A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



inside of this ditch, except where there was a gap just north-east of the 

 west corner ; there is a small pool of water in the angle of the ditch at 

 this point. 



These works, besides having been described as prehistoric and as 

 Roman, are sometimes said locally to have been thrown up by the 

 troops at Southam during the Civil War in the seventeenth century ; but 

 there is no known historical record of this, nor is there any proof of 

 the suggested much earlier origin. Their appearance at present rather 

 points to their being one of the ancient moated enclosures of which we 

 have so many examples in the county. 



LAPWORTH (8 miles north-west of Warwick). Within the manor 

 of Broom in the hamlet of Kingswood, and i miles east of the parish 

 church of Lapworth, are to be seen the scant remains of a once important 

 camp, known locally as Harborough Banks. This camp was situated 

 upon the slopes of a slight hollow, with higher ground on three of its 

 sides, the west, north, and east ; a little brook runs near its eastern side. 



Unfortunately these earthworks have suffered what amounts very 

 nearly to destruction at the hands of man. Their demolition was begun 

 as early as 1730, for we read of their banks being dug into for gravel 

 about that time. 1 But the main work of destruction took place as late 

 as 1862, soon after an Inclosure Act was obtained by local landowners. 

 The existing remains therefore are but fragmentary. They consist chiefly 

 of a rampart and fosse running in a north-westerly direction for a distance 

 of about 300 yards, beginning at an elbow in the lane leading from the 

 Lapworth and Warwick road to Broom Hall ; the fosse here is dry, but 

 it is probably traceable a little farther north in two short lengths which 

 are now filled with water. 



In a plan of the works, made about i86o, 2 the existing rampart is 

 represented as continuing for another 200 yards towards the north from 

 where it ends at present ; the plan also shows the same rampart as turning 

 off at a right angle at its southern extremity and running thence north- 

 north-east for a distance of about 300 yards ; here it apparently must have 

 turned again almost at a right angle, for after an interval another length 

 of rampart ran west-north-west for about 200 yards in a straight line 

 parallel to the Warwick and Lapworth road. If this rampart formerly 

 continued about 150 yards further in the same direction, and then 

 turned round to join the defences still traceable on the west side of the 

 enclosure, the interior area of the camp must have been at least as 

 much as 25 acres. Its shape would thus have been an irregular 

 oblong, but with the south-western and north-western sides joining 

 in a curve instead of in an angle. 3 



1 Dugdale's Warw. (ed. Thomas, 1730), p. 730. 



1 Hannett, Forest of Arden (1863), p. 12. 



Apparently the only relics of antiquity known to have been found here are the following, viz. 

 ' Something like the spout of an ewer,' unearthed when the banks were dug away for gravel prior to 

 1730, 'which when melted down proved to be metal very like what we call Prince's metal ' (Dug- 

 dale's Warw. [ed. Thomas, 1730], p. 730), and a cannon-ball and portions of a pistol dug up about 

 1850. 



384 



