A HISTORY OF KENT can be little doubt that the mount of earth on the south is the poor remnant of the keep-mount, part of the works destroyed on that occasion. It is probable the site remained waste for many years before the earliest part of the stone castle was erected. Canterbury : The Donjon. The mount, better known under the perverted name of Dane John, is said to be reduced from its original height and peeled all round, but it is still of magnitude sufficient to suggest the possibility of its being the mount of the Conqueror's castle, though it must be remembered that Somner, writing in the seventeenth century, expressed himself thus : — When first made or cast up it [the complete castle] lay wholly without the city walls, and hath been . . . taken in and walled since ; that side of the trench encom- passing the mound now lying without and under the wall fitly meeting with the rest of the city ditch, after either side of the outwork [the court] was cut through to make way for it, at the time of the city's inditching. ' Hasted ' adopted the same view, and is supported by other writers.' Outside the city wall and moat on the south were sundry hillocks or banks which have been variously considered — as remains of the don- jon bailey, as Celtic tumuli, and as fragments of siege works, but all have been destroyed.' If, as Hasted's plan implies The Don,o7,' Canterbury. ^nd as we incline to believe, the castle mount was outside the line subsequently followed by the mediaeval wall of Canterbury we are forced to ask. What purpose did the Donjon serve ? Perhaps Mr. Harold Sands correctly regards it as a piece of the northern rampart of the bailey destroyed in making the thirteenth-century city wall ; the fragment being augmented in comparatively recent days till it assumed its present altitude of 44 ft. above the adjoining pleasure ground. The castle and whole city standing on low ground, only about 50 ft. above sea-level, probably depended for protection largely on deep water in the moats, and it is of interest to note that an abundant supply was available from the Stour, which bounded the north-western side of the city. Chilham : Castle. — From Hasted' it appears that much of the defensive work was of a character kindred with that of strongholds « Somner (W.), Antiquitxts of Canterbury, p. 144. ' Hist, of Kent (1799) iv. » Mr. Faussett assigns the mount to Celtic days, regarding it as one of a group of tumuli. — Arch. Journ. (1875) xxxii. The full story of the Conqueror's castle has yet to be written ; meantime we advise all interested in the evidences we possess to study Mrs. Armitage's contribution to The Engl. Hist. Rev. (1904), entided, ' Early Norman Castles of England,' which contains, in condensed form, much information relating to Canterbury defences and castles ; see also Mr. Harold Sands's ' Some Kentish Castles,' in Memorials of Old Kent, 1907.
- Hasted, Hist, of Kent (1799), shows a distinct mount in this position on his plan of Canterbury ;
and Speed, Theatre of Great Brit. (161 1), indicates six mounts which look artificial. s Hist. Kent (1790) iii. 126 and 141. 412
