Every castle in this district has a ley passing over it, and originated in a sighting tump, upon which the keep was afterwards built when some lord selected this as a desirable site for a defensive home. If a large tump, there were usually some excavations which were developed and extended into real defensive works.
The word castle is applied to many tumps (as in Moccas Park), where no building has ever existed, and to farms (as Castle Farm, Madley), where there are signs of a tump, but merely a homestead round it.
Where the word castle is part of a genuine place name, there was a sighting mound.