The line of the Trent on its passage through Staffordshire was amply fortified. Stafford, otherwise Chebsey castle, constructed by the Conqueror, probably upon the burh thrown up by Eathelflaeda in 913, was destroyed before the date of the Survey, and was, therefore, probably not a work in masonry. The town was fortified. The castle of the Barons Stafford was near the town, but outside it. Its foundations are original. Of the Ferrers castles Chartley is only indicated by a mound. Beaudesert and Burton are destroyed. Tamworth, their chief seat, as that of the Marmions before them, still retains its shell keep and part of the curtain wall, remarkable for its herringbone masonry. It was a royal Saxon residence in the eighth century, and the mound on which stands the keep was thrown up in 931. As at Wareham and Wallingford, it is placed near the river in one corner of a rectangular earthwork open on that side. Tutbury, also a Ferrers castle, occupied a natural knoll above the Trent, raised on one side by an artificial burh, and covered on the other by extensive works in earth of early date, probably original. The present masonry is chiefly the work of John of Gaunt, but the fine old Priory church, founded by the early lords, still stands just outside the ditch. Lichfield is reputed to have had a castle at the south end of the town. At the north end is the cathedral, “Lichfield’s moated pile,” defended by a broad and deep ditch, and on one side by a lake or pool. It is not improbable that these works, which are rectangular in plan, were executed by the Romanised Britons, and that their existence caused the selection of this spot as the seat of the bishopric. The Bishop’s castle of Eccleshall has lately been alienated. There was a castle at Heley, and at Alton, now Alton Towers, and at Stourton. Of the castle of Newcastle-under-Lyne, held by the Earl of Chester for John, all trace is lost.