A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE (3) Meppershall. — ' The Hills,' as they are called, form the central hold of a very interesting work of the ' mound and court ' type. Its exterior ward is outlined by a great ditch 32 feet wide, with rampart round three sides on the inner scarp, 8 feet high above the ditch bottom. The inner ward, again surrounded by its ditch, is smaller, but several feet above the level of the outer, which is itself 2 or 3 feet above the general field level around it. The rampart of the inner ward is strongest at the ends, where it is 11 feet above the ditch bottom. Higher again is the isolated circular mound, 15 to 16 feet above the floor of the encompassing ditch, which is 35 feet wide towards the ward and about 50 towards the west. Its summit is slightly rounded and measures 26 feet by 30 across its diameters. There is a trace of a ram- part on the outermost edge of its circular ditch, and also outside the north-east angle of the outer ward. There are some moat lines to the east of the hold, but these seem to have been connected with the manor house, as they turn to enclose it. The bank and sometimes the ditch of the outermost entrenchment lines are strongly marked, and form a rough square about the hold, enclosing, if the road to the west completes the outline, not less than 30 acres. The question again arises as to whether this enciente is con- temporary with the main work. There seems little reason to doubt it, as the whole site is bare except for two or three houses at the extreme north-west corner, and most of the village lies away from it. The church, with fine early Norman detail, of the plainest wide-jointed type, stands in close association with the mounded stronghold, and the small intervening manor house of timber and plaster is early Jacobean. There is no mill. With the exception of Bedford Castle this is the only work of its kind in the county which has any direct connection with history. The editor of the Gesta Stephani 1 has the following note with reference to it. 'In the original edition of the Monasticon (1655) 2 there is a charter granted by Stephen ' apud Maperteshalam in obsidione.' The chronicles mention no such event as a siege of Meppershall ; but there exists at the present day, close to the church of this small Bedfordshire village, a high mound with a double line of outer ramparts, answering in the clearest way to the type of the hastily-built stockaded ' castles ' of this reign. Stephen, it thus appears, had to capture this outpost, perhaps during the siege of Bedford in 1138.' 3 It does not follow however that the work was of Stephen's time, as the detail in the church attached to it is sixty or seventy years earlier. (4) Risinghoe Castle. — In Goldington parish, about 2| miles east of Bedford, on the north bank of the river, on ground belonging to the ' Castle Mills,' stands the solitary mound of Risinghoe. In its present state it is more like a barrow than anything else, but the tra- ditions and statements that it is the remnant of a former stronghold are too numerous to be passed over without mention. Leland says, ' The great 1 Gesta Stephani (Rolls Ser.), p. xxv. 2 Vol. i. p. 480. 3 In Domesday, Gilbert Fitz Salomon held the manor of Meppershall, and before him Leofwyn Cilt, a thegn of King Edward. 296
