Space will not permit us to narrate the varying fortunes of the opposing forces—English and Danes—in the almost incessant struggles which marked the period preceding the Norman Conquest—struggles in which Stamford was held sometimes by one party, sometimes by the other, and not infrequently was in the hands of both, when the river formed the dividing line between the rival camps. In the year 972 Eadgar granted, or, it may be, confirmed to the Abbey of Peterborough the privilege of coining money at Stamford, but the exact position of the mint in the southern part of the town cannot now be determined. It is an interesting and significant fact that coins of the Stamford mint have been met with in considerable numbers in hoards found in Scandinavia.[87] The fortification on the north bank of the Welland was doubtless originally a Danish earthwork, an English stronghold being erected by Alfred in opposition on the south side, near the present Midland Railway Station. When the Danes had secured a foothold they seem to have replaced their earthen defences by stone walls which encircled their settlement. At the present day considerable portions of the Stamford town walls are in existence, though these have obviously been reconstructed from time to time, and nothing earlier than Norman work can be positively identified in the portions still remaining. Perhaps the most striking vestige now to be seen is a round bastion on the west side of the town, near Rutland Terrace. Speed’s map of Stamford (1600) shows eleven towers in the line of the walls, together with seven principal gates and two posterns. The southern town does not appear to have ever been defended by walls, though it had five fortified gates.[88] All the gates in both sections of the town have now been demolished, the last (St. George’s Gate) as lately as 1806. The water-mill, situated near the Castle, was originally built by Edward the Confessor, and is still known as the King’s Mill, though the present structure is of the eighteenth century. Soon after the Conquest the Danish castle was replaced by a substantial Norman building, and the site is still marked by an Early English gate and a portion of the arcaded wall of a chamber which was subsequently used as a manor court. At present the Castle site is occupied by an iron foundry, and it is among the buildings, sheds and heaps of scrap iron connected therewith, that the visitor has to search for what remains of the old mediæval stronghold. It seems a sad pity that a spot of such historic interest and picturesque position should ever have been allowed to fall into the state of unsightly neglect which characterises it to-day.