich Castle was evidently a military station in Alfred's time, as
appears also by the coin struck here, about the year 872, before noticed;
but in the reign of Etheldred the II. it is described to have been
utterly destroyed by an army under Sweyne, king of Denmark, about the
year 1004. In 1010 the Danes again settled in and fortified Norwich, and
the Castle appears to have been rebuilt by Canute, about the year 1018;
to have been first used as a prison in the early part of the 14th
century, and from this period, its history merges into that of the city.

Mr. Wilkins says, Norwich castle is the best exterior of this kind of
architecture extant. The area of the ancient castle, including its outer
works, contained about 23 acres, the whole of which was surrounded by a
wall; the principal entrance was by Bar, now Ber-street, through
Golden-Ball-lane, by the Barbican Gate, which was flanked by two towers,
and connected with the external vallum, by a wall; the extent of the
outermost ditch reached on the west part to the edge of the present
Market Pace, on the north to London-lane, which it included; and on the
east almost to King-street; the southern part reached to the
Golden-Ball-lane, where the grand gate stood.

According to Mr. Wilkins, the entrance into the Barbican was at the south
end of Golden-Ball-Lane, and not at the north, as Blomfield has it; over
each foss in this direction was a bridge, but only one of them remains;
this extends across the inner ditch, and according to Mr. Wilkins, is
formed of "the largest and most perfect arch of Saxon workmanship in the
kingdom." This b