ee N LLC 
CASTLE NEROCHE. 43 
the two interior lines, forming, on this side, a third line of 
defence of very great strength, and extending considerably 
beyond the interior lines, like them turns to the east, and 
encloses an area of several acres, used probably as a place 
of safety for cattle, which is generally met with in British 
fortifications of any considerable importance. The original 
entrances of this very remarkable fortress, under existing 
circumstances, are not very easily to be traced. But it 
would appear that a small path led from the north, under 
the eastern rampart of the keep, to an entrance situated 
nearly where the present path-way opens, upon the un- 
planted space on which the cottage stands ; and it is 
probable that, as at Worle Hill and elsewhere, there was a 
narrow passage round the extremity of the outer rampart. 
Whether there was originally any opening in the external 
fortifications, where the old road from Taunton to Chard 
now passes, is very doubtful, but there seems to have been 
one through the inner line, at the point where the outer 
rampart of the two ceases, and it is likely that the modern 
path is the original gate widened. If this were not so, the 
only approach to the larger division of the enclosed area 
must apparently have been through the smaller and 
stronger enclosure, an arrangement which hardly seems 
probable. The entrance to the smaller enclosure may still 
be traced ; it is very curious, and, in all its details, particu- 
larly characteristie of British engineering science. A 
branch of the great Roman fossway, and, no doubt, in 
earlier days a British trackway, led from Hamdon Hill to 
Castle Neroche, through Watergore, Hurcott, Atherton, 
and Broadway, and probably entered the fortification nearly 
at the southern point of the outer enclosure, where the 
opening may still be traced, though in a very mutilated con- 
