ANCIENT DEFENSIVE EARTHWORKS courses of the little streams which surround it upon three of its sides ; the advantages offered by these natural defences would seem to explain the selection of the existing site for the stronghold in preference to higher ground available close at hand. Though the area within the ramparts has been frequently ploughed, there is no record of any antiquities having been unearthed here to throw light upon the age of the entrenchments ; from their general appear- ance, however, they would seem to be of early origin, and intermediate between the two types previously described under letters B l and B u . Perhaps the former name of ' Danes' Camp ' may point to a temporary occupation of the more ancient stronghold by these people. HOB'S MOAT. At the northern end of this extensive parish are to be seen some ancient en- trenchments of quite a different age and type, and nowknown as above. In Dugdale's time the place was called Hogg's Moat, 1 and Hutton re- cords that it was once called Odingsell's Moat, a name preserved in the adjoining farmhouse called Odensil, and also recalling certain owners of the estate in the thir- teenth century. These entrench- ments are oblong SOLIHULL SCALE OF FEET 100 200 300 in shape and enclose an interior area of about 2 acres ; they consist of a double rampart with an intervening fosse which, together, cover about 2 acres more. A century ago there were remains of a second fosse beyond the outer rampart, and Hutton relates that the total area covered by the earthworks and their enclosure was 5 acres ; he described the inner moat as very formidable, about 20 feet deep and 90 feet across from the crown of one bank to that of the other. 2 There are now no signs of any building within this moated area ; nor were there any 250 years ago, when Dugdale visited the spot and Dugdale's Warvi. p. 662. a Hutton's B'kam. pp. 414-16. .-...,< 395
