Page:VCH Warwickshire 1.djvu/466

A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE the north of this courtyard again, and between it and the embattled entrance gateway opening from the town, is a second and larger moat, probably enclosing an area of 5 acres ; this outer bailey became 'the vineyard ' of mediaeval times, lying without the castle walls. Portions of the defensive ramparts still remain, though they have been modified in course of ages by subsequent works. Beyond the limits of this moated mount and court fortress, still further banks of earth are to be seen towards the north-west ; they seem to have had no connection with the original works, but were in all probability raised by the assailants of the castle during the Civil War in the seven teenth century. Various writers have called the whole of the earthworks here either ancient British or Roman, but without sufficient reason in either case. 1 The rectangular form of the inner courtyard has suggested the idea that it might originally have been a Roman camp, utilized by the makers of the mount and court fortress, but excavation could alone throw light upon the matter. The name by which the great conical mound has long been known locally is ' Ethelflasda's Dungeon ' or ' Castle ' ; accord- ing to tradition it is the actual fort which the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records was erected by the famous ' Lady of the Mercians ' at Warwick ' late in the harvest ' of the year 914. But whether this is so is difficult, in the present state of knowledge of the subject, to determine ; and some authorities would date the construction of the existing mount and court fortress at least some years after the Norman Conquest. GREAT WOLFORD (4 miles south of Shipston-on-Stour). This elevated village, well placed on a triangle of land above the junction of two little streams, was, like Wappenbury, formerly defended by entrenchments running all round it ; they probably enclosed an area of about 30 acres. Even within the memory of people still living ramparts well nigh encircled the village. But they have now been practically levelled, except upon one side, that to the east and south- east. Here too they have been considerably mutilated in places. The extant defences show formidable double ramparts with intervening fosse, all placed upon the top of a steep decline which slopes down to the valley of the Nethercote Brook ; they are perhaps best preserved at the south-east corner, where water still lies in a ditch which is 15 feet in width. The outer vallum at this point is 25 feet high above the water, and the inner bank only 20 feet high, the enclosed village being on a level with the top of it ; an inner vallum in all probability once existed here, which has apparently at some time or other been demolished for agricultural purposes. 2 A road running from south-east to north through the village was formerly known as the Ridgeway, and in old deeds a meadow near it on Dugdale's Wane. pp. 260, 308 ; Clark, Mil. Archlt. vol. i. pp. 20, 80 ; Burgess in Brit. Arch. Assoc. Journ. (1873), pp. 42, 44 ; Turner's Shak. Land. pp. 23-5 ; Timmins's Warw. pp. 5, 73, 80, 231. O.S. Map 25 in. (1900) ; Rev. J. Harvey Bloom In Ktt. 404