

AN ANCIENT BRITISH TRACKWAY. 107 



Whilst the excavation was still open I carefully took the 

 dimensions of the dyke, and found it to be 5ft. 4in. in depth, 

 6ft. 6in. in width at the bottom, and 8ft. 3 in. wide on the top, and 

 that it had been filled with a mixture of chalk and soil, evidently 

 thrown in from the eastern side, as may be seen from the strata 

 in the photograph. The bottom of the trench is somewhat 

 rounded, but does not show signs of the crushing and wear of 

 the chalk which would be expected in a roadway used for wheel 

 purposes, the conclusion being that it was a minor trackway used 

 principally for foot and horse traffic. This trackway was also 

 struck some 40 yards to the north of where the section above 

 referred to was taken in the year 1880, when the Brewery 

 buildings were erected, and again some years later in digging 

 the foundations for a wall on the south side of the County Police 

 Barracks, when the same indications which have been described 

 were clearly perceptible, the sides having been sharply and 

 regularly cut and not worn in the chalk. In each case it had been 

 filled up with a mixture of mould and chalk. (A short account of 

 the opening of the trench will be found in Vol. VII., p. 67, of the 

 Club's Proceedings.) Although on careful inspection the direc- 

 tion of this trench or track did not favour the view that it led to 

 the adjoining entrance to Maumbury Rings, but that it rather 

 passed to the eastward thereof, the fact must not be lost sight 

 of that in the year 1879, on the occasion of a visit of this Club 

 to the county town, a trench some eight or nine feet deep was 

 dug across the northern entrance of this Amphitheatre for the 

 purpose of finding the "girt stone," supposed to be buried 

 there, but of which, however, no trace could be seen, when a 

 roadway some five or six feet wide, and as deep, formed in the 

 chalk, was discovered of much the same character as that struck 

 near the Brewery, so that the view held by some that the dyke 

 was the roadway from Durnovaria to the ancient earthwork is 

 feasible ; and this theory is strengthened by the fact that on 

 examining the railway cutting to the east of the Amphitheatre 

 I have been unable to discover any trace of the Trackway 

 having been continued over the line of railway. 



