h mound that commands the town
on every side, and the Priory as well. Only fragments of the walls
remain of the keep erected here by Richard de Redvers, who died in
1137, although the castle continued to be held by his descendants until
it was granted by Edward III to William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury,
who was appointed Constable, an office he held until 1405. During the
tenure by the de Redvers the resident bailiff regulated the tolls,
markets, and fairs at his pleasure, and he also fixed the amount of the
duties to be levied on merchandise. It was not until the reign of the
third Edward that the burgesses were relieved from these uncertain and
arbitrary exactions.

[Illustration: PLACE MILL, CHRISTCHURCH

Place Mill was formerly called "The Old Priory Mill" and is mentioned in
the Domesday Survey]

The east and west walls of the keep remain, ten feet in thickness and
about thirty feet in height. The artificial mound on which they are
raised is well over twenty feet high.

The masonry of the walls is exceedingly rough and solid, for in the days
when they were erected men built for shelter and protection, and not
with the idea of providing themselves with beautiful houses to live in.
The keep was made a certain height, not as a crowning feature in the
landscape, but so that from its top the warder could see for many miles
the glitter of a lance, or the dust raised by a troop of horsemen. One
of the greatest charms of the rough, solid walls of a Norman castle is
that they are so honest and straightforward, and tell their story so
plainly.

Looking over the town from the Castle mound we realize that
Christchurch could correctly be denominated a "moated town", inasmuch as
its two rivers encircle it in a loving embrace. Being so cut off by
Nature with waterways as to be almost an island, it was obviously a
strong position for defence, and a lovely site for a monastery.

A little to the north-east of the Castle, upon a branch of the Avon
which formed at once the Castle moat and the Priory mill stream, stands
a large portion of one of the few Norman houses left in this country. It
is seventy feet long by thirty feet in breadth, with walls of great
thickness. It was built about the middle of the thirteenth century, and
is said, on slight authority, to have been the Constable's house. The
basement story has widely-splayed loopholes in its north and east walls,
and retains portions of the old stone staircases which