xlvii. 



FIRST SUMMER MEETING. 

 THE VALLEY OF THE PYDEL AND BUCKLAKD NEWTON. 



THE FIRST SUMMER MEETING was held on June zoth. The 

 party numbered about 80. 



Driving from Dorchester, the party made their first halt, for a 

 minute only, on Waterson (or Walterston), where the highway 

 is crossed by an ancient road. Here Mr. Prideaux pointed out 

 the barrows which stud the ridge. Proceeding to a spot at 

 Little Pydel, the Rev. C. W. H. DICKER called attention to 

 traces of a 



BRITISH VALLEY SETTLEMENT. 



He had, he said, been in correspondence on the subject with 

 Mr. Gould, the Chairman of the Earthworks Committee of the 

 Society of Antiquaries, who had expressed the opinion that the 

 remains of the settlement belonged to an extremely remote age, 

 probably Neolithic, and that they were the enclosures in which 

 the stock-raising people who occupied these downs kept their 

 stock safe from the attacks of wolves, and also of human enemies 

 in time of war. The Members would in the course of their 

 journey that day pass a large number of these enclosures, many 

 of them upon the hills, and undoubtedly used as places of refuge 

 in time of war. The whole of that part of the valley and the 

 hillsides were all divided up into squares by mounds and ditches 

 which formerly were considerable works belonging to the 

 Palaeolithic Age. 



PYDELHINTON CHURCH. 



Here the Members of the Club were received by the Rector, 

 the Rev. J. E. Hawksley. Speculation was indulged in as to the 

 nature of the large carved stone which has been built into the 

 middle of the boundary wall of the churchyard alongside the 

 road. Mr. ALFRED POPE expressed the opinion that it may have 



