144 PAPERS, ETC. 



cattle statlons being very difFereut in tlieu- arrangement 

 from elther the purely military stations or primgeval towns 

 of British or Belgic date which I have before described, 

 raay, if not mentioned, cunfuse students of primaeval anti- 

 quity, and in order to help them in avoiding error I will 

 briefly point out the indications which have led me to 

 suppose that Avalon was in the very earhest days occupied 

 by one of the most important of the cattle stations fre- 

 quented by the British herdsmen, whose cattle pastured on 

 the vast reed beds which then existed in the drier parts of 

 the morass. 



The road from Glastonbury to West Pennard passes, at 

 about two miles from the former place, between two ham- 

 lets, the one called East Street the other Woodland Street, 

 naraes suggestive to the ear of the archaeologist of Eoman 

 occupation. These are situated on each side of the isthmus 

 which I have mentioned as connecting the Isle of Avalon 

 with the higher ground, and immediately on the Glastonbury 

 side of these hamlets a vallum of great magnitude extenda 

 across the rising gi-ound, completely from one marsh to the 

 other, effectually separating the peninsula of Avalon from 

 the higher lands. This vallum is known by the appellation 

 of Ponter's Ball, which I imagine to be a word com- 

 pounded of the Eoman, vallum, and the Saxon, pindan, 

 to enclose ; and to signify the vallum of the enclosure, or 

 the enclosing vallum. And if we suppose the marsh to 

 have been, as it probabl}' was, impassable, this earthwork, 

 if surmounted by a palisade, would have rendered the whole 

 peninsula as safe and desirable an enclosure for cattle as 

 can well be conceived. From this vallum, if we walk to 

 the Tor, we shall find every point of advantage occupied 

 with works of defence. Series of terraces not only occupy 

 the sunny slopes, where they might possibly have been 



