More information : [NY 50685783] Motte [GT] (1)
Ringwork. (2)
A well-chosen site, artificially scarped and naturally defensive with double rampart and intervening fosse. On the south-west there is a broad terrace above the deep ravine. In 1863 there were "remains of a breast-work" on the top. (3-4)
The work, which falls in a private garden, is difficult to reconcile with Rome-Hall's description. Clearly there has never been a ditch, and basically it is a natural hillock artificially scarped into a mound 30m diameter, and raised by excavation of the top to give a form of ringwork. External heights average 3.5m in the west decreasing to between 2m and 2.5m in the east, although these may have been reduced in part by a terraced footpath around the base. The interior is now only slightly 'dished' as the result of landscape gardening, but around the northern arc the inner bank, although spread, still attains a height approaching 2m suggesting an original difference between internal and external ground levels of zero in the east varying to some 1.5 to 2m in the west. There are no indications of there having been a bailey.
Topographically the work is situated at the southern end of a broad ridge, and has some natural defensive strength on the south and west sides, but Rome-Hall's "deep ravine" is an exaggeration.
Published survey (25"). (5)
NY 507578 Castle Hill; scheduled. (6)
The mound is visible as an earthwork on aerial photographs, and has been mapped by English Heritage's Hadrian's Wall NMP. (7) |