Page:VCH Staffordshire 1.djvu/400

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A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE SCALE. OF FEET O IOO 20O 309 Cattle SECTIONS. TAMWORTH CASTLE much encroached upon. There is also a certain amount of proof that there were further works between the mound and the rivers. This is a case of castle, town, and church within one protective fence, and with gates under authoritative control, the castle itself most probably having its own additional outworks. The altitude is 206 ft. above the Ordnance datum. TUTBURY. The castle owes its majestic situation to the hill on which it stands. Its strength of position is due first to its main boundary, lining with the upper edge of a precipitous cliff of about 1 80 yds. length, and next, to the immense sunken fosse circling the remainder of its boundary in places 95 ft. wide and 38 ft. deep, and running into the cliff at each of its extremi- ties. Roughly speaking, the castle site is that of a semicircle with cliff across its diameter of 180 yds., and an extraordinary fosse skirting its circumference having a radius of looyds. This fosse has been dug through the hill of red 356