A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



disappeared upon the south side of the enclosure, but on the west there 

 is a long and deep ditch running in a straight line in a south-westerly 

 direction from near the mount. Further west there are remains of 

 other moats and terraces, and traces of fortifications are to be seen almost 

 as far as the water-mill beside the road below ; there are also arti- 

 ficial terraces in the field to the east of the rectangular court. Alto- 

 gether, the works accompanying the mount appear to have been very 

 extensive ; but they have become so worn, and also been apparently so 

 much altered by man in former years, that their original plan is not 

 now easily discernible. Dugdale, two hundred and fifty years ago, speaks 

 of ' vestigia ' of the castle only being visible in his day. There are no 

 traces of ancient masonry either upon the mount or the ramparts ; their 

 palisades were evidently therefore of wood, which has long since dis- 

 appeared. A few old bricks upon the top of the mount are the relics of 

 a monument erected there by one of the Bridgemans in the last century. 



This mount has often been described as a sepulchral tumulus, and 

 the earthworks adjoining it as Roman ; of course either might have 

 been made use of by later designers of the existing mount and court fort, 

 but excavation would be necessary to substantiate the assertion. As at 

 Brinklow and at Seckington, no mediaeval structure of masonry was ever 

 erected on the site of the stockaded fortress of the Norman Lords ' del 

 Chastel de Bromwyz.' l 



CHESTERTON (4 miles south-east of Leamington). One and a 

 third miles north-west of the church in this parish, and on the line of 

 the ancient Fosse Way, which cuts through it, is a worn entrenchment 

 known locally as the Roman Camp. 



These earthworks are in a little valley formed by the course of the 

 Chesterton brook, on the right bank of which they are situated ; the 

 spot is sheltered by low encircling hills. In shape the camp is roughly 

 oblong, with an interior area of about 8 acres ; it lies almost north-west 

 by south-east ; the corners at the east and south are slightly rounded 

 rectangles, while those at the north and west are acute and obtuse angles 

 respectively, owing to the north-east rampart being longer than that to 

 the t south-west. This irregularity in construction is presumably caused 

 by the formation of the ground ; the makers of the camp appear to 

 have chosen the slight elevation in the course of the Fosse Way across 

 the valley as an advantageous position for their purpose, but the brook 

 running close by has obliged them to cut away a portion of the oblong 

 upon the west side. The entrenchments now consist only of wide and 

 imposing looking ditches ; and even these are more or less obliterated 

 in parts, notably at the west corner and along the south-east side ; in 

 some places the ditches measure as much as 140 feet across the top, and 

 are only from 9 to 1 2 feet deep, but there is no doubt that their appearance 

 has been materially altered by the levelling action of the plough, which 

 has steadily widened them at the top and at the same time filled them 



' Dugdale's Warm, p. 620 ; Chattock's Antiquities (1884), pp. 205, 287-9 5 Burgess in B'ham. 

 and Mid. Inst. Arch. Trent. (1872), p. 88, and in Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. (1873), pp. 39-42. 



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