A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE moat cutting off the eastern ending of a slight bank, the ballast from the moat being thrown on to the platform thus formed. The work, evidently not now in its original and perfect form, may be the remnant of a castle mount, or possibly of a homestead moat. MicHAELCHURCH EscLEY t Whitehouse ' Camp.' — Four and a quarter miles north-north-west of Longtown. This small inclosure stands upon a ridge of hills 1,222 ft. above sea level, 350 ft. above the River Monnow, which flows half a mile westward, and 450 ft. above the Escley Brook, three- quarters of a mile east. The position, though a high one, has no immediate natural defence, and the work, which is slight, may be that of a castle, but is as likely to have defended a homestead. Pedwardine (Lower). See Brampton Bryan. Rowlstone Mount. — Eleven miles south-west of Hereford. This mount stands near the church upon ground 500 ft. above sea level, in a position having no natural defence. The earthwork consists of a moat with , the earth therefrom thrown inward to form a circular mount ; probably the moat once held water all round. The outlet from the moat, together with the ponds and ditch upon the south-south-east, may indicate the existence at some date of further inclosures, but a farm-yard on the south has destroyed all traces if such existed. Many of these mounts are locally named ' tumps,' and regarded as burial mounds, but since in most cases they are solitary and stand near the church, and often near a river, they would appear to have been rather mounts for defensive purposes than for burial ; at the same time bodies may have been interred near the top of some of these mounts. St. Weonard's Tump. — Six and a half miles west of Ross. The mount is on a hill rising from 90 to 190 ft. above the land on all sides within a mile, but the position has no natural defence, as the fall of the hill is gradual. The entrenchments consist of a moat with the ■* ballast thrown inward to form, or help in form- ing, a mount now 18 ft. to 25 ft. above its moat. The work is in poor preservation ; excavations were made on the south-east side of the mount about 1840, the earth not being replaced, and the cottagers, following the evil example set St. Weonard's Tump them, havc more Or less filled up the ditch. Special interest attaches to this mount, as remains discovered within it leave little room for doubt that long ere it supported a tower of defence it was a prehistoric burial tumulus. Shobdon Court Mount. — Six and a quarter miles north-west of Leominster. The mount stands within the park attached to the mansion of Shobdon Court, on ground 540 ft. above sea level, in a position having no natural defence. The work consists of a mount surrounded by a fosse of con- siderable base, but in its present state only 16 ft. high. A small mount 12 ft. high and without a fosse stands 1,000 ft. away on the south-south-east ; other such small mounts are found near to the castle mounts of Walford and Eardis- land. These smaller mounts may be burial tumuli, but as no other tumuli exist in their neighbourhood it is unlikely ; probably they had some connexion with the greater defensive mounts near. 230
