Some Early Norman Castles page 2

The "Juliet," like the square keep, is again an importation from France, where it makes its first appearance at Chateau-sur-Epte in 1097, and attains its grandest stature in the peerless tower at Coucy (which dated from about 1200, and was some 200 feet high), destroyed by Germans in the War. The first hint of its presence in England is apparently at Orford (? 1166-72); but this, though circular internally, is a polygon outside. The next in date, perhaps, is the superb cylinder at Conisborough, which was probably built by Hamelin Plantagenet prior to 1200. This is a perfect circle, about eighty feet high; but its new defensive properties must have been very sadly handicapped by the six huge projecting buttresses that surround it from top to toe. This last weakness is eliminated in the grand circular keep at Pembroke (c. 1200), rising sheer and unsupported to a height of seventy-five feet.

South Wales, in fact, is the region where the "Juliet" most abounds; and small examples occur at Tretower-oddly raised within the enclosure of an unfinished, or abandoned, rectangular keep - Bronllys, Morlaix, Penrice and Tenby.