  We investigate the effects that starspots have on the light curves of
eclipsing binaries and in particular how they may affect the accurate
measurement of eclipse timings. Concentrating on systems containing a low-mass
main-sequence star and a white dwarf, we find that if starspots exhibit the
Wilson depression they can alter the times of primary eclipse ingress and
egress by several seconds for typical binary parameters and starspot
depressions. In addition, we find that the effect on the eclipse ingress/egress
times becomes more profound for lower orbital inclinations. We show how it is
possible, in principle, to determine estimates of both the binary inclination
and depth of the Wilson depression from light curve analysis
  The effect of depressed starspots on the O-C diagrams of eclipsing systems is
also investigated. It is found that the presence of starspots will introduce a
`jitter' in the O-C residuals and can cause spurious orbital period changes to
be observed. Despite this, we show that the period can still be accurately
determined even for heavily spotted systems.
