Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/439

 The Castle and Barony of Chin, Shropshire. 407 rectangular seems to have been combined a sort of shell keep, a most unusual arrangement. Of this shell there remain two fragments ; one, a considerable one, towards the north-west, is composed of two nearly half-round towers, or rather bastions, with their converse faces outwards, and a short curtain connecting them, which seems to have been the end of a hall, and to contain some later insertions. The bastions are, no doubt, later than the keep. The other fragment is to the south-west, about 12 feet long by 6 feet thick, and 20 feet high. This also formed part of the general encetJite, but connected with it is a small circular mound, thrown up on the edge of the greater one, and wholly artificial. It is about 2 1 feet across at the top, and 1 2 feet to 13 feet high, and possibly carried a small tower ; near it a depres- sion seems to indicate the position of the well. The whole surface of the mound is rough and scarred, as though the area had been covered with buildings, as at Tamworth, and of which the founda- tions had been dug up. The entrance to the mound could only have been on the w^estern side ascending from the south-west. All the other sides are abso- lutely impracticable, and this has been so cut about that every vestige of a road is gone. On the platforms are no traces of walls. They may have had gatehouses of some sort, but the outer defences were probably always of timber. The greater part of the borough, town, or rather village of Clun, is placed to the east— that is, in the rear of the castle ; but there are houses on both banks of the river, which is spanned by an ancient bridge of five ribbed arches, with recesses above over the projecting piers. In this direction, a furlong from the castle, is the fine and mainly Norman church of St. George, with a western tower, strong enough to stand a siege, and in pattern resembling those of More and Hope-Say. iVbout a hundred yards beyond or south of the church is a very remarkable ravine, natural, but which has, at that point, been scarped, and the earth thrown inwards to form a bank. This ravine commences some way above the church, and, becoming deeper and more steep, conveys a considerable brook into the Clun, a little below the town. This ravine adds immensely to the strength of the place. Clun is a borough by prescription, having two bailiffs and a recorder. Recently it possessed a Hundred court for the recovery of small debts, and a court leet. The bailiffs also held a civil court. The Fitz-Alan charter, recognising its prescriptive rights, dates from the reign of Edward II. In the town is an ancient almshouse, founded by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, in 1614; and below it, upon the river, the traces of a very considerable millpool, now dry. Clun is entered in Domesday as held by Picot. Edric had held it. Picot held large possessions (twenty-seven mansions) in the then Hundred of Rinlau, besides Conodovre, Basecherc, and Len- tevrde, under Earl Roger de Montgomery. It appears from Mr. Eyton's researches that Picot was a to-name, and that the grantee,