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A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE Britons and some to the Romans, Camden even making them an im- aginary military station which he called Secandunum, an unfortunate statement which has been frequently repeated by local writers down to the present day ; others again have considered the mound to be a sepul- chral tumulus, and apportioned it as a burial place for the slain in the great battle which was fought here 755 A.D. But all these surmises are incorrect, and though history is apparently silent as to its actual maker, there is no doubt that these very perfect earthworks are the remains of the moated mount and court castle of some Saxon or Norman lord of Seckington. Dugdale records that the villagers in his day still called the work ' the Castle.' It is further evident that this castle, like the strong- holds at Brinklow, at Kineton and at Castle Bromwich, must somewhat early in its existence have fallen into disuse, as no walls of stone were ever subsequently erected upon the earthworks to take the place of the original palisades of wood. 1 SELLY OAK. See Edgbaston. SHELDON (near Birmingham). In the north-west corner of this parish and about half a mile to the east of the adjoining village ofYardley is an irregular oblong entrenchment known as Kent's Moat. In contradistinction to the usual moat in a hollow, this earthwork is situated upon slightly elevated ground. Its defences enclose an area of about an acre and a half ; they consist of an inner rampart and an outer ditch, neither of which are now as formidable as they probably once were, owing to the effects of several hundred years' denudation. There are no signs of buildings within the area, and Hutton, at the end of the eighteenth century, wrote that local tradition had then quite lost the recollection of any ; the edifice which must once have existed there was probably only of wood. 2 SOLIHULL (south of Birmingham). There are remains of what was once a camp of large size, situated at Solihull Lodge at the extreme west of this parish, and on the left bank of the little river Cole. A century ago it seems to have been called ' Danes' Camp,' but it is now known as the ' Berry Mound.' The earthworks are upon a low-lying ... Kent's Moat ~4lVti Section SHELDON SCALE or FEET too 200 300 1 Dugdale's Wane. p. 799 ; Clark in Arch. Inst. Journ. xxxix. p. 372, B'ham. and Mid. Inst. Arch. Tram. (1900), p. 89 ; Burgess in ditto (1872), p. 85, and in Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. (1873) pp. 39, 43 ; Timmins's Warn. pp. 4, 61. Mutton's B'ham. p. 418; Burgess in B'ham and Mid. Inst. Arch. Trani. (1872), p. 88. 392