ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



outer rampart all round : strongholds built in this method vary, some such 

 as Membury and Old Sarum in Wiltshire and Wallbury in Essex have 

 or had the outer rampart perfect, w^hile Ambresbury Banks in Essex, 

 Fosbury in Wiltshire, Caynham in Shropshire, and others are irregular. 

 The object of the outer rampart may have been to obtain a power- 

 ful ditch as at Evenley ' Old Tow^n,' 3 miles east by south, and Hinton 

 Manor House, 2J miles north-east, but in both these places the object of the 

 outer rampart was to form a water level, which could hardly have been the 

 object at Rainsborough, where the ditch must always have been a dry ditch. 

 From the section E— F it will be seen that the ground outside the entrench- 

 ment is 6 feet above the ditch, while the section G-H shows the ground only 

 I foot, hence to form anything like a deep ditch on the south-south-east a 

 rampart on the outside was needed. The probability is that a perfect outer 

 rampart once existed, now more or less levelled and out of shape, as it is 

 on the east side. The position has a good command of the west generally, 

 and of the south to a certain extent, but of the north and east to a limited 

 extent only. Beech trees of some considerable age stand on the inner 

 rampart. 



Badby : Arbury Hill' (3 miles south-west of Daventry). — This is an 

 isolated hill 700 feet above sea level and 300 feet above the land north 

 and east within one mile, and 200 feet above the land one mile west; but five- 

 eighths of a mile to the south is Ryton or Sharmans Hill of the same height 

 or higher. The hill is formed of the soft stone common in the district, and 

 the summit commands the 

 neighbourhood on all sides 

 for some miles except the 

 south,where the hill above 

 mentioned limits the view. 

 The hill is called a ' camp ' 

 by the Ordnance Survey 

 maps published in 1834 l 

 and also in the later sur- 

 veys, and may once have 

 been a temporary camp- 

 ing ground ; but it is not 

 now an entrenched posi- 

 tion, neither has the hill 

 the appearance of ever 

 having been fortified, at 

 least not to any extent. 

 The summit is practi- 

 cally level, but there is 

 no clearly marked hedge such as one would expect to find if the hill 

 had been artificially scarped, except on the south at places, and there 

 the escarpment is rather accidental than deliberate for defensive purposes, a 

 hedge occupying the line of escarpment. On the west again, some little 

 way down the hill, is a ditch 9 feet wide, with a scarp 5 feet deep, and 

 the counterscarp i foot, forming with a hedge a division of land ; but this is 

 certainlv not an ancient entrenchment, and adds nothing to the strength of 



2 401 51 



Arbury Hill. 



