ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



irregular oval shape. This moat, to the west of the church, has an 

 outer diameter, from north to south, of 250 feet, and its widest diameter 

 from east to west is 200 feet, where are traces of a rampart on the inside 

 of the ditch. 



9. The site of the original hall of DENBY (xl. 15), a short distance 

 from the present house of Elizabethan origin, 

 known as Denby Old Hall, is surrounded by a 

 rectangular moat having an outside measurement 

 of about 175 feet by 125 feet. In a recent ac- 

 count of Denby occurs the following descrip- 



~ SCALEOFFEET 



'The moat, long since disused, lies about o IQQ 100 300 

 50 yards north of the present house ; it is about DENBY OLD HALL. 



35 feet wide at the top and 6 feet deep, and 



encloses a rectangular platform measuring about 58 feet by 80 feet ; on 

 three sides it is excavated in the solid ground, but on the north it is 

 confined by an artificial bank on the edge of a small ravine formed 

 by a stream coming down from Marehay, from which it was probably 

 fed. Except in very wet weather it is now dry, but in the memory of 

 the present farm tenant it was filled with water, and only a very slight 

 diversion of the stream would be necessary to bring the water into it 

 again.' 1 



10. At DUNCOURT FARM (xxxix. 13), near Millington Green by 

 Biggin Brook, in Wirksworth parish, is a small moat of oval shape. If 

 this example belongs to the homestead class, it must be of early date. 



1 1 . There are some slight remains of the moat that once surrounded 

 the manor house of the Beresford family of FENNY BENTLEY (xxxviii. 

 9, 10). 



12. Near FOXHOLE FARM (1. 4), by Stanley Brook, in the parish of 

 West Hallam, is one side of a water-filled old homestead moat. 



13. At a place called MOAT HALL (xxvii. 15), in Hartington parish, 

 near the river Dove, north of the Hartington cheese factory, part of two 

 sides of the wide moat that surrounded a former homestead still remains. 



14. A little to the north of the village of HOLMESFIELD (xvii. 4) is 

 an old square homestead moat, enclosing an area of upwards of 200 feet 

 square. 



1 5. The site of HULLAND OLD HALL (xliii. 4) is surrounded by a 

 well-defined moat enclosing a parallelogram about 150 feet by 125 feet, 

 and there are still traces of what would appear to be the foundations of 

 the drawbridge. A little over 200 yards to the east are two large 

 mediaeval fish-ponds. The moat, as well as the ponds, was fed by the 

 adjacent small stream, called Hulland Hollow Brook. 



1 6. The old hall of HUNGRY BENTLEY (xlviii. 6), Longford parish, 

 has two sides of a large water-filled moat remaining. 



1 Mr. Percy H. Currey, 'Denby Old Hall and its Owners,' Derb. Arch. Joum. (1904), xxvi. 1-21. 

 An excellent photographic plate of one side of this moat, taken in winter when filled with water, 

 accompanies this paper. 



389 



