followed a similar pattern elsewhere in England, building the Tower of London alongside the still-extant Roman city wall and constructing Colchester Castle on top of the ruins of the Temple of Claudius. Following William's victory at Hastings, the county of Sussex came to be seen by the new regime as being of essential military value. It was both a frontier zone and an essential link between England and Normandy. The existing tenurial arrangements in the county were swept away and replaced by five subdivisions, or rapes, each of which was given to one of William's most important followers. Each rape was associated with a major castle, Pevensey being one of them. In 1067 William left England for Normandy via Pevensey. He also appears to have used the site to distribute lands to his Norman followers, with Pevensey Castle and the surrounding Rape of Penvensey being gifted to his half-brother Robert, Count of Mortain. William's temporary fortification within the Roman walls was expanded to create a permanent Norman castle at Pevensey, probably during Robert's tenure sometime in the 1070s. The Roman walls were further repaired and two enclosures or baileys were created, divided by a ditch and a palisade constructed from timber. Robert also founded a small borough outside the Roman walls which was recorded as having 110 burgesses and a mint by the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086. This may have been the original site of the modern village of Pevensey, but it is equally possible that Robert's borough may have been the foundation site of the village of Westham to the west of the castle, whose layout has many similarities to that of other Norman new towns. The Norman castle's defences were put to the test for the first time in the Rebellion of 1088, when Norman barons allied with Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy rebelled against the new king William Rufus. The barons, who were also supported by William the Conqueror's half-brothers Robert of Mortain and Bishop Odo of Bayeux, defended Pevensey Castle against an army led personally by William Rufus. Although the castle's defences were strong enough to resist assaults from land and sea, its defenders were forced to surrender when they ran out of food after six weeks. Robert was allowed to keep the castle but his son William, Count of Mortain was stripped of it, along with his other English estates, after