ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



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Earls Barton Casile. 



The subsoil is stone. There is no visible masonry, and probably none 

 ever existed. Barrow Hill, i mile east, and on higher ground by 47 feet, has 

 a mound generally regarded as a tumulus or barrow; but Lilbourne Castle has 

 also a mound half a mile distant, and upon higher ground apparently a defensive 

 work rather than a burial mound; hence this on Barrow Hill may also be 

 such. The contiguity of the castle to the church should be noted ; it is a 

 very common occurrence, as will be seen at Sulgrave, Peterborough, Earls 

 Barton, Towcester, Wollaston, etc. Welsh Road, which is an ancient 

 way or cattle drove, apparently runs through Culworth from north-west to 

 south-east. 



Earls Barton Castle (6i miles E.N.E. of Northampton). — This 

 small mound is that apparently of a mote castle. It is not now in a 

 perfect condition, having been peeled on the south 

 side either to make room for the building of the 

 church tower, or for some other purpose. It is 

 formed on a natural spur of land jutting out south 

 from a hilly range some 320 feet above sea-level and 

 170 feet above the river Nene. As at Wollaston Castle 

 mound (3 J miles east by south), a ditch remains 

 on the side weakest by nature — namely, here on the north — and the ballast has 

 been thrown on to the spur so as to raise it 9 feet above the level land (in its 

 present state), and thus now forms a mound protected on the south by the 

 fall of the hill, which is of some though of no great steepness, and on the 

 north by the ditch. There are no visible remains of either stonework or 

 further entrenchments, but the ground on the north of and immediately 

 outside the ditch is level, so that a courtyard might easily have existed on 

 that side bounded with entrenchments, stone wall, or stockade, now destroyed. 

 Little Houghton: Clifford Hill (3 miles E. of Northampton). — 

 This is a castle mound, one of several that command the valley of the river 



Nene, Earls Barton and Wollaston 

 being on the east, and Northampton 

 once existing on the west ; the two 

 former are small mounds, the latter 

 may have been important, but has been 

 levelled for some years. As a castle 

 mound Clifford Hill is of large circum- 

 ference, and compares well with such 

 Clifford Hill. important mounds as Thetford in Nor- 



folk, and Pleshey and Ongar, in Essex, 

 etc., and in height (53 feet above the ditch in the lowest part) it is also great. 

 It is formed out of the west end of a gravel bank which continues east for some 

 little distance, above which it rises 35 feet, this addition being obtained by the 

 ballast from the ditch which surrounds it. The summit is level, and measures 

 84 feet east to west and 58 feet north to south. The ditch may once have 

 been deep enough to contain water obtained from the river Nene at flood 

 times ; there is the appearance of a former cutting on the north-west which 

 corresponds to the mill race. The level on the south-east, and slight outer 

 rampart, artificial on the south and east, but natural on the north and north- 

 west, should be noted. 



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