218 



an example of a British "town," the nnmeroug small pits may 

 each have been occupied by a single family, the group of large 

 circular excavations as store-houses, the circular pits under the 

 escarpment as guard-houses, or possibly as winter-houses, whilst 

 the strongly fortified point of Blalcenbury served as a Eefuge.* 

 No. 38. — Hazlewood Copse Camp, one mile south of Nails- 

 worth, was desci'ibed at page 285 of the fifth volume of our 

 " Transactions," so need not again be particularly referred to ; 

 it has very slight mounds and ditches, formed on a very irregular 

 plan, but one portion of the Camp is so constructed as to form 

 a keep. Flint chips are found on the surface of the ground all 

 around this district in small numbers, but close to the north side 

 of this Camp is a spot, less than an acre in extent, from which 

 I have gathered 2000 worked flints, including 11 arrow points, 

 60 scrapers, 100 flakes (some with serrated edges), and 32 cores 

 and hurl-stones. The large numbers of flint implements here 



* Amongst a group of pit- dwellings on Westridge Hill there stood last 

 year a woodman's hut, and as it appears to illustrate the subject of these 

 ancient abodes, a sketch of the modern shelter is given on Plate V. It was 

 formed by setting stout poles, with their lower ends in the ground, on a circle 

 ten feet in diameter, with the tops meeting in a point eight feet from the 

 ground, a covering of turf-sods neatly arranged tile-wise on the poles, 

 formed a perfect protection from rain and wind; within lay a log of 

 timber giving sitting room for four men. By far the greater number of 

 pit dwellings on Westridge, on MincHnhamptou Common, and on Eod- 

 borough Hill are about ten feet long, and a circle of ten feet diameter will 

 include both pit and mound. There can be little doubt that the shelters 

 erected over the ancient pit dwellings were similar to the woodman's hut of 

 the present day and covered with boughs, or thatched with grass or reeds, 

 and that the mound and pit arrangement, besides giving better drainage 

 (on a porous subsoil) gave more accommodation than a level floor could do. 

 The modern hut illustrates this, for whilst there is scarcely room for two 

 persons to stand, four can be seated, and so in the ancient shelter the mound 

 formed a seat. These small huts were not suited to have a fire within them, 

 but the large circular pits such as are found under the northern escarpment 

 of Westridge would allow of a fire beiag made in. them, and so render them 

 suitable for winter abodes. The hut-shelters as used by the woodmen and 

 charcoal burners of the present day have very possibly been used in woods 

 and forests of our county by successive generations for the last two 

 thousand years, with scarcely any variation in the mode of construction. 



