73 
At the appointed hour of noon, the Club mustered at the 
‘“‘Black Horse,” and proceeded thence, under the guidance of 
_ Mr. Wrrrs, in brakes and wagonettes, to examine the earth- 
works at Cooper’s Hill. These are upon a scale so extensive, 
and enclose so large an area, that it seems strange they should 
hitherto have escaped notice. Even the observant eye of Mr. 
G. F. Puayne, whose paper on “ the Camps of Gloucestershire,” 
in “the Proceedings of the Club,” is a standing monument of 
his patient research and perseverance, failed to detect them, 
although he notices the remains of an entrenchment at the 
point of Cooper’s Hill. It remained for Mr. Wirvs to discover 
this system of entrenchments, which from its extent is one of 
the most important in the Cotteswolds. The fact that these 
earth-works are in all their most salient points concealed by 
woodland, is doubtless the cause that they have hitherto been 
overlooked by antiquaries. 
Cooper’s Hill is one of the most prominent of the many capes 
and headlands which project from the coast-like range of the 
Cotteswolds into the vale of Gloucester. At its salient angle, as_ 
has been already noticed, there exist the remains of an earth- 
work which may possibly have been used as a point of observation 
by the Romans, who seem to have had look-out stations on most 
of these commanding promontories; but the earth-works to which 
attention has now to be directed have no connection with the 
Roman conquerors, nor with the Danes, Saxons,or Northmen who 
succeeded them, but date from a period altogether antecedent 
to all these successive waves of invasion. They may be described 
as two concentric lines of rampart and foss, extending from 
Prinknash on the west, to a point in the Buckholt wood on the 
east, a distance of nearly two miles, and resting either flank on 
the precipitous face of Cooper’s Hill, which thus forms a natural 
fortification, the gorge of which is defended by a double line of 
vallation. The area enclosed within these boundaries is about 
200 acres in extent—much too large, as it would seem, for a 
military work, but well adapted for an “ oppidum,” which would 
serve to protect the settlement of an entire tribe with its flocks, 
herds, and cultivated ground. Further to strengthen this 
