ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



ancient bailey ; this was of the crescentic form, with its horns half encircling 

 the mount. The fosses outside the walls have now been mostly filled up and 

 built over ; but, as seen in old plans of the castle, they were vast and deep. 

 We know that they were made considerably more formidable at the time the 

 walls of masonry were erected, probably in the early years of the thirteenth 

 century. The shape of the castle ditch surrounding the mount and bailey is, 

 or rather was, an irregular circle, and the area inclosed and covered by it was 

 about if acres. This was larger than that of Lancaster's companion royal 

 castle of West Derby, but not nearly so large as the mount and court castle 

 at Warrington. 



History helps to confirm the early origin claimed for this castle by 

 reason of its plan, taking us back, as it does, to the time when walls of 

 masonry had not yet come to be used in this district for castle construction 

 in place of the earlier earthworks surmounted by wooden palisades. There 

 are of course many references to this castle in early mediaeval documents. 

 The sums expended upon its upkeep and victualling are frequently detailed in 

 the sherifFs accounts of the reigns of Henry III and John, side by side with 

 those of the other local royal castle, the mount and court earthwork of West 

 Derby.^' 



Melling with Wrayton (lo miles north-east of Lancaster). — A lofty 

 earthen mount, placed upon an elevated plateau, is in the vicarage garden 

 here, just 30 yds. east of the church. 



The site is a fine one, being on a little raised knoll which rises out 

 of the hill-slope on the cast side of the spreading Lune valley ; its height is 

 150 ft. above sea level, and some 75 ft. above the flat marshy meadows 

 on either side of the wide flooding river. The views, both up and down and 

 across the vale, are most extensive, the command from the top of the 

 mount being complete for short-range weapons ; after the introduction 

 of the long-bow, however, it would be assailable upon the south-east 

 side, where the ground rises to a similar height 75 yds. away, and to 25 ft. 

 higher at a distance of 120 yds. The fine mount and court castle at Hornby 

 (q.v.) lies li miles away to the south-west, and the mount at Arkhfflme (q.v.) 

 is on the opposite side of the river, barely a mile distant, to the north-west. 



The earthwork, as now seen, consists of a mount (A) only ; but this is 

 placed upon an elevated circular plateau (B), which strongly suggests a former 

 base court or bailey. The mount is conical, slightly oval in shape (with its 

 greatest length north to south), and has a truncated top ; it measures some 

 I GO ft. by 125 ft. in diameter at its base, and its flat summit is about 40 ft. 

 across ; its height is about 20 ft. from the level of the plateau. The base 

 of the mount has been considerably cut and altered by gardening operations, 

 so that it now shows a terrace about 1 5 ft. wide all round, retained in parts 

 by a wall below it, 5 ft. high ; there is no ditch extant, but in all probability 

 a former one has been filled in. The ascent cut to the summit is modern. 



The elevated plateau, towards the east end of which the mount rises, 

 was formerly almost circular ; it measures about 210 ft. across its longest 

 remaining diameter ; a portion of it has evidently been long ago cut away on 



" Baines, Hist. Lanes, (ed. 1868), ii, 169, S5+-63 ; Clark, Med. Mil. Archil, i, 90, 123, 138, 401 ; 



Cox, in Trans. Lanes, and Ches. Hist. Sue. (New Ser.), xii, 95, 122 ; Ord. Surv. i-in. 59 ; old 91 NE. ; 

 6-in. 30 SE. ; 25-in. 30, U. 



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