peverel's castle in the peak. 135 



2. In the Archaological Journal for 1848 we find an 

 historical and archaeological notice of the Castle, with plans 

 and sketches, by Mr. C. E. Hartshorne. 



3. In our own Journal for 1889 there is to be found an 

 interesting paper read by Mr. St. John Hope before the Derby- 

 shire Archaeological Society. 



4. In his excellent book, The Evoltdion df the English House, 

 Mr. Addy gives us a clear dissection of the anatomy of the 

 Peak Castle, which he rightly selects as a fine type of the 

 Norman fortress of the twelfth century. 



5. I have had the good fortune to discover, amongst 

 Ashmole's Church Notes, preserved in Bodley's Library at 

 Oxford, an old pen-and-ink sketch of the Castle and its environs 

 as it appeared about 1662. This drawing has been photo- 

 graphed for me by the Clarendon Press, and a reduced copy 

 of it illustrates this article as a frontispiece. 



Dr. Pegge's monograph on Bolsover and Peak Castles 

 contains nothing that is interesting, nothing that is new, with 

 regard to the Peak. Glover, in his History df Derbyshire, 

 devotes nearly five pages to the Peak Castle, most of which 

 are taken up with the family history of the Peverels; the rest 

 is a compilation from Mr. King's article and other sources. 



The almost inaccessible and easily defended rock on which 

 the Castle is built must from remote times have offered itself 

 as a place of refuge, so we may fairly conjecture that some 

 kind of stronghold was erected thereon during the Saxon period, 

 or even earlier. Possibly on its summit was built one of that 

 chain of fortified camps which Edward the Elder erected across 

 Derbyshire to check the inroads of the Danes. 



When William Peverel at the time of the Norman Conquest 

 obtained possession of the Honour of the High Peak, he 

 grasped at once the advantages of the position, upon which 

 he erected the ancient stronghold, which is described in 

 Domesday Book (completed in 1086) as the castle of William 

 Peverel in Pechefers. When, by the forfeiture of the Peverel 

 estates, the Castle fell into the hands of the Crown, its royal 



