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 ANCIENT EARTHWORKS round hill where the keep or dungeon stood is clean hole.' 1 The Lysons write, ' The keep of the castle is of considerable height, and adjoining it are large earthworks.' 2 Rev. W. Monkhouse in 1854 wrote to contest the view that there was ever a castle here, 3 but he had only a stone structure in his view, and he does not appear to have examined the examples we have just described. No traces of earthworks now appear in connection with the mound, but the fields adjoining have been extensively worked out for brick earth. Old inhabitants describe a smaller mound which stood close to the one remaining, which was actually removed for the purpose named. The mound, about 20 feet high, is semi-spherical, though the summit has a small flat space on it made in recent times. There are no signs of a surrounding moat. 4 It should be noted here that the name Hrisingr is Scandinavian, and that baugr, pronounced hoy, is Old Norse and Icelandic for a mound or barrow ; in Danish hoj. The many instances of this suffix in the place-names of the county on the Danish side of Alfred's boundary is re- markable. Thus Staploe, Duloe or Devilhoe, 6 Keysoe, Bletsoe, Backnoe, Segenhoe, Sharpenhoe and Silsoe, as well as the mounded sites referred to. Strip Totternhoe and Cainhoe of their outer works, and the result would be similar to the isolated mound of Risinghoe. Excavation only can make known whether these barrow-like mounds may not have been in existence prior to their incorporation with subsequent strongholds. Hows were constructed in Viking times for observation as well as for burial. ' There was usually a how near the houses, from which the master could look over his estate.' 8 At Roxton there is a mound of unusual shape known as * Round Hill,' which is a prominent object owing to the fence of large closely planted elms which surrounds it. It is 40 feet in diameter by some 4 feet in height, with slight slopes and a flat top, and it stands in the midst of cultivated fields. It has no ditch and its purpose is unknown. (0 MANORIAL HOLDS WITH MOUNDS OF VARIOUS SHAPES (1) Eaton Socon. ' The Hillings.' — This formidable work, which has been illustrated and described by Mr. G. T. Clark, stands on the west bank of the Ouse about 4 miles north of Tempsford, and has certain distinctive features of its own. Its two inner wards are both mounded up some 1 5 feet above the outside level, and it is without the isolated moated keep-mound of the examples previously described. ' The work,' to quote Mr. Clark, ' is composed of three parts, an inner, northern and outer ward. The inner and northern wards lie side by side upon the river, separated by a cross 1 Dr. Prior on Earthworks of Bedfordshire, Beds Arch. Soc. 1886. 2 Mag. Brit. i. 89. 3 Beds Arch. Soc. (1854), P- 157- 4 Almost all Goldington, in 10S6, belonged to Hugh de Beauchamp (who held the mill in de- mesne), his predecessor, Ralf Talgebosc, having obtained it in exchange for Ware. — J.H.R. 6 Alwin surnamed Deule held Pertenhall according to the Domesday Book (see Introduction to the Domesday Survey, p. 215). 8 Vigfussen's Icelandic Dictionary, p. 241 ; sustained by passages from the Sagas. I 297 38