ANCIENT EARTHWORKS It must however be noted that the sketch given by Strutt * differs materially from Mr. Spurrell's plan, showing a low circular mound with bank, fosse and rampart. All that a cursory examination now shows of this royal fortress are the ramparts on the south-west, standing high above the river, and these mutilated by the intersection of the Great Eastern railway. DANBURY. Here we have not the advantage of any Chronicle references nor of early plans of the defences before they were mutilated or destroyed by buildings, roads and cultivation. There seems ground to believe it was occupied, if not constructed, by the Danes, who, it may be, simply adapted an older work. The situation, upon the top of a hill rising high above the valleys, suggests British rather than either Roman, Saxon, or Danish origin. The Danes seem to have added considerably to the interior arrange- ments, so far as can be judged by the plan in Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell's paper. 8 The attempt is made to compare the detail of this, with its (?) three wards, with the Saxon burh at Witham, but no very marked similarity is apparent. The southern part of the outer earthwork is shown in Morant's Essex and in Cough's edition of Gamderis Britannia, with a note in Morant that the ' glacis is 30 feet or more.' Mr. Spurrell found the banks in this part clearly defined, and in some other portions traceable upon careful examination. MOATED MOUNDS AND COURTS Under this head we include the simple moated mounds and mounds with base-courts. This is not the place in which to discuss the vexed question of period of origin of ' mound and court ' castles ; here we must generally be content to record their existence and present appear- ance. BERDEN. Three quarters of a mile south of Berden church, at Stock's farm, is a small moated mound unmen- Befden Mound tioned in our county i histories. The depth of the moat suggests serious defensive purpose, but the mound does not attain any considerable height ; it is however furnished with a bank on the inner side of the moat an important feature of early defences. On the south and east sides the moat, now dry, has been partially filled in, being but 10 feet below the interior bank, while on the west and north sides the moat still contains water and is about 6 feet deeper. 1 Manntn, Cuitoms, etc. (1774). * Eiiex NaturaRit, 1890, iv. 138. i 289 37
