KNOWLTON CHURCH AND EARTHWORK. 137 



throw up earthworks at all have placed their ditch within, and not 

 without, the mound raised from its materials 1 We cannot suppose 

 that they \i ould take the best conceivable step to help the rush of 

 the attacking enemy, and to weaken their defending line. To what 

 purpose then did they dig their ditches in this manner 1 Anti- 

 quarians, differing as they do on most other points, are pretty well 

 agreed on this one. In the words of the late lamented Precentor 

 Venables (see Murray's "Handbook for \Yilts," &c.), describing 

 Avebury Circle in North Wilts, where a similar arrangement of 

 surrounding ditch and mound exists, " One thing only seems 

 undeniable, that it was not a military work. Other monuments of 

 this kind were religious, sepulchral, or monumental." 



If I were to choose between these purposes at Avebury. with its 

 mighty area of 28 acres and more, and its rampart 4,400ft. round, 

 and its inner ditch, the height from the bottom to the top of mound 

 being 70ft., and its circle of stones on the inside of the ditch 100 in 

 number, and its two circular groups of stone within this again, I 

 should unhesitatingly say the religious was the purpose that the 

 rude tribesmen sitting on the vallum might, without intruding on 

 the religious rites, assist at and survey them. And the same thing I 

 would say of the circle at Arbor Lowe, in Derbyshire, where, as at 

 Avebury and here, you see the ditch within the mound. Arbor 

 Lowe is much smaller than Avebury, but it is large enough to con- 

 tain a space wherein lie flat on their faces some 18 or 20 large stones 

 prostrated, by the looks of them all lying in one direction, as they 

 do, by an earthquake. The circle in front of us is on a small scale, 

 but it exhibits a similar plan made, I submit, for a similar purpose. 



I conclude that this mound and ditch, and if you can make out in 

 the long grass Warne's terrace on the former it will strengthen the 

 conclusion, were for the inhabitants of the surrounding country 

 (and the tumuli all about prove that they were many) to indulge 

 in those observances of religion which commended themselves to 

 their rude ideas as acceptable to the god or gods whom they 

 ignorantly worshipped. The presence of the very curious little 

 church before us may confirm this view* 



