40 PAPERS, ETC. 
tions with trees. In some cases, no doubt, it may have 
preserved them from the more destructive ravages of the 
spade and plough; although oceupying, as they usually do, 
the very summits of the highest and most exposed hills, 
they might be supposed to be tolerably safe from the 
inroads of the agrieulturalist. But even where some good 
has thus arisen from the practice, the sides of the earth- 
works are too frequently mutilated, the arrangement of the 
terraces confused, the traces of hut circles obliterated, and 
the possibility of obtaining a comprehensive view of the 
whole fortification totally prevented. Such, Iregret to say, 
is the case at Castle Neroche. Ihope however, by the aid of 
a very accurate and carefully drawn ground-plan, for which 
I am indebted to Mr. Winter, of Coombe St. Nicholas, 
to be able to point out what can be seen on the spot by 
those only who are able and willing to undertake the labor 
of a rough scramble through a very thick covert. 
Leaving then the high.road from Taunton to Chard, on 
the right, after a walk of something more than a quarter 
of a mile, we arrive at the end of a rampart, consisting of 
a trench and high bank, on the right side of the path. 
This is the lowest of a series of what may almost be 
called fieldworks, proteeting the only accessible side of 
the beacon, and continued quite across the sloping side of 
the hill, in the form of a small segment of a large eircle. 
On turning either flank of this rampart, we find our- 
selves in front of another, eonsisting of a double trench 
and agger, above which again rises a second segmental 
rampart, similar in construction to the first, but facing 
more to the N.W.., the interior of which is also flanked by 
a double trench and rampart ; and, still higher up the 
steep ascent, two more ramparts and ditches occupy the 
face of the slope, from one precipitous side to the other, 
A 
