.............we are standing at the north-west angle or the Saxon fortifications. Poor though this fragment is, it is enough to indicate the position occupied by the important fortress, or burh of Maldon............

On the 30th June 1906 I. Chalkley Gould addressed a meeting of the Essex Archaeological Society in Maldon. The paper he read was later published in the 1909 volume of the society's Transactions. The four page article gives a useful summary of the burh's historical background and includes copies of Strutt's drawings. Gould did admit that '... the ground has been too much disturbed...' to confirm the location with any certainty. In one way this important admission marked the start of the burh hunt. Fitch, writing a few years earlier, could only 'faintly trace' the burh 'overlooking Wintersleet Hill' (Cemetery end of London Road).

In an area which produced such considerable quantities of prehistoric and Romano-British pottery, albeit mainly in residual contexts, the absence or any late Saxon and early medieval material is significant. In respect of the burh, however, no general conclusions should be formed from so small and extensively disturbed a sits as this proved to be……….