Scergeat has not yet been identified. Mr Kerslake argued with some probability that Shrewsbury is the place;[76] but the etymological considerations are adverse, and it is more likely that such an important place as Shrewsbury was fortified before Edward’s time. Leland calls it Scorgate, and says it is “about Severn side.”[77] It should probably be sought within the frontier of Watling Street, which Ethelfleda does not appear to have yet crossed in 911.
Bridgenorth is undoubtedly the Bricge of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as Florence of Worcester identifies it with the Bridgenorth which Robert Belesme fortified against Henry I. in 1101.[78] Bridgenorth is on a natural fortification of steep rock, which would only require a stout wall to make it secure against all the military resources of the 10th century. We may therefore be quite certain that it was here Ethelfleda planted her borough, and not (as Mr Eyton unfortunately conjectured) on the mound outside the city, in the parish of Oldbury.[79] This mound was far more probably the site of the siege castle (no doubt of wood) which was erected by Henry I. when he besieged the city.[80]
Tamworth was an ancient city of the Mercian kings, and therefore may have been fortified before its walls were rebuilt by Ethelfleda.[81] The line of the ancient town-wall can still be traced in parts, though it is rapidly disappearing. Dugdale says the town ditch was 45 feet broad. Tamworth was a borough at the time of Domesday.
Stafford has a motte on which stood a Norman castle; but this is not mentioned in the table, because it stands a mile and a half from the town on the southern side of the river Sowe, while we are expressly told by Florence that Ethelfleda’s borough was on the northern side, as the town is now. Stafford was a Domesday borough; some parts of the mediæval walls still remain. The walls are mentioned in Domesday Book.[82]
Eddisbury, in Cheshire ([Fig. 4]), is the only case in which the work of Ethelfleda is preserved in a practically unaltered form, as no town or village has ever grown out of it. The burh stands at the top of a hill, commanding the junction of two great Roman roads, the Watling Street from Chester to Manchester, and the branch which it sends forth to Kinderton on the east. As a very misleading plan of this work has been published in the Journal of the British Archæological Association for 1906, the burh has been specially surveyed for this book by Mr D. H. Montgomerie, who has also furnished the following description:—
“This plan is approximately oval, and is governed by the shape of the ground; the work lies at the end of a spur, running S.E. and terminating in abrupt slopes to the E. and S. The defences on the N. and W. consist of a ditch and a high outer bank, the proportions of these varying according to the slope of the hill. There are slight remains of a light inner rampart along the western half of this side. The remains of an original entrance (shown in Ormerod’s Cheshire) are visible in the middle of the N.W. side, beyond which the ditch and outer bank have been partially levelled by the encroachments of the farm buildings. The defences of the S. side seem to have consisted of a long natural slope, crowned by a steeper scarp, cut back into the rock, and having traces of a bank along its crest. The S.E. end of the spur presents several interesting details, for it has been occupied in mediæval times by a small fortified enclosure, whose defences are apt to be confused with those of the older Saxon town. The rock makes a triangular projection at this end, containing the foundations of mediæval buildings,[83] and strengthened on the N.E. by a slight ditch some 7 to 10 feet below the crest; the rock on the inner side of this ditch has been cut back to a nearly vertical face, while on the outer bank are the footings of a masonry wall extending almost to the point of the spur. There are traces of another wall defending the crest on the N.E. and S.; but the base of the triangle, facing the old enclosure, does not appear to have been strengthened by a cross ditch or bank.
“It may be noted that this enclosure presents not the slightest appearance of a motte. It is at a lower level than the body of the hill, and belongs most certainly to the Edwardian period of the masonry buildings.”
Eddisbury, Cheshire.
