of the castle is split three ways; the barn is used as a party and wedding venue, the inner ward was owned for many years by the Rochester Bridge Wardens, and the house's current occupant is the musician Jools Holland. The castle and its setting was listed as a Scheduled monument in 1946, the Gatehouse and the Inner Ward were separately listed as Grade I in 1966, while the barn was Grade II listed in 1986. Cooling Castle is listed on English Heritage's "Heritage at Risk" register due to the very poor condition of its fabric. The castle can be viewed from the road, but sits on private property and is not open to the public. Description Cooling Castle has an unusual layout that was perhaps dictated by the marshy ground on which it was constructed. Most quadrangular castles were constructed on a single moated island within which was a system of inner wards or courtyards. Cooling Castle differed in that within its perimeter it had two wards of different sizes arranged side by side. Each stood on a mound within a figure of eight-shaped system of moats and ditches. The inner ward, in the western part of the castle, appears to have been surrounded by a moat that may have been up to wide. The larger outer ward, in the eastern part of the castle, was flanked on its western side by the moat, and a dry ditch up to deep flanked the other three sides of the ward. A causeway on the northern side separated the ditch from the moat. Wards The outer ward had a roughly rectangular shape measuring about 134 x 88 metres (440 x 290 ft). It was completely walled, with horseshoe-shaped towers on three corners, and was accessed via the outer gatehouse at its south-west corner. The corner towers are advanced about in front of the curtain wall and still stand to a height of . Parts of the curtain wall also remain. Much of the outer ward is now occupied by the 17th-century farmhouse and its outbuildings. The roughly square inner ward measures about 60 x 52 metres (196 x 170 feet). It stands on a higher mound that gave its occupants a view over the outer ward and the surrounding countryside. The ward was completely walled and completely independent of the outer ward. It could only be accessed through an inner gatehouse