I 2 History of the 



but is not now continuous throughout its entire length, being obh- 

 terated or levelled in the centre for a . considerable space ; — the 

 entrance to the end farthest from Bacup being through a deft or 

 cutting in the earthwork. 



I am far from coinciding in the view taken both by Dr. Whitaker 

 and Mr. Wilkinson, that " it has evidently been abandoned in an 

 unfinished state, because it was not carried round the crown of the 

 hill." There is nothing, in my opinion, about the work which in 

 the least indicates any such intention on the part of those with 

 whom it originated. To have carried it over the hill would have 

 been a stupendous undertaking indeed, as any one viewing the 

 ground will readily admit. But even supposing it had been so 

 carried, the work, according to this theory, would still have been 

 incomplete unless the rampart had been continued either along 

 the summit or on the other side, and over the hill a second time 

 to unite its e.xtremities, thus forming a continuous wall. Neither 

 am I prepared to agree that it was easily accessible by an attack- 

 ing force from the east, thus rendering a flanking operation easy of 

 accomplishment. 



It should be borne in mind that the nature of the approaches to 

 the work has undergone a material alteration since the time of its 

 construction. It is in the highest degree probable — amounting 

 almost to a certainity — that the rising ground to the rear and at its 

 extremities was protected by natural defences in the shape of trees 

 and a thick undergrowth of shrubs, forming an abatis which would 

 readily be strengthened by the ingenuity of the defenders, and than 

 which, even at the present day, with all the appliances of modern 

 warfare, few better means of protection or defence could be wished 

 for or devised. 



The careful investigations of Mr. \Vilkinson have invested this 

 singular work with more of interest than had before been asso- 

 ciated with it, by his having, with marked ability and perseverance, 

 collected together a mass of exhaustive evidence, enforced by a 

 chain of argument the most conclusive, with regard to the much- 

 debated locality of the great struggle between the Saxons and the 



