The wide moat which surrounded it still exists, and reminds us that this mansion was on the site of a great mediaeval castle belonging to the Tony family, from the days of William the Conqueror to those of Henry the Eighth. The manor had once been the property of the ill-fated King Harold, and was given by the Conqueror to Judith, widow of the saintly hero Waltheof, after his judicial murder. The church contains many North monuments, and Kirtling also possesses a pretty little Roman Catholic church, being one of the five "Missions" in Cambridgeshire--along with Cambridge, Ely, Newmarket, and Wisbech. For the Norths still hold, not only their ancient seat, but their ancient Faith. Not far from Kirtling is Wood Ditton; the last word signifying either Ditch Town, or, more probably, Ditch End, for it stands at the upland extremity of the Devil's Dyke. Along this ridge of the East Anglian Heights the primaeval forest was of old so dense that no artificial defence was needed to check the progress of an invading army. It was a veritable wall of oak, and ash, and thorn, and holly, and alder; no route for an army at any time, and where the felling of a few trees across the glades would speedily form an absolutely impenetrable obstacle. Here then the great earthwork, which we saw on Newmarket Heath, ends its ten-mile climb from the Fen at Reach, 350 feet below. Wood Ditton is a picturesque little place, still suggestive of woodland, especially around the flint-built church (constructed in the twelfth century and remodelled in the fifteenth), which has an octagonal steeple of specially graceful poise. A large brass, in somewhat poor condition, dating from 1393, commemorates "Henry Englissh and Wife Margt." Henry was a Knight, and wears what is known as "Camail" armour, which consisted of a series of small steel roundels fastened on to leather, hardened by boiling. Dowsing records (under date March 22, 1643), "We here brake down 50 superstitious pictures and crucifixes. Under the Virgin Mary was written: 'O Mother of God have mercy upon us.'" The neighbouring village of Stetchworth (or Stretchworth) also suffered in Dowsing's visitation. But he failed to notice that one of the two ancient bells in the steeple had a "superstitious" inscription: SANCTA MARGARETA ORA PRO NOBIS. So it remained unshattered, and still hangs in the belfry, where the other bells also have noticeable inscriptions, two bearing the words "God save Thy Church. 1608," and the third OMS.SPT.LAVDA.DNM. ("Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.") This and the Margaret bell are ascribed to the fifteenth century.