108 AN ANCIfiNT BRITISH TRACKWAY. 



Another of these supposed trackways was struck in Dorchester 

 some 1 5 years since in the cutting to the east of the railway 

 bridge on the Wareham Road. On the sides of the railway 

 cutting being carefully scraped down in the fresh face of the 

 chalk a notch, or dyke, clearly appeared, which must have been 

 equally visible when the cutting was made, but of which no 

 record seems to have been kept at the time. On each bank was 

 a large superficial notch filled in with earth. These can be seen 

 now, although not so clearly as when the chalk was in fresh 

 whiteness. 



Some time after the discovery Wareham House was built close 

 by, to the south of the cutting. On the garden being laid out 

 the notch in the face of the cutting was found to be part of 

 a trench running right across the ground, slanting slightly 

 westwards, so as to strike the high road from Dorchester to 

 Wareham. So large was this trench that it was quite worth 

 while, for the improvement of the soil of the garden, to empty 

 the trench of its filling of earth and spread it on the surface, 

 making all level again with chalk. This trench was, by experts, 

 believed to be a trackway of Celtic times. 



The late Rev. William Barnes rather thought that a hollow old 

 trackway in the belt of wood close to Came Rectory entrance 

 gate is part and parcel of this crossing Wareham House garden. 

 Mr. Strahan, one of the Government geologists who have 

 examined this neighbourhood, was much interested in what he 

 believed to be a fragment of a very ancient roadway in 

 Whitcombe Farm, running north and south, which might be a 

 further continuance of this ancient trackway, and which possibly 

 might have led to the great Celtic village of Bindon, Lulworth. 



A very interesting account of British trackways, all converging 

 on the ancient Celtic town of Vindogladia, is to be found in 

 Warne's "Ancient Dorset" (page 23), where there also appears 

 a very good map of Vindogladia Celtica, showing no less than 

 ten British trackways, some being of the larger and more 

 important kind first described, and others minor roads or 

 trackways of the hollow or covered type to which the two I 



