ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



12. MOUSELOW CASTLE (xi. 8) is the name of a round hill about a 

 mile to the north of Glossop. On the top of its wooded summit is an 

 intricate earthwork. The present confused condition of mounds renders 

 the suggestion of any scheme or plan of its original construction almost 

 an impossibility, save that there are fairly obvious traces of a double 

 rampart and on the east a triple rampart encircling an oval formation 

 about 350 feet in extreme diameter. All that can be safely said of 

 its date is that Mouselow Castle was probably a Celtic fort to some 

 extent reused during the Roman occupation. Glover, writing of 

 Mouselow Castle in 1829, says : 'This hill, forty-five years ago, was 

 pastured to the top, on which it was plain to be seen a building had stood, 

 there being deep holes and a quantity of stones. The top occupies a 

 large space of ground. The whole of the hill, as well as the top, is now 

 planted with firs of about forty-five years' standing, and the late Hon. 

 Edward Bernard Howard gave it the name of Castle Hill.' 1 



13. PILSBURY CASTLE HILLS (xxvii. 7). It would indeed be strange 

 if a site bearing a name that denotes 



fortification in three successive lan- 

 guages did not bear obvious traces 

 of its former use. The appearance 

 and nature of this earthwork can be 

 much better realized from the plan 

 than from any verbal description, 

 more particularly as a tumulus 

 seems to have been combined with 

 earthworks. Moreover, the earth- 

 works are apparently of two dif- 

 ferent dates, and a further element 

 of confusion has been introduced by 

 the reckless way in which exploring 

 excavations have been undertaken on at least two distinct occasions. 

 This remarkable earthwork is situated between the River Dove on the 

 west and a ridge of rocks on the east. The ground that it covers 

 measures roughly 175 yards from east to west, by 150 yards from north 

 to south. The following description appeared in Glover's Gazetteer in 

 1831 : 'At Pilsbury, in Hartington parish, in a deep valley on the 

 banks of the Dove, in a field called Castle Hills, are some ancient remains 

 deserving of notice. On the east side is a sharp natural ridge of rocks, 

 which in one part rises to the height of seven or eight yards, bearing 

 some resemblance to a sugar loaf. Adjoining to this is a raised bank, 

 inclosing an area of about sixty yards from north to south, and forty 

 from east to west, having a barrow near its western side about forty yards 

 in diameter. Southward of the barrow is a second bank, forming a 

 square of thirty yards each way.' 2 



1 Glover's Derbyshire, i. 298. Glover has adopted this passage from A Description of the Country 

 round Manchester, by J. Aikin, M.D., 1793, by merely changing 'fifteen years' to 'forty-five years.' 



3 Glover's Derbyshire, i. 236. This description is reproduced, almost verbatim, in Bateman's 

 Antiquities (1848), 123. 



385 49 



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PILSBURY CASTLE HILIS. 



