authority for the statement that Stephen of Penchester made the purchase from one Osbert, apparently a Columbers. At what date this occurred is not stated. When we come, however, to the eighth year of Edward I. (1281), which cannot have been long afterwards, we are on firm ground, for on May 25 iu that year Stephen of Penchester and Margaret his wife obtained licence in due form to fortify and embattle their mansion-house at Allington.*  We may assume the work to have been begun at once and to have been finished within a very few years, for castles had to be built complete for immediate use and did not drag along in the building like places of worship. Margaret was the daughter of John de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and widow of Robert de Orreby. She was Penchester’s second wife, and I am inclined to think that the purchase of Allington was in some way connected with this second marriage, the date of which I cannot discover. At all events the mention of the wife’s name in the licence to crenellate, and the fact that on Penchester’s death in 1299 Allington remained the property of Margaret during her life, and did

not go to the children of the first wife till Margaret died, seem to imply that the property was in reality hers.
   An examination of the existing remains shews that the new work was probably done in the following order.† (Plan No.3) The gate-house was raised and embattled, and so were the outer walls of the two wings (west and north) of the Avelina house. The north and east wings of the castle were built, from the gate-house round to the remains of the destroyed Columbers keep on the south side, with a tower at the north-east corner. The outer walls along the east and south-east sides were heavily-buttressed in a manner which may have been suggested by the destroyed Columbers keep. The work included considerable ranges of buildings. A banqueting hail and fine rooms behind it to the north, and to the south of it a room which was divided, I suppose, into
   * "Quod Stephen de Penchester et Margaretta ux. ejus possint Kernellare domum suam in com. Kane." (Pat. Rolls. See Cal., p. 437.)
   † See the parts coloured blue in the "Historical Plan."