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The position of Gorsey-liill camp is very similar to that of Risbury, and it 

 was evidently constructed with a like view to the Komau road, and with like 

 "ulterior objects." 



Our business at present, however, is with the S. part of the same hilly 

 plateau, and with its camp of defence at Risbury. 



At one point this road descends into a dell, and is crossed by a shallow 

 brook, which, dividing into two, encloses a little ait (as the Saxons called a river 

 island), and is spanned by a tiny bridge of tlu-ee arches, making up with the 

 wooded hills in the back^'rouud a charming bit for a painter. In ancient times, 

 when the land was densely wooded, no doubt this brook was a river, and the ford 

 was a strategical point, at which an alert enemy might inflict serious loss upon 

 an army passing along the road. Ascend the brook by pursuing the dell to the 

 right, past the mill — itself an antiquity, and the representative of the iniU from 

 which (as Domesday book says) the Norman lord received lOd. out of every four 

 shillings' worth of corn ground — and you find the dell deepen and widen, and on 

 your right, rising to a height of 46ft., is the earthen rampart of Risbury camp. 

 Trace the brook, and you find that it forms the first line of defence against an 

 enemy posted upon the road, and this line is continued until you pass the N. 

 extremity of the camp, where the road stretching onward in a straight line 

 passes out of range. You leave the brook, and passingto the E. notice a broad 

 slope, then a terrace, next a ditch some 5ft. deep, then a second slope or glacis, 

 and then some 40 feet of steep hill-side. Resuming your course eastward, along 

 the lowest glacis, you observe the care and regularity with which the work is 

 executed, and the skill with which the natural advantages of the position are 

 made available. INIore than halfway down the E. side of the fortification, you 

 come upon the main entrance, which is defended by outworks extending for 

 nearly a hundred yards outward from the entrenchments, forming a noble 

 place d^armes. Passing onward, you find this elaborate triple line of entrench- 

 ment continued for some distance, until as the ground descends it becomes less 

 necessary, and then the entrenchment is merely double. Having passed round 

 the S. end of the camp, between it and the mill, you reach the W. entrance, 

 which is narrow, has no approaches, and is plainly designed merely as a sally-port 

 against an enemy on the opposite ridge, along which runs the Roman road. 



Enter the camp, and yo\i see at the first glance that it is a British work 

 from its oval form, analogous to that of the northermnost camp on the same 

 range, on the hill above Pudleston. Risbury, however, was evidently the work 

 of Britons who were far advanced beyond the condition of the men who executed 

 the camp at Backbury, oreven that of Capler. Instead of leaving the summit 

 open, the men who made Risbury camp either raised a bank of earth all round 

 the edge of the precipice or cut down the area within, perhaps did both, thus 

 forming a "breastwork" or parapet of unusual magnitude, being from 5 to 8 

 feet high, affording a sure protection in days when as yet there were no mortars, 



