SURVEYS OF VALLEY ENTRENCHMENTS. 35 



Piddletrenthide examples than those given on the Ordnance 

 Surveys. For this purpose I spent the greater part of July 

 1910, at Piddletrenthide, and the object of the present com- 

 munication is to stimulate your interest in the subject by 

 bringing forward for exhibition tracings of the actual surveys 

 which were then made. 



THE SQUARE-SHAPED ENTRENCHMENTS OF THE HILLS 

 AND VALLEYS. 



Among the less imposing earthworks of Sussex, Wilts, and 

 Dorset, more or less rectangular examples are to be met with, 

 both on the hills and hidden away in the valleys. The 

 importance attached to their study was, I believe, first 

 ventilated at the Dorchester Meeting of the Archaeological 

 Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, on August 3rd, 1897, 

 in an address wiiich should be familiar to all Dorset archaeo- 

 logists. (1) But the earliest mention of this type of earth- 

 work appears to be that made in 1827 by the Rev. T. W. 

 Horsfield. After briefly referring to the square-shaped but 

 slight entrenchment situated near the summit of Kingston 

 Hill, Lewes, Sussex, he says that " the number of these square 

 encampments, on different parts of the Downs in this district, 

 is very great ; and as they are found in the valleys, as well as 

 on the summits of the hills, it is difficult to say by whom or 



for what purpose they were constructed It may 



be remarked, however, that the square enclosures in the 

 valleys are not so large as those on the higher parts of the 

 Downs ; the embankments are lower, and the area is much 

 less extensive. It is not improbable that the latter may have 

 been occupied as the residence of one or other of the many 

 British tribes, whilst the encampments on the hills were 



I. Introduction to " Excavations in Cranborne Chase," Vol. IV., by 

 General A. Pitt Rivers. 



