215 



Here there can be no question as to the meaning of the names Hergin (Er- 

 ffyng) and Genoreu (Gan-y-rhiw), and it seems very possible that Ganice may be a 

 clerical error for Gauioe, or some such equivalent for Gwy, while those acquainted 

 with ancient inaccuracies may perhaps think that in Cloarius we may find the 

 trace of Doanus, and the expression ' oppidum ' is in some sense borne out by the 

 present name of the wood that clothes the south side of the hUl, Dennis (Dinas) 

 Grove. It is not unlikely, as it appears to me, that Geoffrey's acquaintance with 

 so remarkable a hill fortress in his own immediate neighbourhood may have in- 

 duced a wish to introduce it into his history, notwithstanding the received tradi- 

 tion that Vortigem met with his fate, and is buried, in Caernarvonshire 



"I hope that in venturing these remarks, on a subject of great interest to 

 myself. I may not have seemed to trespass too much upon your time, or on the 

 attention of the Woolhope Club, should you consider them worthy of being com- 

 municated to It ; and I remain, dear Sir, yours faithfully, 



"Thomas William Webb." 



LITTLE DOWARD. 



(Extract from a MS. note-book, by the Rev. T. W. Webb, at that time curate of 

 Ganarew, m which parish the camp is situated, dated June 27th, 1850.) 

 "Mr. Blakemore's man, Furber, who remembers the entrenchments before 

 they were touched, told me that the large rampart is called the Great-the smaller 

 one the L.ttle-Bailey (Brili, a mound or court- Welsh). In order to build the 

 iron tower, Mr. Blakemore levelled aU the end of the outer rampart, throwing 

 the earth and stones over on the side of the wood, not back into the camp-it was 

 Bierelya continuous mound to the end of the hill where the tower stands with- 

 out any tumulus at the end. Mr. Blakemore also cut half through the rest of 

 this entrenchment longitudinally. There was always an entrance at the junction 

 of the two valla, and the great entrance farther on is unaltered ; so is the entrance 

 from the one enclosure to the other. The deep trench across which this last-men- 

 tioned interior entrance passes has always been interrupted in places as it is (it 

 strikes me that this might have been to catch rain-water). He recollects and was 

 present at the finding of a quantity of bones. They were three small hand- 

 baskets full-more than a bushel in all-two skulls amongst them, but many 

 appeared to be bones of sheep. They were found twenty yards deep, in what he 

 called an old mine, which Mr. Blakemore cleared out, and where a windlass is 

 still standing. In various other parts, where Mr. Blakemore is now making 

 caves ' on the side over the river, they are still meeting with bones. Somewhere 

 near the entrenchment, Furber and others found a quantity of rusty iron, about 

 SIX feet beneath the surface ; it is, he thinks, at the front door at the Leys, but 

 18 much shorter now than when it was found. No coins have ever been found 

 (Thomas Dance told me some time ago that he had heard that John EUaway had 

 found coins formeriy.) He thinks there are more than six barrows on the summit. 

 (I counted six a short time ago— one in great measure destroyed.")— T.W.W. 



