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Early Annals of Trowbridge. 



moat which ran round the outer walls of the castle. The river 

 itself protected the castle on the west. The artificial channel seems 

 to have been begun from a point a little below what is now called 

 " The Stone Factory/' including within it the water-wheel which 

 tradition still points out as standing on the site of the original 

 castle mill. The moat then extended in an easterly, and slightly 

 curved direction, across what were called, within the memory of per- 

 sons now living, the " Court Hollows/'' and skirted at this point 

 "Little Hill/' where, in BodnWs time (1814), "the ditch and 

 ramparts were still visible." Thence it was carried, as it seems, 

 across what is now Castle Street, then by the corner of a house now 

 occupied by Mr. Sylvester, until it entered Fore Street (the portion 

 of it, that is, which is now called the Market Place), at the 

 south-west corner of Silver Street. It then followed the line of 

 Fore Street right down to Wicker Hill, where in the middle of 

 the last century the depth of water was some twelve feet or upwards. 

 Bodman tells us, that many persons in his time could remember the 

 water three or four feet deep at that place, and adds that the cir- 

 cumstance of a strong fence of wicker work having been placed for 

 security against the sides of the moat at this point was the origin 

 of the name " Wicker Hill." The moat seems to have joined the 

 river again at a point a little to the south of the present bridge. 

 As the line of the castle walls followed that of the moat, a tolerable 

 idea may be formed of the size of this stronghold of the Bohun 

 family and its capability of resisting the efforts of an invading force. 



If we except a small portion of an old wall behind a house in Fore 

 Street, which tradition points out as having been a portion of the 

 castle wall, and which certainly is in a position likely enough to 

 warrant such a belief, there is not now a vestige of the castle to be 

 seen. Neither are we able at present to say how or when it was 

 destroyed. We have documentary evidence which seems to imply 

 that it was yet standing in the middle of the fifteenth century, and, 

 as it was in ruins at the time of Leland's visit, it would appear that 

 the date of its demolition would have been between 1460 and 1540. 



Twice within the present century some portions of the old walls 

 and buttresses have been discovered during the the progress of 



