ye 
On the Excavations at Rotherley, Woodcuts, and Bokerly Dyke. 299 
the settlement in the same manner as at Woodcuts and Rotherley. 
It was evident that a settlement must have existed on the ground 
before the dyke was thrown up. The greater part of the coins and 
relics were found in the lowest part of the rampart, in dark mould, 
just over the old surface line, and it appeared quite certain that this 
mould must have come from the upper part of the ditch when the 
diggers threw up that part first before they reached the chalk 
beneath, all of which was found overlying the mould in the rampart 
and containing comparatively few coins. 
But there was no trace of any settlement or inequalities on the 
surface of the ground near the dyke, or for some distance from it. 
Feeling convinced, however, that some such settlement must have 
existed, I commenced trenching the ground on the outside of the 
ditch to see if any trace of habitations could be found, and soon 
came upon some pits and a drain 4ft. to 6ft. wide and 3ft. deep, on 
an average, running nearly parallel to the dyke. This, from its 
position in front of the entrenchment, I called the Fore Drain. I 
thén followed this drain, and found that it ran close up to the Roman 
Road and then curved round and turned away from it to the north, 
in which direction it extended in a straight line for about 530yds. 
and then terminated. Roman coins and pottery were found in the 
drain and in the surface soil on the sides of it and of the pits. This 
ditch drained from north to south, and then from east to west, as 
far as the ditch of the dyke. To the north of this, and nearly at 
right angles with it, a somewhat larger ditch—9ft. to 10ft. wide 
and 4ft. deep—which, from its being the outermost ditch discovered, 
I called the Boundary Ditch, ran west to east, close to the end of the 
Fore Drain, but not touching it, and under the Roman Road and 
Salisbury Road, terminating in front of the Shoulder Angle of the 
dyke. The West Drain, about the same size as the last, marked 
the extent of my diggings on that side. About midway between 
the Boundary Drain and the dyke, another, which I call the Mid 
Drain, ran in a zig-zag course, cutting the Fore Drain about its 
centre, and having two short drains running out of it to the south, 
one of which ended in a pit, probably a dry well. This terminated 
in the Cross Drain, -which ran parallel to the Roman Road, and was 
VOL. XXV.—NO. LXXV. ¥ 
