PARISH AND CHURCH OF PIDDLETRENTHIDE. 3 



which earthworks of kindred design meet the eye in every 

 direction. Go where you will in our parish, and you ate 

 compelled to tread on ground furrowed and wrinkled in all 

 directions with Welsh spade-work. 



Not that these remains constitute the earliest chapter of our 

 Piddle history. On a hill to the north-east of our parish are to 

 be found typical examples of the so-called " Pit Dwellings" and 

 round and square " Pond Barrows," whilst round tumuli are- 

 scattered throughout its whole area. Not the least interesting 

 of these relics are a series of double pits with a narrow sloping 

 entrance. Then there are clearly traceable ancient roadways, 

 having an obvious connection with the various earthworks, 

 whilst above them all frowns the great chain of world-famed 

 fortresses, guarding every pass leading up from the Vale, and 

 forbidding all attempts on the part of envious Sumorsoetas to get 

 a footing in the coveted uplands that smiled above them, wrest- 

 ling with the gloomy forest land below. Doubtless some of 

 these old works bear traces of Roman occupation ; but it 

 was in any case a merely passing incident of no historic 

 importance. 



There are many things which testify to the Celtic descent of 

 the Mid-Dorset folk, which cannot be well brought within the 

 scope of this paper; the people are now English as English as 

 Lord Roberts or Mr. Lloyd-George. The genius and faculty 

 for annexing and "Englishing" foreigners is pre-eminently a 

 characteristic of our race. At first this Island received its 

 lessons in English at the edge of the sword and battle-axe, but 

 these soon gave place to methods of peaceful assimilation and 

 inter-marriage. For we read of no English women being 

 imported by the followers of Cerdic ; frau and fraulein were left 

 on the banks of the Elbe with the forgotten Thor and Freya ; 

 Woden was exchanged for Christ, and the vivacious and 

 accomplished Welsh maiden supplanted homely Gretchen. 

 But the predominant element is always the English, and after so 

 many years' supremacy it is not surprising that hardly any traces 

 of the older blood remain beyond certain racial characteristics 



