136 



while on Hampton Down and Lansdown Roman camps are found 

 near the British ones, as though to check or perhaps to attack 

 them, there is none such near Solsbury. Does this indicate that 

 the Romans took possession of this commanding height, instead 

 of simply watching it 1 



All archaeologists are agreed that the camp on Hampton Down 

 is a Belgic fort, one of the series intended to defend their frontier, 

 of which Stantonbury Camp, Maes Knoll and Cadbury Camp, 

 lying, like the Hampton Down Camp, on the course of the Wans- 

 dyke, are other examples. But it was evidently a residence as 

 well as a fort. It was probably therefore a Keltic town before 

 the Belgae conquered the district and raised the Wansdyke, and 

 the latter people took possession of it and strengthened it to 

 render it one of their military stations. It would be interesting, 

 but is scarcely possible, to distinguish what parts of the remains 

 we now see are due to the Belg«, and what portions were in 

 existence before their occupation. 



The Lansdown Camp is outside the Belgic boundary, and appears 

 to have been intended as a place of refuge for the earlier Keltic 

 people from Belgic attacks. If the Avon was the ancient^bound- 

 ary between the Hoedui and the Boduni, before the Belgic con- 

 quest, Hampton may have been a frontier-post of the former and 

 Solsbury and Lanadown similar posts of the latter ; and the two 

 last-named would continue to serve the same purpose for the 

 Boduni against the Belgse. The same people who held the Lans- 

 down Camp employed Pen Hill as a summer camp or cattle-feeding 

 station. 



Supplementary to the subject of the camps is that of the roads 

 connected with them. Mr. Earle says (" Bath, Ancient and 

 Modern," p. 9) : — " In estimating the importance of an ancient 

 site, the archaeologist will always glance at the adjacent roads, not 

 at the modern highways of communication and traffic, but at those 

 sequestered byways, where if anywhere the fairies frolic still. 

 These are mostly of high antiquity, and they often point silently 



I 



