LOWER the drawbridge. We're about to march straight back into the old Moss Bank Castle topic, thanks to a couple of knowledgable correspondents.

Reader Ronnie Hardman, a keen local history buff, first opened up the subject a few weeks ago after he had spotted reference to an 'Old Castle' site on an ancient reference map. Its location was shown as being just off Broad Lane, Moss Bank.

And now, two people greatly familiar with that particular dot on the map have chimed in with details galore. One of them even provided a couple of detailed map sketches. They are Elizabeth P. Miller of Coleridge Avenue, Orrell, and S. Bagley who actually lives in Broad Lane. The pair graciously beg to differ over the old castle theory.

Elizabeth says that its possible location, and a well close by, were both sited on property bought in 1936 by her grandmother, Esther Aspinwall. "I have the legal documents, both for that purchase and for the previous one when Richard Southward bought the same land from Sir David Gamble." He of Gamble Institute fame. Having lived at that location for two spells (1940-50 and 1956-60) Elizabeth writes from first-hand knowledge.

The well is shown on a 1955 map, in connection with a tree preservation order. Though any evidence of a castle had long gone, the stone-lined well was open and usable as late as the early 1950s, she says, though surplus to requirement as mains water had been supplied to the district much earlier.

"The water supply from the well was particularly copious," adds our Orrell correspondent, "having provided a supply for the whole of Moss Bank during a drought in the 1800s." Evidence of this is contained in a letter of thanks from the glass-manufacturing Pilkingtons to the land-owning Lord Gerard.

Old building foundations also existed close to the well on the land of Elizabeth's granny. She reckons that these, though, could have been for a humble cottage . . . "and more likely a building put up by quarry workers who worked the site in the 19th-century."

But she adds: "This does not preclude the possibility of there having been a castle or other building, such as a fortified manor house or hunting lodge etc., on the site." With views to north and east in particular, this, she says, would have given early warning of raiders.

Now, over to S .Bagley, who kindly passed on an illustrationof an old map of the area, but who rejects the castle fortification theory. Years ago, he obtained copies of old maps of the area, dating to around 1845, and though not very clear, the main features were certainly legible.

He thanks two good friends, author Mary Presland, of local history fame, for clarifying certain points and Jim Marsh for enlarging the essential area of the map, taking in the Moss Bank location.

Certain of the routes and lanes, and part of the village's character have altered over the centuries, as the map shows. But the position of The Old Castle is clearly marked.

"I believe that the idea of this being of a defensive nature has been mooted, but I cannot really accept that as a realistic argument. Surely a castle of that type would have been built on a high point, but there is a considerable drop between Moss Bank Road and where this 'castle' stood. Not much of a defensive position, I would suggest!"

S. B. thinks The Old Castle could have been an ancient inn. Anyone passing between Billinge and St Helens, in times when travel was mainly on foot, would have appreciated "a spot of tonsil lubrication at about the half-way stage," he suggests.

Certainly, there once was more than the present-day couple of village pubs -- the Black Horse and the Moss Bank. For the map also pinpoints a Gerard Arms Inn, on a stretch of Moss Bank Road which was then known as Pike's Brow. It apparently shut up shop in 1913.

MY grateful thanks to Elizabeth, to S. B. and all others who have contributed to this fascinating topic.