ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



It must however be noted that the sketch given by Strutt * differs 

 materially from Mr. Spurrell's plan, showing a low circular mound with 

 bank, fosse and rampart. 



All that a cursory examination now shows of this royal fortress are 

 the ramparts on the south-west, standing high above the river, and these 

 mutilated by the intersection of the Great Eastern railway. 



DANBURY. Here we have not the advantage of any Chronicle 

 references nor of early plans of the defences before they were mutilated 

 or destroyed by buildings, roads and cultivation. 



There seems ground to believe it was occupied, if not constructed, 

 by the Danes, who, it may be, simply adapted an older work. The 

 situation, upon the top of a hill rising high above the valleys, suggests 

 British rather than either Roman, Saxon, or Danish origin. 



The Danes seem to have added considerably to the interior arrange- 

 ments, so far as can be judged by the plan in Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell's 

 paper. 8 The attempt is made to compare the detail of this, with its 

 (?) three wards, with the Saxon burh at Witham, but no very marked 

 similarity is apparent. 



The southern part of the outer earthwork is shown in Morant's 

 Essex and in Cough's edition of Gamderis Britannia, with a note in 

 Morant that the ' glacis is 30 feet or more.' 



Mr. Spurrell found the banks in this part clearly defined, and in 

 some other portions traceable upon careful examination. 



MOATED MOUNDS AND COURTS 



Under this head we include the simple moated mounds and mounds 

 with base-courts. This is not the place in which to discuss the vexed 

 question of period of origin of ' mound and court ' castles ; here we 

 must generally be content to record their existence and present appear- 

 ance. 



BERDEN. Three quarters of a mile south of Berden church, at 

 Stock's farm, is a small 

 moated mound unmen- Befden Mound 



tioned in our county 



i 



histories. 



The depth of the 

 moat suggests serious 

 defensive purpose, but 

 the mound does not 

 attain any considerable 



height ; it is however furnished with a bank on the inner side of the 

 moat an important feature of early defences. On the south and east 

 sides the moat, now dry, has been partially filled in, being but 10 feet 

 below the interior bank, while on the west and north sides the moat 

 still contains water and is about 6 feet deeper. 



1 Manntn, Cuitoms, etc. (1774). * Eiiex NaturaRit, 1890, iv. 138. 



i 289 37 



