225 



earthworks, which run on curved lines, the ends of which rest on 

 the edge of the escarpment (see Plate III, figs. 21 and 36). The 

 outer line is nearly 100 paces from the inner ; both have deep 

 ditches and high mounds, the top of the mounds being in some 

 parts still 20 feet high from the bottom of the ditch. The area 

 protected by the inner line of earthworks must have formed a 

 keep or stronghold even after the outer defences had been carried. 

 In the inner Camp there is on the brow of the escarpment a 

 hollow place, in which lies a mass of stone which from its 

 singularity has attracted much attention ; it is known as the 

 "Bambury Stone," — the Ordnance Map has it "Banbury," 

 RuDDEE writes of it as " a stone of a prodigious magnitude, 

 which the people of that neighbourhood call Benbury Stone," 

 and he gives its signification as the stone at the top of the hill, 

 or head of the Camp. Thus a gradual change in the name has 

 taken place in the last hundred years. Was it not originally 

 Penhnrj — the Camp of the Head ? — a name so well expressing 

 the situation of this Camp, a description of its situation to be 

 appreciated when, after a toilsome walk from Beckford on a 

 continuous ascent for three miles up the southern slope of 

 Bredon, the edge of its northern escarpment is reached, and an 

 uninterrupted prospect of the vale bursts on the sight, a prospect 

 which includes the distant spires of Coventry. As to Bambury 

 Stone, it is a mass of the Inferior Oolite, of which the hill-top 

 consists, not a solid stone, but a mass of rubbly stone, cemented 

 by infiltrated carbonate of lime. It is probable that a cave, 

 natural or artificial, once occupied the site of this hollow place, 

 having its entrance just below the escarpment, and that these 

 stones, now cemented into a mass, formed a portion of the roof 

 of the cave, and on the falling-in of this roof, this mass of stone 

 was left in its present position. In many instances where 

 small cave-like quarries are made in the Inferior Oolite, the 

 strata forming the roofs, though composed originally of loose 

 rubble, become thus compacted by the infiltration of lime. The 

 name Benbury or Penbury, as applying to this Camp, probably 

 existed long before this " stone" was exposed to view. 



Mr. Edwin Lees, F.L.S., Vice-President of the Malvern 

 ti2 



