Page:Medieval Military Architecture in England (volume 1).djvu/97

 Castles at the Latter Part of the Twelfth Centttry, 81 rather later addition, of the age of the gatehouse on the dam, and of the curious earthwork covering its head. The central earthworks are probably very early. Of Maxtoke, also a Clinton castle, there are remains. Of the castle at Fillongley, the chief seat of the Lords Hastings till they married the heiress of Cantelupe, and removed to Abergavenny, only a few fragments remain. Ralph Gernon had a castle at Coventry. Brownsover, Sekington, and Fullbrook castles were probably adulterine, and are known only by vague tradition, and it is doubtful whether the castle of the De Castellos included the burh at Castle Bromwich or was on the site of the later manor house. The burh at Sekington is very perfect. The Limesis had a castle at Solihull, of which the moat long remained, as had the Coleshills at that place. The Birminghams had a castle in the manor of that name, near the church ; there were early castles at Erdington, at Studley on the Arrow, and at Oversley, long the seat of the Butlers, whose ancestor was " Pincerna " to the Earls of Leicester. Beldesert, built by Thurstan de Montfort soon after the Conquest, received a market from the Empress Maud, and Dugdale mentions Simili Castle, probably the seat of a family of that name. Ragley was a later castle. Coventry was strongly walled. The line of the Trent on its passage through Staffordshire was amply fortified. Stafford, otherwise Chebsey castle, constructed by the Conqueror, probably upon the burh thrown up by Eathelflaeda in 913, was destroyed before the date of the Survey, and was, therefore, probably not a work in masonry. The town was fortified. The castle of the Barons Stafford was near the town, but outside it. Its foundations are original. Of the Ferrers castles Chartley is only indi- cated by a mound. Beaudesert and Burton are destroyed. Tamworth, their chief scat, as that of the Marmions before them, still retains its shell keep and part of the curtain wall, remarkable for its herringbone masonry. It was a royal Saxon residence in the eighth century, and the mound on which stands the keep was thrown up in 931. As at Ware- ham and Wallingford, it is placed near the river in one corner of a rectangular earthwork open on that side. Tut- bury, also a Ferrers castle, occupied a natural knoll above the Trent, raised on one side by an artificial burh, and covered on the other by extensive works in earth of early date, probably original. The present masonry is chiefly the work of John of Gaunt, but the fine old Priory church, founded by the early lords, still stands just outside the ditch. Lichfield is reputed to have had a castle at the south end of G