TQ 8955 4205: Formal garden earthworks associated with Romden Castle. The earthworks consists of a mutilated circular mount, standing to 2.5m in height, with, on its NE side, a circular pond (still holding water) and a narrow, flat-bottomed canal leading back to the house (for some 70m). Some fine detail survives on the mount, including a slight berm which runs around the feature near its base, and a broad ramping effect on its NE side perhaps associated with access to the summit. The earthworks would appear to be C17th or C18th in date, and are associated with Romden Castle at TQ 8966 4210. On the Tithe Award Map of 1838 (a) the mound is shown in plan. It stood in a pasture field named Mount Field, separated from the large circular pond to its NE by the regular arc of a curving field boundary that may have been concentric with the pond and certainly has the appearance of a residual formal feature. At its NW end this boundary linked on to the buildings at Romden Farm (earlier Little Romden): it is represented by the splayed earthwork ditches between the mound and the pond. In 1838 a single pasture field extended up to and around the S, W and E sides of Romden Castle, and stretched away SE in an elongated rectangle, with a pair of angular protrusions part-way along its length, to a formal closure. It was named Romden Walks. (1)

HE archive material: 809289 Romden Gardens/ink survey AF0767781 RCHME: Romden Moat and Gardens, Kent The survey of Romden moat and post-medieval formal gardens was carried out by RCHME Keele in February 1990, for Kent County Council.Contents : 2 plans, reportCondition : INTACT

<1> F1 WRWN 01-FEB-90 (OS Card Reference). SKE43046.

<2> Tithe Award Map 1838 Kent PRO IR 29 & 30/17/332 (OS Card Reference). SKE50568.

<3> Field Report on TQ 84 SE 18 - 01-FEB-1990 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6463.

<5> Romden Gardens/ink survey (Graphic material). SKE6375.

<6> RCHME: Romden Moat and Gardens, Kent (Collection). SKE6482.