Page:Hawarden Castle (guide).djvu/6

2 end of the first high ground that rises west of the Dee. It includes the commencement of a wooded ridge, which runs for some way parallel to the estuary, and then trends inland to be lost in the higher country around Northop.

The castle stands at the south-west end of a considerable area of level sward, upon which is built the later house of Hawarden, and which, with a deep ravine bounding it on the south and west, is included in the park.

The ground occupied by the castle and its earth-works covers an irregular circle of about 150 yards diameter. It rises steeply about 50ft. from the level area, and almost abruptly 150 ft. to 200 ft. from the ravine that protects it on the south, south-east, and west.

At the central and highest point of this ground, composed in part of rock and in part of the red sandy soil of the district, has been formed by scarping down, with perhaps some little addition in height, a conical mound, the flat top of which is about 70 ft. diameter, having steep slopes all around. On the north-east side, or that towards the house, the descent is about 30 ft. at which level is a platform occupied by the main ward of the fortress, and beyond it, near the foot of a further but gentle slope, a broad and deep ditch, dry and wholly artificial, which sweeps round this the weakest side, and cuts it off from the area already mentioned.

About the other two-thirds of its circumference, towards south and west, the mound descends rapidly to the ravine, but on its way the slope is broken by concentric banks, ditches, and shelves, of somewhat irregular height, depth, and configuration, owing no doubt to their having been originally natural, but converted and strengthened by art.

This kind of fortification by mound, bank, and ditch is well known both in England and Normandy, and was in use in the ninth and tenth, and even in the eleventh centuries, before masonry was general. The mound was crowned with a strong circular house of timber, probably constructed like the walls of Greenstead chancel, and such as in the Bayeux tapestry the soldiers are attempting to set on fire. The court below and the banks beyond the ditches were fenced with palisades and defences of that character.

The Normans in Normandy, towards the middle of the eleventh century, and in England a little later, and onwards