ON THE BRITISH ANTIQUITIES OF WARWICKSHIRE. 185 



has been found to extend through Gloucestershire and a part of 

 Somersetshire, from the Avon, at Bristol, to Meon Hill, near the 

 borders of this county ; and along and beyond the Edge Hill range, 

 may be traced a series of fortresses traversing the country from east 

 to west, some British and some Roman, of which those at Nadbury 

 and Br.iiles, are two ; and on the Ilmington Hill is a square earth- 

 work, called Nabworth Camp, apparently Roman, but too small for 

 a camp, being, in its dimensions, not more than thirty yards square, 

 the angles of which are rounded, and the works very slight ; and as 

 the view from this place is commanding, and it is but a short dis- 

 tance from the camp on JNIeon Hill, where, a few years ago, a ma- 

 gazine of Roman arms was discovered, I look upon this to have been 

 a mere exploratory post appended to the more important position 

 on IMeon Hill ; and I am inclined to be of opinion that the camp 

 at Chesterton, on the Foss road, was constructed at this period as 

 an advance -post. 



On the hills about Alcester-on-the-Alne, the Alauna of the Ro- 

 mans, are earthworks which I imagine to have been the original 

 positions occupied by the Britons before they descended into the 

 vale. One of these, which lies on the south-west of Alcester, is 

 Oversley, a word of British etymology ; and about a mile to the 

 north of Alcester is another, called Danes Bank. An entrench- 

 ment, also called Danes Bank, or Danes Camp, lies about five miles 

 south of Birmingham, and about half a mile from Solihull Lodge. 

 This is noted down in the Ordnance Survey, and, from the descrip- 

 tion given of it by the historian of Birmingham, I should conceive 

 it to have been British, since he speaks of it as situated upon an 

 eminence, and as being about nine acres in extent, nearly triangular 

 in form, and a production of great labour. 



Danes Bank, or Danes Camp is an appellation frequently given 

 to ancient earthworks ; are we from thence to conclude that these 

 were Danish ? I think not ; I doubt exceedingly whether the 

 Danes, in their predatory incursions into the interior of the 

 country, threw up the numerous entrenchments ascribed to them. 

 Much rather is it to be supposed that, where they could, they occu- 

 pied some of the ancient British or Roman camps, with which the 

 ' country abounded, than that they should entirely form new and ex- 

 tensive fortifications, at the cost of immense labour, and thaf, too, at 

 a time when their stay was never destined to be permanent, but 

 uncertain, and of short duration ; and the remembrance of their 

 occupancy would thus be traditionally handed down, by imparting 

 their much -dreaded name to the place. 



