ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



Extensive earthworks are situated on this high ground, of which the 

 principal part only is seen on this plan. It consists of an irregular fortified 

 area which was apparently connected with another and larger entrenchment. 

 The rampart and fosse have suffered greatly from the levelling process. 

 From the north-west part the works extend westward as rampart and fosse 

 for half a mile ; for the first half of this distance the fosse is on the north side, 

 where the ground falls away. The other or western half is a vallum with 

 evidence of a second or inner one. South-east of these entrenchments are one 

 complete side and portions of two others of the larger camp, with an 

 entrance between the two ; but the destruction of the ancient work and the 

 construction of the more modern moat render it impossible to trace the 

 system of the pre-historic defences. Possibly this mutilation was occasioned 

 by the Parliamentarian war, when this neighbourhood was one of the scenes 

 of that lamentable contention. 



Concerning these earthworks Laird remarked that : ' Being so near the 

 line of the Roman Road (Lincoln to York via Littleboro'), the situation 

 could not escape that warlike people as fit for an exploratory station, and we 

 may conclude that the moat on Castle Hill was occupied by them for military 

 purposes, though it may originally have been a British work.' 



FARNSFIELD : HILL CLOSE CAMP. To the 

 east of Hexgreve Park, and about three 

 quarters of a mile to the north-west of Kirk- 

 lington, a curious series of entrenchments crown 

 the summit of a hill. 



William Dickinson furnishes an engraving 

 of the plan, and Major Rooke, in 1788, 

 describes the vallum and fosse as perfect in 

 places, but so destroyed by the plough in 

 other parts that the precise shape cannot be 

 made out. 



The extremities of the outworks were de- 

 stroyed before 1818, but the remains exhibited 

 a central enclosure within a vallum, slightly 

 higher than the surrounding ground. In 1864 

 it was said that the vallum and fosse could HlLL CLOSE CAMP ' F*"""-D 

 be traced, but that the intermediate lines were 



destroyed. Around this main camp appeared three other ramparted areas, 

 which, when perfect, were probably four in number, one at each of the 

 irregular sides ; but how the broad fosse between these apparently independent 

 works branched out and consolidated them into one great stronghold 

 is almost beyond conjecture. 



Standing in a high position, Hill Close Camp overlooked the valley of 

 the Greet, along which an ancient road passed from the Trent, via Southwell, 

 to Mansfield and the west. 



In 1849 Roman remains were found near this spot. 



GRINGLEY ON THE HILL : BEACON HILL CAMP. As the name implies, 

 this is an elevated site. It is situated in the north-east of the county, abutting 

 in old times on miles of bog-carr or swamp-land, separating the Isle of 

 Axholme, which lies to the north. From the Beacon Hill near the church 



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