148 NOTE ON A ROMAN ROAD. 



character, and agreed to divide the labours of a provisional survey 

 with me, taking Tarrant Hinton for our starting point in two 

 opposite directions. On his way home to Rushmore General 

 Pitt-Rivers traced it through Eastbury Park, and shortly after 

 to the Wiltshire boundary. The compass points of the road, 

 so far as we had traced it, gave the clue to the rest, for it 

 occurred to me that the high unbroken down of Abbey Craft, 

 which commands a view both of Tarrant Hinton and Badbury 

 Camp, and to which the line pointed, would be a likely place to 

 find it; but in this I was disappointed, for there was not the 

 slightest indication of it among the ridges and sulcations with 

 which the down is scarred. Mr. W. Drake, jun., the tenant of 

 Abbey Craft, whom I opportunely met, told me that his labourers 

 often complained of a difficult piece of ploughing through some 

 of his fields, and which played havoc with his horse tackle. He 

 conducted me to the boundary hedge of his farm, and, proceeding 

 in the direction of Badbury, we soon fell in with the road, which 

 was similar to the Tarrant Hinton section in every respect, and were 

 able to trace it through three cultivated fields to the southern 

 boundary of his farm. As it was then getting late I was obliged 

 to give up further search that day. In the course of the following 

 week I succeeded in tracing the road over a piece of rough ground 

 adjoining Abbey Craft to a copse on the north side of the 

 Witchampton and Rushton road. I was unsuccessful at Hogstock 

 and "The Cliff," and did not recover it again until I arrived 

 at Monkton, where I found it in two fields on the east side of 

 the river, in the occupation of Mr. Waters. Subsequently Mr. 

 W. C. Saunders traced it to Tarrant Hinton, through Launceston. 

 With the exception of a few insignificant gaps the line of road had 

 now been traced from the Wiltshire boundary to Hemsworth. 

 Nothing more, therefore, remained to be done than to trace it to 

 Badbury Camp, which I felt sure would turn out to be its terminus. 

 With this object in view, I mounted my horse on the 16th of 

 December. The day commenced rather unpropitiously, for the 

 morning was wet and boisterous, and the horse my servant was 



