It appears, then, that from an early period, certainly from the ninth century, it was a common practice in constructing a strong place, whether a private dwelling or a military post, to place it upon the summit of a mound, and to surround both the mound and an appended enclosure with defences of earth, and that in many, probably for some time in all, cases the building within and the defences around such places were of timber, and indeed, so far as they stood on made ground, necessarily so. Sometimes probably, when the front was more extended, as when a small pasture ground attached to the main fortress was to be protected from sudden assaults, recourse was had to a "haia" or clausura."
In viewing one of these moated mounds we have only to imagine a central timber house on the top of the mound, built of half trunks of trees set upright between two waling pieces at the top and bottom, like the old church at Greensted, with a close paling around it along the edge of the table top, perhaps a second line at its base, and a third along the outer edge of the ditch, and others not so strong upon the edges of the outer courts, with bridges of planks across the ditches, and huts of "wattle and dab" or of timber within the enclosures, and we shall have a very fair idea of a fortified dwelling of a thane or franklin in England, or of the corresponding classes in Normandy from the eighth or ninth centuries down to the date of the Norman Conquest.
The existence of these mounds in distinct Welsh territory is very curious and requires explanation. That this form of dwelling was in common use among the Welsh is certainly not the case. Where moated mounds occur in Wales it is usually on the border, or near the sea-coast, or in or near the open valleys accessible to the English, which the English or Northmen are known to have invaded in the eighth and ninth centuries. The mound near Llanidloes is an exception, being distinctly within the hills. But that of Tafolwern, from which the Welsh princes dated several charters, is near the open valley. That of Talybont, whence Llewelyn dated a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1275, and which was afterwards visited by Edward the First, is on a plain within easy reach of the sea. Hen Domen and Rhos Diarbed on the Upper Severn are also good examples. Still, as the Welsh princes intermarried and had frequent communication with the English, they must have been familiar with a form of fortification very simple and easy to construct, and yet very capable of being. held against a sudden attack. It must be observed, also, that the English hold upon the Welsh border
