Dill, (Jranbortu. 



By Dr. WAKE SMART. 



HIS may be remembered as the title of a Paper in 

 vol. iv., p. 135, "Proceedings" of the Field Club, 

 by the Rev. W. Barnes. Unhappily too long I 

 deferred the intention of offering a few critical 

 remarks on this Paper, and, as I still feel the 

 necessity of discharging that self-imposed task, 

 I shall do it in no other spirit than that of sincere respect for the 

 memory of our lamented friend, whilst I venture to differ from him 

 in the conclusion he arrived at in his views relating to this matter 

 of antiquarian enquiry. 



This gentleman says : "I believe . . that the so-called Cranborne 

 Castle was a British Cor, with its Court Mound, and that it was 

 the Court of Common Law of the British Hundred (Cantrev) of 

 Cranborne. It is very likely that the Saxons and later English 

 used the British Court Mounds for Hundreds' Courts ; and I should 

 be thankful to any fellow-member of the Club who might know 

 that any Constable was wont to hold or proclaim the Hundreds' 

 Court at any old earthwork.* He classifies this earthwork with 



* Hntchins, ed. 3, vol. iv., p. 1. " Modbury Hundred, and takes its 

 name from a Barrow called Modbury on the hill N.E. of Cattistock, 

 between that and Cerne, where the Hundred Court was formerly kept." 

 . . . (The Court is now held at Cattistock.) In a note below the 

 Editors say : "Is not this (Modbury) derived from Mor bcopz, the hill 

 or barrow of the Meeting or Hundred Court ? The Court was usually 

 opened at Totcornbe, and from thence adjourned to Cerne. . . . The 

 Koman Vicinal Way from Dorchester to Ilchester is supposed to have 



