REMAINS OF THE PRE-NORMAN PERIOD 
Near Ponsonby, on Infell, is a similar enclosure, with double ram- 
part and ditch; Dr. C. A. Parker of Gosforth gives the measurements of 
the sides as 22 paces, 64, 52, 75 and 41, and of the ditch as 4 to 6 
feet in depth, and 22 feet from crest to crest of the ramparts. Near the 
north angle is a circular tank for water. No remains have been found 
there. The notion that it was Roman is now abandoned. 
A similar double rampart forms the D-shaped camp at Skew Hill 
on the Eden opposite Grinsdale, with an area of about 2§ acres. The 
ordnance map marks it ‘Camp, 1745,’ but it is connected by its form 
with a much earlier date of origin. Two small round forts, with the 
same kind of double rampart, are on opposite sides of the Irthing valley 
—one called Tower Tye close to Naworth Castle railway station, and 
one called Watch Hill north-west of Triermain. Maclauchlan, in his 
Memoir on the Roman Wall, pointed out that they stood in striking rela- 
tion to the Norman castles near them, and did not think that either 
were British. Tower Tye may be British, Tr meaning ‘tower’ and Ty 
‘house,’ and there is another place of the same name near Walwick-on- 
the-Wall. The interior diameter of Tower Tye is about 50 yards, and 
the ramparts are very well marked, almost out of proportion to the 
enclosed space, evidently making it a stronghold of some importance. 
In the same district is Hayton Castle Hill, a circular eminence 120 
feet across within the double rampart and ditch. The ditch varies in 
breadth from 5 to 12 feet. The site is on the extremity of a narrow 
projecting eminence, separated on the south from the village by a deep 
ravine, the sides of which are about 15 feet high, artificially scarped. 
The centre of the Castle Hill is level and depressed, rising 3 or 4 feet 
on the west and 8 feet on the east. Chancellor Ferguson classed it as 
a burh, but the Rev. G. Rome Hall considered it a British fort ; and we 
see that its double rampart connects it with the preceding series. 
A few miles south of this, on the steep banks of the Eden, in the 
parish of Cumwhitton, is a round fort known as Castle Hill. Across the 
Eden, on Lazonby Fell, are a round camp and fort ; and near them, at 
Castlerigg, ‘ruins of a building, moated round’ (Hutchinson, i. 289). 
South of that again, at Greystoke, is the irregular rectangular camp by 
Summerground Gill on Berrier Hill, the fort at Wallaway Green, and 
the large oval camp at Newton Reigny, near Catterlen (formerly written 
Kaderleng, another caer), and near tumuli where urns have been dis- 
covered. 
Going north towards Caldew we find the sites of three hill-forts 
in Castle Sowerby: Knights’ Hill, Southernby, a hill with founda- 
tions of buildings (Hutchinson, ii. 433) perhaps medieval and named 
from the red knights of Inglewood ; Castle How or Castle Hill, a rock- 
cut hill-fort, which is said by tradition (Jefferson, Leath Ward, p. 138, 
following Hutchinson) to have been palisaded and to have been used in 
comparatively modern ‘times, perhaps to secure cattle during border 
forays ; and How Hill, a round fort about 21 yards in diameter, with 
an opening on the south side. 
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