ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 





LiLBouRNE Castle. 



castle mounds in this county, and about 22 feet in height above the ditch which 

 surrounds it on three sides ; it has no level space upon its summit as have 

 many such defensive works, and if this is 

 its original form it belongs to a distinct 

 class of mounds, of which Huntington, in 

 Herefordshire, is a very conical example. 

 The bailey or courtyard on the south-south- 

 east is a very minute enclosure, but pro- 

 tected by a powerful rampart and ditch ; 

 the south-east corner is so high that it has 

 the appearance of being a second mound. 

 The yard on the north-east, which is 

 smaller still than the bailey, is also strongly 

 entrenched, but not now in a good state 

 of preservation, and is an interesting fea- 

 ture, though not uncommon ; Hallaton, in 

 Leicestershire, some eighteen miles north- 

 east, has faint traces of two such extra 

 enclosures, while Old Basing, in Hampshire, has six enclosed spaces. 



The whole work is small but of some considerable strength. The water 

 from the river was evidently caused to wash round the mound and yards, 

 though now the ditches are for the most part silted up above the water level. 

 The outside rampart on the west and south is rather unusual, but the west 

 portion was evidently to bank up the water within the ditch, the south 

 portion perhaps to form an extra protection against the higher land on that 

 side. There are traces of slight entrenchments on the south-east, which 

 might indicate that a large space was enclosed on that side, but there appears 

 to be nothing definite now. A mound, locally called ' Hill Ground,' close 

 by on the south-west should be considered with this. 



Northampton. — The castle here, destroyed to form a railway station, 

 should probably be placed in this class.' 



Rockingham Castle. — This castle should probably be placed here, as 



there seems to have been both a mound 



and an attached bailey.^ 



Sibbertoft Castle Yard (3J miles 



S.W. of Market Harborough). — This 



is a 



court 



of a 



some 



mote castle of the mound and 

 type. It occupies and is formed 

 spur jutting out north-east from 

 high land about 500 feet above 

 sea level, with higher ground on the south, 

 lower on the north, and gullies on the 

 east and west, as will be seen by the plan. 

 The position is curious, but lends itself 

 readily to the form of this type of strong- 

 hold. It stands on private property, and 

 is planted with and hidden among trees 



1 A drawing by a French artist, made about a.d. 1650, shows that the mound of Northampton Castle 

 was circular and had appended to it a court partly semicircular but with one straight side. Add. MS. 

 1 1,564, B. M. 8 Eng. Hist. Rez: xix (1904), p. 428. 



411 



Sibbertoft Castle Yard. 



