More information : SS 838093 Down Castle is a small ring-work, situated on Down Farm, and formerly covered by Castle Plantation. It is sited on the top but not at the end of a low spur, steep on both sides, which falls gently to the Binneford Water just below Puddington Bottom. A part of Castle Plantation had been felled before 1947 and is now an arable field. When ploughed the greater part of the circle of the defences shows as a light band of shaly stone from the bank in contrast to the darker soil from the rest of the field. The entrance is traceable on the higher part of the ridge to the eastward, and the rampart and external ditch can be clearly seen passing through the coppice and hedge on the south-west on the line A-B (fig 3). The rampart can be traced under the hedge on the western side and in the wood to the north of a modern track, which cuts through it at the corner of the field on the line A-B. The whole work is about 150 feet in diameter. In the tithe map of 1848 there was no plantation and the field (No 148) was called Castle, being part of Colleyland; the field to the west of the ring-work was then part of Venchannon (now Venn Channing) and was also simply called Castle. (1)
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