ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



under the plough, and only to be discerned by a practised eye. The north 

 portion of the west side, also the north and east sides, are in a slightly better 

 state and not under the plough. The north boundary shows no rampart, but 

 a scarp only, probably natural, below which is the river Nene, with a stream 

 and low land between, the whole of this low land being apparently liable to 

 floods. As a space enclosed by earthworks it is one of moderate size ; as an 

 entrenched position it is not well chosen and is poorly defended, unless, 

 as is probable, in its original condition it was defended by a fairly high 

 rampart and a strong stone wall. As to the form of the enclosure, 

 which is one of unusual type, there seems to have been no special reason 

 from the nature of the ground for this angled parallelogram, unless the 

 scarps on the north and east existed before the stronghold and were made 

 use of; as will be seen by the sections they are not of any steepness. 

 Mareham Grange, near Sleaford in Lincolnshire, is the same shape, and 

 Y Pigwn, near Mynydd Trecastell in Brecknockshire, named on the Ordnance 

 Survey a ' Roman station,' should be compared with this. 



The cutting from the river Nene on the north bringing the water from 

 the river in a bend towards the enclosure may or may not have formed part 

 of the original defence ; it was perhaps a means of flooding the low marsh 

 land already referred to between the stronghold and the river, or to bring 

 boats near to the inhabitants, if it were at one time deeper. The one-inch 

 Ordnance Survey maps, 1891, use the word ' camp,' apparently indicating that 

 it is a Roman work, and place the word ' cemetery ' near a + a quarter of 

 a mile north-east. The one-inch Ordnance Survey (1835) shows it to be a 

 'Roman station' and marks an 'ancient way' running south by west for 2 J miles 

 to Wollaston ; otherwise no ' Roman ' roads are marked, and this ' ancient 

 way ' is omitted from the 1891 issue. Both issues show a mound at the south- 

 west corner, the earlier calling it a ' tumulus.' No mound, however, is now 

 there ; what existed was probably only a better preserved portion of the rampart. 



TowcESTER. — There are here in a field behind the police-station and in 

 some gardens to the south traces of ramparts, once forming an irregular 

 quadrilateral which may represent the Roman lines. ^ 



CASTLE MOUNTS 



(Class D) 



Alderton (3 miles E.S.E. of Towcester). — The entrenchments' here 

 consist first of a rouirh three-sided enclosure known locallv as The 

 Mount, and so named on the Ordnance Survey (1896), but entitled Barrow 

 on the Ordnance Survey (1834), and secondly a circular enclosure. The 



N '^iM^wtt",'"'" Mount stands on ground -340 feet 

 (Tf. ,j , - -i?#^V>>""'Kir-'-#4 /J above sea level, and 60 feet above 

 '^~ '^^-^ «;=^o./ the river Tove, which curves north- 



east half a mile north-north-west 

 on its way south. The entrench- 

 ments are not in a good state of 

 The Mount, Alderton. preservation, the inner fall of the 



1 V.C.H. Northants, i. 184. 



' If the roughly triangular and circular enclosures here are of different date and unconnected it is possible 

 that they should be placed in one of the other classes. 



403 



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