60 On British Stone and Earthworks 



and a part of this we shall traverse on Thursday morning-, when we 

 leave Barburj Castle. It is sometimes known as the " Ridge-way " 

 from its general position, skirting, as it does, for the most part, the 

 ridge of the hills. This trackway descending from Salisbury Plain 

 near Redholn turnpike, crosses the Pewsey Vale, where it leaves 

 traces of its course in the names of Broad Street and Honey Street, 

 ascends the hill near the village of Alton, and may be traced as it 

 steers for East Kennet, crossing Wansdyke on its way. Thence it 

 pursues a northern direction, till it reaches Hackpen Hill, whence it 

 winds along the edge of the line of hills stretching towards Barbury, 

 and from thence passes on by Liddington Castle into Berkshire. 

 Even to the present day this old British road is to some extent used; 

 but before turnpikes were abolished, it was generally frequented by 

 drovers, who conducted their cattle through the whole length of the 

 county, with scarce any deviation on the hard roads : and, within 

 the memory of living men, was taken advantage of by smugglers, 

 who carried their contraband goods from the southern coasts into 

 the heart of England by this lonely and unfrequented route. 



(3) Of " Pit-dwellings,^^ or the vestiges of a British village, we 

 can hardly find a better example than is to be seen on Huish Hill, 

 which we purpose to visit to-morrow. Occupying a long tract of 

 down, and irregular in plan ; formed on no system, but protected in 

 a measure by banks and ditches, and having a communication with 

 the adjoining camp by means of a covered road, these unsymmetrical 

 pits offer a very perfect specimen of a British village which has 

 never received additions from a more modern nation, but is entirely 

 original and purely British. Such is the substance of the account 

 of them which was given by Sir Richard Hoare sixty years ago,^ 

 and from that time to this, no Archseologist has arisen to throw any 

 light on these mysterious dwellings, or (so far as I know) to pursue 

 the enquiiy as to their relative positions, their original shape or their 

 structure ; albeit an enquiry of undoubted interest, but to be pursued u 

 only at an expenditure of hard work with the pick and the spade, i, 

 not to mention much dogged resolution and much determined per- 

 severance. Other examples of these pit- dwellings we shall see on 

 * Ancient Wilts, page 11. 



