ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



once, while the adjoining land has probably been getting higher and higher, 

 owing to its cultivation, during hundreds of years. 



Crossing the field from its gate towards the north-west, a circular depres- 

 sion is found ; this occupies the site of the moat round the former mount or 

 keep of the castle (A) . To the south-west of this is a contiguous elevated area, 

 which was the interior of the court or bailey (B) ; this bailey is of the frequently 

 found crescentic shape ; it is encircled by a depression now only some 2 ft. to 

 3 ft. deep, which marks the course of its ancient fosse; the ground covered by 

 the bailey and fosse is rather more than that occupied by the mount and its 

 defences, and the area covered by the entire castle is about i J acres. Nothing 

 can now be gleaned either of the height of the mount or of the ramparts 

 round the bailey ; for about the year 1817 Mr. Gascoigne, the lord of the 

 manor, unfortunately had the field levelled by filling both into their respec- 

 tive fosses ; in the interval of time since elapsed, the loose earth has sunk in 

 the ditches, and their position, as in the similar case of Warrington Castle, is 

 luckily again discernible. That prior to that time the mount was still a con- 

 spicuous object is shown by the fact of its being drawn as a circular hillock 

 upon Yates and Parry's Map, published in 1768. Its diameter was about 

 140 ft., and from its summit there must have been complete command of the 

 country for some distance round. Of the former size of the fosses, all that 

 we can now glean is that the one round the mount, which measures 40 ft. 

 across, was apparently wider than that round the bailey, which is only 30 ft. 

 from edge to edge ; and this remark would also seem to apply to the portion 

 of the fosse encircling the mount which divides it from the bailey. 



Documentary evidence fortunately serves to throw light upon the time 

 when West Derby Castle fell into disuse, owing probably to the migration of 

 the neighbouring population to the banks of the Mersey at Liverpool in 

 1207 and 1208, and to the subsequent erection of a castle there. 



Although we cannot say who constructed it, the once important castle 

 of West Derby was apparently in existence for 180 to 190 years. It was 

 doubtless one of the usual mount and court earthworks of the period, 

 defended by wooden palisades erected by its ' carpenters ' upon the ramparts 

 within its broad ditches. Falling into disuse about the middle of the thir- 

 teenth century, it never attained to walls. of masonry," 



Whittington (12 miles north-east of Lancaster). — The churchyard 

 here appears to cover the area of a mount and court castle, the earthworks of 

 which are now, however, much mutilated. The church stands within the 

 former bailey, and the mount rises at its western end. 



The upper part of the village of Whittington, that adjacent to the 

 church, lies upon the south-east slope of a somewhat steep hillside. Into 

 this slope a valley has been cut by a little brook, the Selletbeck, which runs 

 north and south just west of the churchyard. Within the hollow ' combe * 

 thus formed, and on the east side of the brook, rises a considerable 

 natural hillock. It is roughly oval in shape, and fairly flat upon its top, 

 which is some 25 ft. or more above the fields immediately to the south and 

 east. The sides of this hillock are steep towards the brook on the west, and 

 also, though to a less degree, on the east. To the south the slope is more 



" Baines, Hist. Lanes, (ed. 1836), iv, 45 ; ibid. (ed. 1868), ii, 287; ibid. (ed. 1887), v, 105 ; Ord. Surv. 

 l-in. 97, old 80 NW. ; 6-in. NE. ; 25-in. 106, 8. 



2 545 69 



