ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



by Archbishop Courtenay in the reign of Richard II, or with later 

 alterations, but to show how skilfully the defence was made by earthen 

 banks and fosse. 



We may safely assume that the castle of masonry was not erected 

 till many years after the artificial portion of the mount was thrown up. 

 Doubtless a timber structure, such as those depicted on the Bayeux 

 stitchwork, was the first occupant:of the mount, which could not then 

 support the weight of stone. Such timber castles, encircled by strong 

 stockades or palisades of wood, placed on high mounts of earth and 

 surrounded by deep moats or fosses, were quickly constructed and 

 rapidly attained formidable power of resistance. 



That the earthen mount here was originally higher and of the 

 typical form of such mattes^ steep, conical and flat-topped, there can be 

 little doubt from an item in the Pipe Rolls, under date 1 174-5, of los. 

 for the cost of throwing it down.' 



The site is 170 ft. above sea-level, with much higher land half a 

 mile north ; the English Channel lies a mile south, the coast being 

 approached from the heights by a narrow combe down which runs a 

 small stream. An arm of this stream flowing past the castle was so 

 treated as to affbrd additional defence to the works ; its valley, a natural 

 protection on the west and south, was artificially scarped and widened, 

 a dam being thrown across on the eastern side, thus providing a wide 

 moat effectually filled with water. This piece of engineering will be 

 understood on examination of the plan (see dam L-M). The mount or 

 keep, oblong in form and now furnished with a high wall of masonry, 

 stands some 35 ft. above the moat on the west and south, where the 

 ground is more or less of natural formation, the other portion being 

 raised by ballast thrown up from the fosse on the east and north. 



To the east of the mount is a court or bailey, which originally- 

 depended for protection partly on the steep slope south-eastward, a deep 

 fosse guarding the more northern portion (see E-F). Where the 

 curtain wall of stone runs along the top of the bailey rampart was 

 probably once a stockade of timber, similar to that which then encircled 

 the summit of the mount, but it is possible that, so much of this being 

 natural ground instead of thrown-up earth, masonry of a sort may from 

 the first have guarded the bailey, as appears to have been the case at 

 Thornham and Binbury castles in this county. 



Stockbury. — This earthwork appears to be the remnant of a mount 

 and court castle of somewhat unusual form ; it stands upon ground about 

 350 ft. above sea-level, and 130 ft. above the land to the east. The 

 position is but slightly defended by the nature of the ground, as the 

 fall of the hill is of no great steepness. The entrenchments formed two 

 enclosures : (i) A circular mount or keep on the north-west (much 

 destroyed by a modern house and farm buildings), which may have been 

 a high mount, now levelled, but judging from the faint trace of banking 

 (section G-H) it appears rather to have been a ramparted enclosure. 



» ' In custamento prosternendi Castelli de Saltwdar 20;.' 

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