ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



earthwork adjoining it is in Minster and about two miles south of Birch- 

 ington. 



The enclosure that remains has much the character of a homestead 

 moat, but when Hasted wrote there was apparently a further work on 

 the opposite side of the road, and both showed more signs of defensive 

 work. He regarded the camp as a place of retreat, buried in the woods, 

 used by the Saxon inhabitants to retire to when the Danish pirates 

 infested the isle of Thanet. The earher name of the place seems to 

 have been Chessmunds. 



SiTTiNGBouRNE : Bayford Castle and Court, — Of the former 

 not a wrack remains, and probably like many other ' castles ' it was 

 mainly a moat-defended enclosure. Its site is shown by the Ordnance 

 Surveyors on the eastern side of Milton 

 Creek, about half a mile north by east of 

 Bayford Court.' 



Bayford Court happily retains 

 evidences of the earthwork defences 

 around the site. Not only does a moat 

 enclose the main position on three sides, 

 but also low ramparts or banks remain in 

 places, extending from the parish church- 

 yard to the court for some thousand feet 

 or more. 



Special attention is drawn to this 

 work because Mr. Spurrell thinks it the 

 fortress which the Danish army con- 

 structed in 893.° 



Castle Rough in Milton is usually 

 said to be the site of the work, but its 

 form is against this view, and it would 

 seem probable that the lines of work 

 about Bayford Court are more likely to 

 have sheltered the invaders when Hasten 

 came ' with eighty ships into the Thames ' 

 mouth and wrought him a work at 

 Middleton." 



Stanford : Westenhanger. — The 

 fortified manor house, mainly dating 



from the fourteenth century, will be referred to in another section of this 

 History ; here it is sufficient to record the evidences which remain of its 

 once broad and deep moat, fed by a stream which rises on the hill above 

 Stanford church. 



Sutton at Hone : St. John's. — This interesting example of 



' Hasted {History of Kent, ii. 1782) refers to Bayford Castle in such manner as to suggest that 

 his reference may be intended for what is now known as Bayford Court, and we cannot but conclude 

 that mystery attaches to the exact spot occupied by the castle. 



» 'Early Sites and Embankments,' Arch. Journ. (1885) xlii. 



3 Angl.-Sai. Chron. a.d. 893 



I 433 55 



Bayford Court, near Sittingbourne 



FROM PLAN BY Mr. SpURRELL. 



