A HISTORY OF KENT 



can be little doubt that the mount of earth on the south is the poor 

 remnant of the keep-mount, part of the works destroyed on that 

 occasion. 



It is probable the site remained waste for many years before the 

 earliest part of the stone castle was erected. 



Canterbury : The Donjon. The mount, better known under the 

 perverted name of Dane John, is said to be reduced from its original 

 height and peeled all round, but it is still of magnitude sufficient to 

 suggest the possibility of its being the mount of the Conqueror's castle, 

 though it must be remembered that Somner, writing in the seventeenth 

 century, expressed himself thus : — 



When first made or cast up it [the complete castle] lay wholly without the city 

 walls, and hath been . . . taken in and walled since ; that side of the trench encom- 

 passing the mound now lying without and under the wall fitly meeting with the rest 

 of the city ditch, after either side of the outwork [the court] was cut through to make 

 way for it, at the time of the city's inditching. ' 



Hasted ' adopted the same view, and is supported by other writers.' 

 Outside the city wall and moat on the south were sundry hillocks 

 or banks which have been variously 

 considered — as remains of the don- 

 jon bailey, as Celtic tumuli, and as 

 fragments of siege works, but all 

 have been destroyed.' 



If, as Hasted's plan implies 

 The Don,o7,' Canterbury. ^nd as we incline to believe, the 



castle mount was outside the line 

 subsequently followed by the mediaeval wall of Canterbury we are forced 

 to ask. What purpose did the Donjon serve ? Perhaps Mr. Harold Sands 

 correctly regards it as a piece of the northern rampart of the bailey 

 destroyed in making the thirteenth-century city wall ; the fragment 

 being augmented in comparatively recent days till it assumed its present 

 altitude of 44 ft. above the adjoining pleasure ground. 



The castle and whole city standing on low ground, only about 

 50 ft. above sea-level, probably depended for protection largely on deep 

 water in the moats, and it is of interest to note that an abundant supply 

 was available from the Stour, which bounded the north-western side of 

 the city. 



Chilham : Castle. — From Hasted' it appears that much of the 

 defensive work was of a character kindred with that of strongholds 



« Somner (W.), Antiquitxts of Canterbury, p. 144. ' Hist, of Kent (1799) iv. 



» Mr. Faussett assigns the mount to Celtic days, regarding it as one of a group of tumuli. — Arch. 

 Journ. (1875) xxxii. The full story of the Conqueror's castle has yet to be written ; meantime we 

 advise all interested in the evidences we possess to study Mrs. Armitage's contribution to The Engl. Hist. 

 Rev. (1904), entided, ' Early Norman Castles of England,' which contains, in condensed form, much 

 information relating to Canterbury defences and castles ; see also Mr. Harold Sands's ' Some Kentish 

 Castles,' in Memorials of Old Kent, 1907. 



* Hasted, Hist, of Kent (1799), shows a distinct mount in this position on his plan of Canterbury ; 

 and Speed, Theatre of Great Brit. (161 1), indicates six mounts which look artificial. 



s Hist. Kent (1790) iii. 126 and 141. 



412 



