386 APPENDIX ROMAN-BRITISH 



nearly north and south from the top of the ridge down to the 

 present high road. They can hardly be the result of natural 

 or artificial drainage ; and from their number and proximity 

 to each other they are not likely to represent ancient tracks 

 or ways. Whether they could, under any circumstances, have 

 been intended for military defence, I do not know. 



From the pottery and other remains found at and near 

 Blackmoor House, it may be concluded with certainty that, 

 on or close to that site, there once stood Roman or Roman- 

 British buildings of some importance ; and the name of the 

 adjoining parish, Greatham, may perhaps indicate the situation 

 (at least as early as Saxon times) of a hamlet or village more 

 considerable than others in that neighbourhood. Mr. Sewell, 

 in his letter of 1777, already referred to, speaks of Roman 

 and British entrenchments as visible at that time on Headley 

 Heath and Common ; and he also describes, as a known 

 historical event (I know not 011 what authority), a march by 

 Vespasian, as general under Claudius, about A,D. 47, from 

 the neighbourhood of London towards Porchester, South- 

 ampton, and the Isle of Wight, by way of Headley and 

 Woolmer ; adding that he (Vespasian) then fixed, at or near 

 Woolmer Pond, " an abiding station or city, which remained 

 near 150 years, when they seem to have been expelled thence 

 by the Britons, or perhaps by an earthquake, or some other 

 cause." I have not myself met with any mention of what 

 Mr. Sewell calls " the Roman station or city of Wulmere in 

 Hants " in any writer, ancient or modern, with whose works 

 I am acquainted ; and it is possible (as the end of the period 

 of "near 150 years," which he assigns for its continuance, 

 coincides with the time of Commodus, whose coins were the 

 latest which had been found in Woolmer Pond) that his 

 statements, however historical in form, may have been founded 

 upon conjecture. 



From the condition of the fragments of weapons found at 

 Hogmoor, and from the circular tumuli on the ridges sur- 

 rounding the forest basin, it seems, further, to be a probable 

 conjecture that this part of the parish of Selborne was a 

 battle-field in Roman-British times; and the burial of so large 



