Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/376

358 land on which the crowning fortress was built. This ridge, jutting out like a peninsula from the long line of escarpment, commands a far view up and down the valley, and a still more extensive one over the verdant and undulating heights which form its opposite horizon.

Besides the attractions which nature so profusely displayed in this variety of prospect, the neighbouring preserves of Dene, Brygstock, Cliff, Benefield, and Geddington, were abundantly stocked with the hart and the roe, and here the English monarchs, from the Conqueror to the last of the Plantagenets, were continually accustomed to repair for the sake of following with less interrupted ardour the pleasures of the chace. It is more than likely that this contiguity to the royal demesnes originally induced William the First to erect on the confines of Rockingham Forest a castle, to which he and his successors might retire when, disencumbered of the burdens of the state, they wished to enjoy the sports of the field. Although the forest of Rockingham has been much denuded since the time when the English monarchs made it so frequently the scene of their diversions, many venerable trees, scattered throughout the unreclaimed district, towering above the underwood, serve to point out its ancient boundaries. The deer are but rarely visible in the old enclosures, but within the limits of the romantic park, surrounding the castle, numerous herds of the same breed may yet be observed bounding in their native wildness amid the waving avenues of beech and sunless