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tower on the summit. This tower is easy of ascent, and affords very fine views 

 on all sides. It was intended to be twenty feet higher than it is, but the force 

 of the wind upon it was too great, and the surrounding belt of beech trees had to 

 be planted to protect it. 



The entrenchments of the adjoining camp reached as far as the iron tower, 

 but the late owner of the estate, Mr. Richard Blakemore, paid but little respect 

 to them. He levelled the entrenchments and filled up the ditches to make a 

 straight road into the centre of the camp, and thus destroyed its original configu- 

 ration on this side. 



The Little Doward Camp is of considerable size, including the whole summit 

 of the hUl. The northern position, irregularly oval in shape, with an area of four- 

 teen acres, is enclosed by a single defence on the steep side towards the river, 

 but with double embankments and ditches on the northern and western sides ; to- 

 wards the south the other portion of the camp exists, with an area of six acres, 

 and this part has the natural protection of perpendicular rocks. Several mounds 

 or tumuli are said to exist within and around the camp, and towards the higher 

 portion is a large low square mound, but the whole surface is so irregular and so 

 overgrown with bracken that it would require a much longer time than could then 

 be given to examine them. If the young shoots or fronds of the bracken on the 

 camp were but mown off in the spring after they have shot about a foot from the 

 ground, and once again afterwards for a couple of years, several acres of good 

 fresh herbage could be secured for the deer, and the camp itself would regain 

 much of the interest which is now so sadly obscured. 



Tradition states this camp to be originally British, one of the camps from 

 which Caractacus was driven by the Romans, and that it afterwards became a 

 Roman camp. It is very possible, and mdeed probable, that both surmises are 

 correct, but like most of the camps which occupy the hills of Herefordshire, the 

 history of this one can only be surmised from tradition and from the extent and 

 character of its own entrenchments. If the British occupied it, it was probably 

 as a British town, secured from any sudden seizure by a stockade in addition. 

 The Romans would certainly drive the Britons or anyone else from the camp, 

 since it commanded not only the river below, but the road on the other side, which 

 was their highway from Isca Silurum (C'aerleon) through Blestium (Monmouth) to 

 Ariconium beyond Ross, which last place may be said to have been the Merthyr 

 Tydvil of the Romans. This road is described in the Iter of Antonine. It is very 

 probable, too, that the high position of this camp may have been very useful to 

 the Romans as a signal station, and the square mound may possibly have formed 

 the base of the semaphore signal stand, since the views from it are wide and ex- 

 tensive, and in direct connection, for example, with Monmouth on the one side, 

 and the Chase above Ross camp on the other. There is, however, one great 

 obstacle to the possibility of continuous occupation of this camp by anybody, and 

 that is the want of water. There is no spring on the hill, and therefore any occu- 

 pation must depend on the supply of rain water, unless they could fetch fresh 

 water from the valley. No Roman remains have ever been found in it. 



On the opposite side of the river, on the high ground above the present 



