A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



TowcESTER Bury 

 Mount. 



TowcESTER Bury Mount. — This work, is situated in the town of 

 Tovvcester on ground some 280 feet above sea level and surrounded by 

 slightly higher land, but the summit of the mound has a fair command of 

 the south-west. The position is naturally defended on the north-east by the 

 river Tove and its mill leat. The entrenchments are in a very poor state of 

 preservation, but appear to have consisted of a small mound 

 surrounded by a water ditch, except on the north-east, where 

 the stream a short distance off was considered sufficient 

 protection ; entrenchments appear to have surrounded the 

 town at one time. Now the mound is 22 feet high above 

 the bed of the inlets which supplied the water to the moat, 

 and has a cottage of some age standing on its south-east 

 side, the slope and summit being cultivated as a garden 

 except on the north-east, where the side has been scarped 

 perpendicularly either by mischance or design ; fir trees 

 also surround the summit ; of the ditch round which the 

 river washed there is no trace on the south-west, and but little anywhere else. 

 As the mound has been made mostly of gravel it appears to have formed a 

 handy gravel pit at some date or other, hence, perhaps, the dilapidated state 

 of the north-east side. The base of the mound is small compared with such 

 mounds as Clifford Hill near Northampton and others. 



WoLLASTON Castle (8 J miles S. by E. of Kettering). This appears 

 to be a mote castle mound of the Norman period. It stands upon 

 ground some 280 feet above sea level, and 130 feet above a stream which 

 runs north half a mile to the west. The mound, which is 

 neither large compared with such castle mounds as that of 

 Clifford Hill in the same county, nor as small as some others, is 

 formed out of a slight natural knoll, and, as will be seen by the 

 section on the accompanying plan, is 20 feet above the ground 

 immediately on the west, and only 1 3 feet above that on the 

 east. Hence a ditch was cut on the east and south sides as 

 a defence against the rather higher land at these points. There 

 appear to be no local traditions as to the date or object of 

 the mound. One person in the village called it the Mill Hill, 

 the 25-in. Ordnance Survey names it Beacon Hill ; it may have been used 

 for both purposes. At the present time it is planted as a fruit garden ; but 

 the position of the mound in the village, and the fact that it is close to the 

 church suggests that we have here the base of a castle keep. The summit 

 is level and measures 72 feet from east to west. There are no visible remains 

 of stonework nor of a court. A series of ponds are formed on the hillside a 

 few hundred yards to the north-west, but have no connexion with this mound. 



C\;«/-c*>- 



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wollastcn 

 Castle. 



CASTLE MOUNTS WITH ATTACHED COURTS 



[Class E] 



Long Buckby Castle (41 miles N.E. of Daventry). — This is a mote 

 castle of unusual form, consisting of a ramparted keep and an outer enclosure. 

 It stands in the village close to and south of the vicarage, within the grounds 

 of which the north-west portion lies, and 200 yards south-west of the 



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