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By Rev. C. H. MAYO, M.A. 



TN tlic paper upon Shaftesbury, which I shall have the 

 II honour of reading before the Dorset Field Club to- 



day, I propose to touch but lightly upon the general ■ 

 history of the town, and to indicate briefly some of 

 the leading facts which are already known to us, 

 and then to devote my time chiefly to matters 

 upon which new light lias been thrown by my 

 researches, some few year2 ago, among the records of the borough. 

 Shaftesbury is so old a town that it rejoices in the possession of 

 a mythical history. A British King, Lud Hudibras by name, is 

 reported to have founded it in the year 940 B.C. With the 

 British town the name Caer Palladur has been associated — a name 

 to which various meanings have been ascribed, upon which I shall 

 not attempt to dogmatize. It is even uncertain whether this name 

 is not of mediaeval or even of later invention. Another reputed 

 name was Caer Septon, which comes nearer to the modern form. 

 It must be clear, however, that so commanding a site as that 

 afforded by the spur of the chalk range, Avitli steep descents to the 

 north, west, and south, could not have gone unoccupied even from 

 very early times ; and the entrenchments on Castle-hill — Boltbury, 



