50 THE TKAVELS OF PETER MUXDY IX DORSET. 



was never overcome 1 . It is now a little playne of about J mile 

 in compasse, somewhat ovall, neere to roundnesse, on the 

 round topp of a hill, environed with 3 high bancks which 

 made two cleepe ditches or trenches, either of them beinge 

 about 9 or 10 fathom high or cleepe, and the circumference of 

 the outer banck above i a mile a Worke of great labour; 

 some Monument of the Danes or Saxons Fortification. Also, 

 neere to Dorchester is another small place environed with a 

 very high and steepe bancke, with a little plaine in the midle, 

 of an ovall forme, resemblinge an Amphitheater 2 , n- part of a 

 mile about. Lykewise hereabout, as on Salsburye plaines, I 

 savv and have scene divers longe trenches, one within another 

 the plaines, of greate use in Auntient tymes questionlesse." 



After this Mundy returns to London and shortly makes a 

 tour into Hampshire. 



1 Maiden Castle in the parish of Winterbourne St. Martin, two miles 

 south-west of Dorchester, is one of the largest British earthworks in the 

 West of England. Mundy is repeating the popular legend regarding the 

 name, which became attached to it at least as early as the twelfth century. 

 The origin of the term "Maiden" in English place-names seems to be still 

 unsettled. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the sense may be 

 a fortress so strong as to be capable of being defended by maidens." 

 But the approved derivation of the Dorchester specimen is from British 

 inai dun, great hill, the hill of the citadel or burgh. See Hutchins, History 

 of Dorset, ed. 1863, n. 575. 



- Maumbury King, an amphitheatre south-west of Dorchester, on the 

 Roman road to Wevrnouth. 



