10 



there are several entrencliments siicceecling each other, it is clear that the 

 defences were of the nature of a military fortress, especially where a proertorium 

 or citadel appears, and where the inner trenches might still be maintained, if 

 the outer ones were taken. The single fosse might imply a less permanent occu- 

 pation, or it might siuTound the habitations of a town, which usually had a 

 ditch and a rampart behind it. 



If man commenced a savage life in isolated families, we may believe that 

 rude stone implements for domestic purposes are of earlier date than fortifica- 

 tions, which indicate the existence of associated tribes. I do not, therefore, 

 claim for these Wall HiU trenches any extraordinary remote antiquity, nor do 

 I connect them with military tactics or strategic positions. The name "Wall 

 Hills, too, may be some guide to our deductions, as at all events bringing down 

 the occupation of the jjlace to Saxon times, however long the spot may have been 

 inhabited previously. 



It required a considerable time for the Saxon invaders to obtain per- 

 manent occupation of what we now call England, and the coimties bordering 

 on Wales were not easily subdued, the tide of conquest rolling on and receding 

 from time to time. Borlase and other writers on British affairs have distinctly 

 stated that the Welsh were not entirely driven from the country between 

 the rivers Severn and Wye which includes a great part of Herefordshire, 

 until the reign of King Athelstan, between the years 924 and 939. It is neces- 

 sary to bear this in mind, as proving that the native population had their 

 dwellings in the country and their particular haunts up to the tenth century. 

 These towns and villages would be known to the Saxon invaders, and they 

 would designate them in the same way as the residence of men inimical to them. 

 In the absence of reUcs of tools, weapons, or coins, the archaeologist in some 

 instances is reduced to conjecture as to the nature of the earthworks before him, 

 and the people who occupied them. But it is remarkable that the Eoman 

 soldiery were so well supplied with coin, that in every camp they occxipied they 

 have left money behind them as if carelessly scattered about, a fact that Mr 

 Wright observes is difficult to explain. But this was not so in the British posts 

 where coin was a scarce article, and even weapons, too valuable to be abandoned, 

 unless in death. 



I therefore believe this to have been a British post, and the site rather 

 of a town than of an exact military position ; for every town of permanent 

 occupation would have a surrounding trench. Julius C:esar tell us in his Com- 

 mentaries, that "the Britons call by the name of town a place in the fast- 

 nesses of the woods surrounded by a mound and trench, and calculated to 

 afford them a retreat and protection from hostile invasion." A place like this, 

 rather secluded than strong, seems well enough to agree with Csesar's statement. 



But without absolutely insisting that we have here the site of British or 

 Silurian town of ante-Roman age, I am inclined to believe that the name of 

 Wall Hills given to it points out that it was occupied by the natives of 



