NOTES ON ANCIENT DEFENSIVE EARTHWORKS. 153
on the Bagshot Beds, which are mainly sandy. The larger of
these two tracts is that on which Hadleigh, Rayleigh and part of
Hockley stand. At Hadleigh are the remains of a 13th century
castle, and at Rayleigh are massive defensive earthworks which
have never heen crowned with masonry, though Rayleigh is the
only Essex Castle mentioned in Domesday Book. As the earth-
works at Pleshey and Great Canfield must have existed at that
time, it is evident that to the compilers of Domesday the castle
meant the buildings on the earthworks and not the earthworks
themselves, even though the buildings were but of wood, not of
brick or stone. As to plan, there is at Rayleigh a high circular
mound connected by a narrow neck with a much larger and
lower horse-shoe shaped entrenchment, a deep ditch surrounding
both. In addition there are some remains of outer works. This
general similarity of plan between Great Canfield, Pleshey and
Rayleigh makes the omission of all but the last named the more
significant. As it is stated in Domesday that "in hoc manerio
fecit Suenus suum castellum," it has usually been held (forgetful
of this omission) that Suene made the earthworks as well as the
buildings which once rested upon them. Suene was a great land
owner, holding, Morant tells us, 55 Lordships in Essex, and all
that he probably did was to rebuild or restore the wooden
structures and palisades of Rayleigh Castle when he made it his
chief residence.
And we may infer that at the time of the Domesday
Survey the buildings on the mounds of Great Canfield and
Pleshey had been neglected and allowed to decay and perhaps
disappear. At least they were unhabitable. This seems to me
to give in itself a presumption against the view that the earth-
works of Great Canfield and Pleshey were made or greatly
modified by the Saxons. For supposing the buildings on them
to have been burnt or destroyed by the Danes, yet, as Essex
seems to have been free from Danish incursions during the
period of 70 years between the battle of Assandun and the
compilation of Domesday book, it is hardly probable that, if
they had been the residences of Saxon landowners, they
would not have been made habitable before the last-named event.
If wooden buildings are more easily destroyed than structures of
brick or stone, they are also much more easily and cheaply
rebuilt.
The site of Rayleigh Castle on the small tract of high
ground between the Thames and the Crouch, is one that must