143 
Further reference to the monuments once existing of the 
_ Huttons in old Penrith Church will be made in speaking of the 
Church. 
THE CASTLE. 
In speaking of Bishop Strickland’s benefactions, reference was 
made to the recorded facts, that he was a landowner at Penrith, 
and that he built a tower at the castle. I now suggest the proba- 
bility that he built his tower upon his own land, which Ralph 
Nevill afterwards acquired as a site for a castle, and allowed the 
bishop’s tower to remain as part of the castle. Hutchinson believes 
the site to have been a Roman fort, and says the ground on which 
the castle stands has the strongest marks of an ancient camp of 
_ square figure, an outward fosse and agger with an inward walled 
rampier, of which the distinct remains are now to be seen. Cam- 
den says, ‘“‘the castle was repaired out of the ruins of Maburg, a 
Roman fort hard by.” This is of course an error, so far as May- 
brongh is concerned. In the first place, Maybrough is in no sense 
“hard by”; and in the second, it never was a Roman fort, and did 
not afford blocks of building stone. Camden’s statement appears 
to confirm in a vague way Hutchinson’s surmise that the site had 
been a Roman fort ; and it is further strengthened by the fact that 
while the bulk of the stone used in the castle is the local red 
sandstone, a quantity of white stone, apparently from Blencow or 
Lamonby, is to be seen in the walls, especially about the south- 
east angle. Bishop Strickland’s tower was of white stone, and with 
other materials there is also much white stone debris in the concrete 
_ Of the interior of the walls, all appearing to indicate that the builders 
of the castle found this exceptional material on or near the site, 
ready to their hands; and that, in short, it was the material of the 
Roman fort. 
There is much doubt as to the share that Ralph Nevill, his son, 
and grandson (the two Richard Nevills), and his grandson Richard, 
Duke of Gloucester, had in building the castle. But by whomsoever 
_ it was built, it has no claim to such antiquity as generally pertains 
_ to feudal castles. It was never a family residential place, but 
