More information : [TQ 9545 5786] Castle Mound. Bailey attached on south. (1)
On the site of the windmill (shown on O S 6" 1876) adjoining Champion Court, Newnham, there is a mound 5 ft high and 38 paces in diameter surrounded by a ditch 15 ft deep. An outwork, consisting of a semi-circular ditch, is shallower than and connects at its extremities with the ditch surrounding the mound. On the east side, between the ditches a small mound of chalk was removed and found to be "a tumulus containing ashes, human bones, urns and part of a sword and spurs". (2)
Motte and Bailey [NR]. (3)
This motte and bailey was levelled by bulldozer in 1957. The motte has been levelled and the ditch filled in but traces remain. Similarly the bailey has been levelled but the course of the rampart can be clearly traced. (Published 25" survey revised). There is no trace of the 'tumulus' which was probably destroyed during the construction of the C19th Mill Cottages. It may have been no more than a part of the bailey rampart, but some of the recorded finds and the proximity of another enigmatic barrow (TQ 95 NE 7) at least suggest a burial mound. (4)
(TQ 9545 5786) Motte and Bailey [NR] (Site of) [NAT] (5)
All that can now be identified on the ground is a scarp, centred at TQ 9548 5783, which extends for 35m as a slight curve from E to W at the southern end of Mill Cottages garden. It is 1.6m high and 3m long, apparently representing the outer face of the former bailey bank. A further 35m which existed to the W in 1963 has been totally destroyed and planted with orchard trees. (This area, and the motte site is Champion Court property). The OS 25" 2nd Edn. depicts the motte as about 34m in diameter at the base and the bailey on the S as 75m by 50m across. The earthwork, situated on the crest of a steep sided valley has no distant views and was evidently placed in a position that would control the valley road, and Newnham, immediately below. That the motte was subsequently utilised as a mill mound is suggested by the adjacent "Mill Cottages" and in the description given by Payne (see 2 above). (6)
Listed by Cathcart King. (7) |