no 



never have been fully carried out ? and if not, does the abandonment of it mark 

 tbe transition in British Fortifications from stone walls to earthworks ? and 

 again does this siiggest the probable period of the work?" 



I have dwelt on this subject although it relates rather to the Brown than 

 to this Clee hill, because that it is improbable that the Club could manage a 

 journey to that more remote region, and yet individual members may, in conse- 

 quence of these remarks, have theii- attention drawn to the subject, for I must 

 admit that unless oiu- attention was especially drawn to the existence of these 

 circles they would not force themselves upon it. There can be no doubt of their 

 existence, and they can even be measui'ed accurately across, but they are merely 

 indicated by occasional stones of no very great size peeping through the turf, and 

 my own impression is that they are of no very great antiquity. Although Mr. 

 Hartshorn traces them up to the Druids, and invests them with very awful and 

 mysterious attribiites, he tells us in a note that an old man whom he met told 

 him that these circles were nothing like so perfect now as he recollected them 

 to have been. One would think that if they had fallen so much to ruin in the 

 life of an individual man, it is not probable they can have existed from such 

 profound antiquity as Druidical times. 



The summit of these hills has evidently for ages been the scene of coal 

 mining operations, and it appears to me most probable that in these very 

 irregular circles we have nothing more or less than the foimdations of the 

 hovels of the miners. 



Camden has the following notice of this district : — 



"■RTien Temd now is leaving Shropshire behind it, not farre from the bankes 

 thereof there raise themselves up northward certaine hills of easie ascent. Cleehill they 

 call them, much commended for yielding the best Early in great plenty, neither are they 

 without Iron mines ; at the descent whereof is a village called Cleybxiry Hugh Mortimer 

 built a castle, which King Henry Second forthwith so rased (because it was a nourseiy 

 of sedition,) that scarce there remaine any tokens thereof at this day; also hard by 

 standeth Kinlet, where the Blunts flourish. Their name in this tract is very great, so 

 -siruamed at first of their yellow hahe ; the family noble and ancient, and the branches 

 thereof farre spread." 



Leland, in his "Itinerary," fol. 89b., has the following: — 



" No great plenty of wood in Cle Hills, yet there is sufficient brnshe wood. Plenty 

 of Coal Yerth Stone, nether exceeding good far Lyme, whereof there they make much 

 and serve the contre about. Cle Hills come within 3 good myles of Ludlow. The village 

 of Oleybyri standythe in the Kootes by Est of Cle Hills, 7 myles from Ludlow, in the 

 way to Beaudelay. There was a Castle in Cleberie nighe the Church by North. The Plot 

 is yet cauled the Castell Dike. There be no Market Townes in Cle Hills. The highest 

 part of Cle Hills is cawlyd Tyderstone. In it is a fayre playne greene, and a fountain 

 in it. There is another Hill a three miles distant from it caulyd the Brown Cle. There is 

 a chace for Deare. There is another cawlyd Caderton Cle, and there be many Hethe Cokks 

 and a broket caxtlyd Mille Brokcet springethe in it and afar goithe into a Broket called 

 Rhe, and Ehe into Tende by neth Tende Bridge, There be some Bio Shopps to make 

 Yren upon the Eipes or Bankes of Mylbroke comynge out of Caderton Cle or Casset 

 Wood." 



The "Bio Shopps" were evidently blast furnaces for smelting iron, traces 

 of which are to be found of an early date, though not, according to Mr. Wm. 

 Purton, in the place mentioned by Leland. Lastly, as to the name Clee, though, 

 perhaps, with this I ought to have commenced, Mr. Purton appears to incline 



