214 Relics of Ancient Population on Oldbury Hill, Wilts. 
fifty feet. A bank and ditch intersect the area of the work, perhaps 
the remains of a more ancient agger. This camp appears to have 
been made use of as a place of residence as well as of defence, for 
the labourers in digging for flints within its area throw up numerous 
fragments of animal bones and rude pottery, the certain marks of 
habitation. The form of this work is very irregular, hamouring 
the hill in its numerous sinuosities.”’ ! 
To this the Rev. A. C, Smith adds the following :—* The division 
of the area by a bank and ditch running from north to south, to 
which Sir R. Hoare alludes, is a singular feature in this camp, and 
separates the upper and larger portion on the east from the lower 
and sloping part on the west; the area of the western portion being 
at a considerably lower elevation than the upper. The returned 
banks at the entrance on the south-east, and the outworks masking 
the entrance, are on the principles of modern fortifications, and would 
not disgrace the engineers who constructed Luxembourg and Metz. 
The banks and ditches, too, on the least-defensible sides, notably on 
the east, are of very great size and strength, and must have rendered 
the camp almost impregnable.”’ 
As might have been expected from its commanding position, 
Oldbury has been occupied as a stronghold by various successive 
races; and traces of Ancient Britons and Romans, as well as of 
more modern peoples, have been discovered. We propose to describe 
some of the antiquities; and it is a pleasure to be able to add that 
most of the specimens found have been presented to the Wiltshire 
Museum at Devizes. 
Three barrows have been examined within a few hundred yards 
of the camp. In the round barrow, marked £ on the plan of Oldbury 
here inserted (from Sir R. C. Hoare), the very fine funereal urn 
was found which has been engraved and described in the Wiltshire 
Magazine, vol. vi., 73.2 It is now in the Museum of the Society. 
1 Ancient Wilts,’’ II. 
2 It has since been described and figured in ‘‘ Archzologia,” xliii., 334, by 
Dr. Thurnam. He speaks of the ornamentation as being “ entirely of the stippled 
or punctured sort, made with a very fine pin, or with many pins or teeth inserted 
comb-fashion, on the edge of a stick.” 
