•278 



quarries or mining places, and covered several acres. Cot residences 

 iiear the heart shaped long Barrows are formed of stone walling like a 

 great part of the Barrows ; a circle about fourteen feet wide and four 

 feet deep is made in the earth, and around the circle about two feet 

 high a seat is formed covered with rough flat stones except at the 

 entrance, which is made of large rough stones like the entrance to the 

 chambers of the long Barrows about four feet high and three feet wide, 

 around the rest of the circle a dry wall of the same height is raised and 

 then the walling is gradually drawn in towards the centre and capped 

 with a large stone, and lastly the whole building is covered with about 

 two feet of earth ; those that remain are called " shepherd's cots." Near 

 the long Barrow at Bibarry, examined by the late Canon Lysous some 

 years ago, there was such a cot nearly perfect and an old man stated 

 that some yeai-s before they were not uncommon and that the workmen 

 had removed the stone from the centre to let the smoke out when they 

 lit a fire in it. The shape was that of a bee-hive and would hold several 

 persons. There were neat recesses in the upright wall for putting things 

 in about fourteen inches by eighteen and nine inches deep. The pits 

 above Weston are circular varying in size from four to six and eight feet 

 across, and in one the circular seat is still remaining, running around 

 the pit about four feet from the surface of the earth. Such pits seem 

 not to have been finished with stone, but perhaps surrounded with 

 wattle and covered with wood, branches, or thatched with rushes, &c. 

 The entrance to such residences may have been in the side between the 

 wattle or timbers. The pits seen on this field may have all been the 

 remains of ancient cots. Maesbury may be derived from Gaelic, Magh ; 

 Cymric, Maes, an open region, and Anglo Saxon afiix beorg, beorh— 

 a hill or place of safety ; the. place of safety of the open plain. Pen 

 hill— Cymric, Pen head, and Saxon affix hill. Pen hill ; Gaelic, Beum 

 or Ben, a bill, and Saxon affix. Ebber rocks— the Gaelic Aher and 

 Saxon affix, meeting of the rocks. 



DORCHESTER AND MAIDEN CASTLE. 



Dorchester and its great earthwork. Maiden Castle, were the 

 objects of the thml excursion of the season on Tuesday June 24th, 

 and despite the early hour appointed for the start there was a fair 

 muster at the Great Western Raihv.ay station. Additions were 



