414 Oliver's Camp, Devizes. 



Before excavation it was thought that gaps in the rampart at " F " 

 and " F 1 " would also prove to be entrances, but as the ditch was 

 found to be continuous at both places, it is perhaps doubtful if 

 they should be regarded as entrances. 



At the same time it is a curious coincidence, that at Winkelbury 

 Camp, in South Wilts, there are gaps in the ramparts in positions 

 exactly corresponding with those at Oliver's Camp. General Pitt- 

 Eivers excavated Winkelbury and the site is described in the 

 second volume of his Excavations. He regarded the gap in the 

 rampart corresponding to " F " at Oliver's Camp, as has having 

 formed one of the entrances into the camp, but he made no ex- 

 amination of the spot. The gap in the rampart corresponding to 

 that at " F 1 " at Oliver's Camp he does not appear to have con- 

 sidered as an entrance, but nevertheless the coincidence remains 

 that there are these two corresponding gaps at both camps, and 

 as such it seems scarcely probable that they are merely the result 

 of chance. It would seem, indeed, that the resemblance between 

 these two camps is altogether too remarkable to be entirely acci- 

 dental. They are both on spurs of the down, in situations very 

 similar to each other. Winklebury, it is true, is on a much larger 

 scale, and has two outer entrenchments, but as has already been 

 suggested it is not improbable that at Oliver's Camp there were 

 originally some outer works. As it appears to-day Oliver's Camp 

 resembles the inner enclosure of Winklebury ; the entrenchment 

 of this inner enclosure, it is true, is slighter than at Oliver's Camp, 

 but this is accounted for by the greater strength of the outer 

 works of Winklebury. In the section at Oliver's Camp cut 

 through the gap at F there was no line of old turf visible as 

 everywhere else beneath the rampart, and except for the presence 

 of the ditch there was nothing to disprove the existence of an 

 entrance at this spot as part of the original design of the camp. 

 It must have been in many ways inconvenient to have had only 

 one way of getting into and out of the camp, and it is thei'efore 

 suggested with all diffidence that there were entrances at these 

 points, and that the ditch was probably bridged by some arrange- 

 ment of planks thrown across it which could in times of danger 

 be easily removed. 



