59 



The Bury Ditches are situated at the summit of a considerable hill of 

 steep approach, though by no means precipitous. These deep ditches or trenches, 

 with lofty embankments between them, surrounds the hiU top and inclose an 

 elliptical space of ground of some three or four acres extent. The different 

 ramparts vary from about twenty to fifty feet in height, and judging from 

 their precipitous sides at this time, and their perfect preservation, they must 

 have stones in abundance mixed with the earth that forms them. To make these 

 ramparts, enclosing as they do, so large a space of ground, must have been a 

 work of prodigious labour, and the result, most certainly, is a fortification of 

 amazing strength. They are difficult of ascent even now, grass grown as they 

 are, and covered with fir trees. In their original state they must have been well 

 nigh impregnable. Here, collecting by a whistle the crowd of visitors to a 

 favourable spot, the President of the Woolhope Club, Chandos Wren Hoskyns, 

 Esq., introduced BIr. Thos. Wright to them, and told them that they would be 

 well rewarded for their toUsome ascent, by the description he would give them of 

 the interesting ground on which they stood. 



REMARKS ON THE BURY DITCHES. 



Mr. Weight then said that the real character of such monuments as they 

 saw before them was but little known. It was a subject that required close 

 examination and a general comparison with similar works, before it was possible 

 to give any trustworthy opinion about them. Remains were sometimes found 

 about fuch monuments, which gave a clue to the age in which they were formed, 

 or used ; but here, so far as he was aware, nothing had been found, and there- 

 fore their character and history were very unceitain, and almost a matter of 

 conjecture. There was one point, however, of very great importance with 

 reference to encampments of this kind, which had been shown by the Emperor 

 Napoleon III. in his "Life of Julius Csesar" (the English translation of this work 

 be it added was made by the lecturer). Whilst engaged in writing this work, 

 Napoleon sent some of the most eminent engineers and surveyors to visit and 

 examine thoroughly aU similar monuments in Gaul, which could bear any relation 

 to Julius Ca33ar, and they arrived at a very decided conclusion ; and it was this— 

 that the Gauls did not make entrenchments before the invasion of the Romans. 

 They did not understand the construction of an inclosure with a regular vallum 

 and ditch. The Gauls, before Ccesar's time, certainly threw up the earth as an 

 embankment, mixed with stone and earth, and a hollow was left where the 

 earth came from, but they did not make the ditch a part of their defence. 

 It was not until Caesar's sixth expedition that they imitated the Roman 

 method of making a fortified camp. Now, if such entrenchments were not used 

 in Gaul, it is not at all probable that they would be in Britain, where, as a 

 matter of course, the inhabitants would be more behindhand. He had examined 

 these earthworks since, and from their bold and perfect condition, he was of 

 opinion that they could not be older than the Roman period. They might even 



