ANTIQUITIES. 
of this had been originally as steep 
and precipitous as it still remains to 
the west and east. But the steep- 
ness was mitigated, and the precipices 
were smoothed, by cutting down the 
banks, and spreading their soil into 
a slope. A bank occurred here very 
tall and big. ‘The man went incauti- 
ously to work: it rushed down up- 
on him before he was aware, and 
buried him as he was found, in twelve 
feet depth of earth. This was the 
line of the castle towards the water. 
Here, and within the western wall 
of the coal-yard, I suppose, ranged 
the west front of the castle. This is all 
gone, and immemorially too. But, 
opposite to the present gate of the 
parsonage, and néar the village well, 
are, and have been, some remains. 
A beam of the castle, black with 
age, and chisclied for inserting the 
ends of joists into it, was found in 
‘the gutter west of the well, five or 
six years ago, and is now applied to 
keep up the failing road immediately 
aboye. About the same time, and 
in the same gutter, the wall of the 
castle was discovered in its founda- 
tions. It was first dug up opposite 
to the well. It then came up to a 
point of the bank, ‘in which I shail 
soon shew seme remains of the more 
southerly of the two northern walls. 
It went on to a wall, that I shall 
equally notice soon, as the more 
northerly of the two. It was thus 
traced for four or five years; and, 
in the interval between the two walls, 
was Jaid open an arch of stone, up- 
on which the wall was supported, 
and by which a spring of water was 
discharged from the castle into the 
lane. The well itself, was the ori- 
ginal well of the castle, but it was 
not exactly where it now is, A 
yard or two from it, appears an arch 
in the wall of an adjoining house, 
d 
863 
which has been closed up, and is al- 
most buried in the growing soil.— 
This was a well, in which a boy 
was drowned about seventy years 
ago. It was, therefore, walled up 
across the mouth, and another made 
in a more open and less dangerous 
form near it. A few yards to the 
right and south of this well, was, no 
doubt, the gate-way, into the court 
of the castle. It was not at the 
well, because a fragment of the wall 
that remains there, shews no signs 
of an arch springing from it ;_ this it 
must have done, if the arch of the 
gateway had sprung from it. And 
the gate-way probably stood about 
the middle of the court, on the scite 
of the house belonging to the coal- 
yard, and opposite to the present 
opening in the area of the castle.— 
The fragment of wall mentioned 
above, spans across the arch of the 
well above the mouth, and forms 
more than half the side of a small 
house, as the well goes direéily un- 
der the honse. The eastern half of 
this wall has been thrown down, and 
then repaired with its own materials. 
The top has been also repaired in 
the same manner, and had a window 
inserted in it. But the western end 
witnesses sufficiently its antiquity by 
its aspect. It rises up, like some 
of the walls within the parsonage, 
contracting its breadth as it ascends. 
And it appears again in its founda- 
tion, at the bank before it. This, 
therefore, is the Gnly relique of that 
range of rooms which formed the 
northern side of the court; as abont 
ten or eleven feet north of it, is 
another wall, very entire, and the 
back wall of these rooms. ‘he 
small house, which has the well un- 
der it, is thrust in between this wall, 
and that represents, therefore, the 
rooms that were formerly inclosed 
between 
