A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



the north of this courtyard again, and between it and the embattled 

 entrance gateway opening from the town, is a second and larger moat, 

 probably enclosing an area of 5 acres ; this outer bailey became 'the 

 vineyard ' of mediaeval times, lying without the castle walls. Portions of 

 the defensive ramparts still remain, though they have been modified in 

 course of ages by subsequent works. 



Beyond the limits of this moated mount and court fortress, still further 

 banks of earth are to be seen towards the north-west ; they seem to have 

 had no connection with the original works, but were in all probability 

 raised by the assailants of the castle during the Civil War in the seven 

 teenth century. 



Various writers have called the whole of the earthworks here either 

 ancient British or Roman, but without sufficient reason in either case. 1 

 The rectangular form of the inner courtyard has suggested the idea that 

 it might originally have been a Roman camp, utilized by the makers of 

 the mount and court fortress, but excavation could alone throw light 

 upon the matter. The name by which the great conical mound has 

 long been known locally is ' Ethelflasda's Dungeon ' or ' Castle ' ; accord- 

 ing to tradition it is the actual fort which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 

 records was erected by the famous ' Lady of the Mercians ' at Warwick 

 ' late in the harvest ' of the year 914. But whether this is so is difficult, 

 in the present state of knowledge of the subject, to determine ; and some 

 authorities would date the construction of the existing mount and court 

 fortress at least some years after the Norman Conquest. 



GREAT WOLFORD (4 miles south of Shipston-on-Stour). This 

 elevated village, well placed on a triangle of land above the junction 

 of two little streams, was, like Wappenbury, formerly defended by 

 entrenchments running all round it ; they probably enclosed an area 

 of about 30 acres. Even within the memory of people still living 

 ramparts well nigh encircled the village. But they have now been 

 practically levelled, except upon one side, that to the east and south- 

 east. Here too they have been considerably mutilated in places. The 

 extant defences show formidable double ramparts with intervening fosse, 

 all placed upon the top of a steep decline which slopes down to the 

 valley of the Nethercote Brook ; they are perhaps best preserved at 

 the south-east corner, where water still lies in a ditch which is 15 

 feet in width. The outer vallum at this point is 25 feet high above 

 the water, and the inner bank only 20 feet high, the enclosed village 

 being on a level with the top of it ; an inner vallum in all probability once 

 existed here, which has apparently at some time or other been demolished 

 for agricultural purposes. 2 



A road running from south-east to north through the village was 

 formerly known as the Ridgeway, and in old deeds a meadow near it on 



Dugdale's Wane. pp. 260, 308 ; Clark, Mil. Archlt. vol. i. pp. 20, 80 ; Burgess in Brit. Arch. 

 Assoc. Journ. (1873), pp. 42, 44 ; Turner's Shak. Land. pp. 23-5 ; Timmins's Warw. pp. 5, 73, 80, 

 231. 



O.S. Map 25 in. (1900) ; Rev. J. Harvey Bloom In Ktt. 



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