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WALL HILLS, LEDBURY. 

 By Dr. Bull. 



". . . . the good old rule 

 Sufficeth them, the simple plan, 

 That they should take who have the power, 

 And they should keep who can." — Wordsworth. 



Fkw things are more remarkable in Herefordshire than the number and strength of 

 the entrenchments scattered through the county. There is scarcely a hill of any 

 importance without its camp ; and there is scarcely a plain or a valley, without 

 its barrows or tumuli, which indicate so sadly the scenes of battles fought there. 

 The formation of these camps date back to a period so remote, that their names 

 and localities are not even recorded, and they may be said truly to have no 

 definite individual history. There are not any British authorities of so early 

 a period to be relied on, and the only true relation of the proper sequence of 

 events, with their right dates, is gi ven by the Roman historians, and refer solely 

 to the time of the Roman occupation of this country. Herefordshire beyond 

 question was the chief theatre of the great struggles made so bravely, and with 

 such perseverance by the Silurians against the Roman invaders. It was the ad- 

 vanced battlefield of the Silurians, and, in its northern part, of the Ordovices also, 

 but the account given by Tacitus has cast so great a halo of romance and hero 

 worship around the name of their first great leader, Caractacus, as to throw into 

 the shade the history of all later struggles, and their leaders, Romans and Britons, 

 are alike proud of his great energy and bravery as a soldier ; they sympathise 

 with his misfortunes and the treachery that delivered him into the hands of his 

 enemies ; and especially do they admire his noble and manly bearing before the 

 Emperor and the people at Rome. Thus, dazzled by the brilliancy of his charac- 

 ter, every camp in the county whose entrenchments are oblong, or follow the 

 irregular outline of the hills, is a British camp — a camp of Caractacus : whilst 

 every one with rectangular sides is Roman — a camp of Ostorius Scapula ; and the 

 existing chain of camps thus differing in shape, in proximity to each other, so 

 well bears out the idea, that men are contented to say, that they trace out the 

 march of Caractacus followed by Ostorius, as if there was no fighting after the 

 time of Caractacus ; as if the camps had always remained as originally constructed, 

 or as if no other invaders had ever reached Herefordshire and occupied the strong 

 positions they found there. 



The Woolhope Club has recently taken up the subject, and it will be well to 

 give briefly such leading facts and dates of early history as may serve to elucidate 

 the many signs of warfare that exist around us. 



The early history of Britain begins with the invasion of the Romans under 

 Julius Caesar, a.a.o. 55, and again the next year, A.A.C. 54. He found it occu- 

 pied by many rulers, whose rival jealuusies neutralised their bravery and insured 

 his own success. An interval of 97 years then occurs, during which all that is 



