C17 gun platform. <1> Investigation of a spur of land known as `The Old Castle' which juts out towards the Balkerne Gate. "On topographical grounds there is the highest probability that it must have been from hereabouts that Fairfax's gunners let fly at St Marys (1648)" and there is reason to expect that the gun site would have been on this spur. Excavation revealed a metalled platform c.1" thick sunk into the surface of the glacial sand with a probability not fully checked that the soil removed in the process had been thrown forward to form a mound on the brow of the spur. The platform covered an area c.140 sq yds. Of the post Roman remains clay pipe fragments were almost as numerous as pottery, the date range for the former 1680-1730. <2><4>