All this may sound conclusive, but it is impossible to reconcile the surroundings of the present house with the exact description given by Seacome. In spite of his usual inaccuracy in recording events it seems impossible that such a description as he gives, evidently that of an eye witness, can be incorrect except perhaps in one or two details. His exact words may be quoted:—
"As to the situation of Lathom House it stands upon a flat, upon a moorish springy and spumous ground, and was encompassed with a strong wall of two yards thick; upon the walls were nine towers flanking each other and in every tower were six pieces of ordnance that played three one way and three the other; without the wall was a moat eight yards wide and two yards deep; upon the back of the moat between the wall and the graff was a strong row of palisades around. Besides all these, there was a high strong tower, called the Eagle Tower, in the midst of the house surmounting all the rest; and the gate house had also two high and strong buildings with a strong tower on each side of it.... Besides all that has hitherto been said of the walls, towers, moat, etc., there is something so particular and romantic in the general situation of this house as if nature herself had formed it for a stronghold or place of security; for before the house to the south and south-west is a rising ground so near it as to overlook the top of it, from which it falls so quick that nothing planted against it on those sides can touch it further than the front wall; and on the north and east sides there is another rising ground, even to the edge of the moat, and then falls away so quick, that you can scarce, at the distance of a carbine shot, see the house over that height; so that all the batteries placed there are so far below it as to be of little service against it: and let us observe by the way that the uncommon situation of it may be compared to the palm of a man's hand, flat in the middle, and covered with a rising round about it, and so near to it that the enemy, during the siege, were never able to raise a battery against it, so as to make a breach in the wall practicable to enter the house by way of storm." ("House of Stanley," p. 90.)
Either Seacome invented all the above, or the present Lathom House is not only not on the old site, but it is not anywhere near to it. For it is impossible to suppose that the nature of the ground can have changed so entirely. The soil round the present Lathom House is not marshy but sandy, and it is not hilly but flat. There is a very slight slope away from the front of the house to the south, and also to the north, but on no side is there any place which can possibly be supposed to answer to Seacome's description. Moreover the so-called moat is by no means convincing. It is conceivable that a moat may have been considerably filled in since the seventeenth century, but the wall which now supports the bank is not high and the stone looks new; Seacome's eight yards wide and two yards deep could hardly have so shrunk.
In the woods recently planted, which began about half a mile south of the present house, is an evidently artificial ditch, some 250 yards in length, bending slightly in the middle and running roughly E. and W. and N.E. and S.W. This is known as Cromwell's Trench, and the tradition is said to be an ancient one; there is also at some distance a large block of stone containing on its upper surface two hollows which are said to have been used for casting bullets; this is locally known as Cromwell's Stone. It may be noted that Roby's reference to the site, though he evidently visited it, is not quite accurate. He says "It is said that the camp of the besiegers was in a woody dell near what is now called the 'Round O Quarry' about half a mile from Lathom. This dell is still called 'Cromwell's Trench'; and a large and remarkable stone, having two circular hollows or holes on its upper surface, evidently once containing nodules of iron, is called 'Cromwell's Stone,' the country people supposing these holes were used as moulds for casting bullets during the siege." ("Traditions of Lancashire," 5th ed., 1811, vol. i, p. 315.)
Actually the trench is rather more than half a mile from Lathom but the Stone is a quarter of a mile from the Trench, and the Quarry is at least a mile further off again. But Roby evidently thought that the old house was at a considerable distance from the present one, for his imaginary view[135] is taken "from a hill above the valley or trench where it is said the main army of the besiegers was encamped." The present house cannot be seen from the edge of the woods.
Roby's view seems to the present writer to give approximately the site of the old House. Accepting the Trench tradition as correct, it fixes the position of the House somewhere in the immediate vicinity, for 17th century siege guns were so poor that the besiegers' camp must have been quite close to the walls. It is of course possible that the Trench is that made during the second siege which the "Discourse" says was a good distance from the walls, but even so there would be no point at all in having it more than half a mile away. Moreover the character of the ground at this point is both hilly and marshy just as in Seacome's description. It seems, therefore, most reasonable to suppose that the site of old Lathom House was somewhere in the woods, but on account of the undergrowth it is not possible to determine its exact position.[136]
In the gardens at Lathom are many pieces of cut stone which have come from the old building, and in one place has been pieced together the upper tracery of a large window, perhaps from the chapel.