A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



The extant remains of the castle consist primarily of a flat topped 

 oval artificial mound surrounded by a ditch, covering altogether an area 

 of about 2 acres ; a raised bank of earth crossing the ditch to the south- 

 west connects this moated ' keep ' with its accompanying courtyard. 

 At 250 feet distance beyond this entrance another ditch runs across the 

 flat top of the hill from north-west to south-east ; this appears to have 

 formed a division between two courtyards, an outer and an inner one. 

 The defences which formerly encircled these courts are now barely 

 traceable, for the earthern ramparts have in the course of ages gradually 

 been demolished and the ditches become filled ; indeed, so far back as 



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BEAUDESERT 



SCALE or FEET 

 100 ZOO 



250 years ago Dugdale wrote : ' The Trenches themselves, notwith- 

 standing their great Depth and Widenesse, are so filled up, as that the 

 Plough hath Sundry Times made Furrows in every part of them to the 

 Great Advantage of the industrious Husbandman whose Pains through 

 the Ranknesse of the Soil hath been richly rewarded with many a plentifull 

 Crop.' There are now no signs of stonework to be seen, though Dug- 

 dale's words that ' there is not only any one Stone visibly left upon another' 

 would seem to imply that in his day there were some remnants of masonry 

 extant upon the mount. 1 The limits of the present article do not admit 



i Dugdale's Wane., pp. 559-65 ; Burgess in Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. (1873), p. 41 ; Turner'sS^/. 

 Land, p. 191 j Timmins's Wane. p. 235 ; Hannett's forest of Arden (1863) p. 158. 



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