CASTLE HILL, CRANBORNE. 157 



rising some 70 feet above the river. There are also two or three 

 " Monticules," or small mounds, one of which stands in the space 

 between the ends of the rampart. This area, or space, is not of 

 large extent. In some parts of the work the entrenchment is 

 doubled, but the ground-plan is rendered obscure, not only by the 

 trees and shrubs which enshroud it, but by certain levellings and 

 fillings up, the result of attempts made in the 17th century to 

 Italianise it in the pseudo-classical taste of that period, to the great 

 detriment of its genuine antiquity.* 



It would not be difficult to multiply illustrations of this kind, 

 and especially from East Ariglia,f but space forbids me. Nor are 

 more required. I have adduced the two preceding examples of 

 Saxon Castrametation, for the purpose expressly of comparison 

 with the earthwork of our Castle Hill, and I presume that an 

 unprejudiced observer will readily perceive a typical identity of 

 constructive design, without an absolute resemblance between them. 

 They shew enough to bring them into the same category as the 

 work of the same people, though not perhaps all of the same date. 

 Yet I am greatly inclined to think that in Laughton, and Cran- 

 borne, are seen earthworks which may be of coeval date ; those 

 of the Downton Moot, on the other hand, would seem to be of an 

 earlier period. We have here the same characteristic principles 

 displayed, though somewhat modified in their application, the 

 result of newer experience, or of the exigencies of the site ; still we 

 have the same typical features common to each and to all of the 

 earthworks : artificial mounds, deep and broad entrenchments, 

 notably assuming a crescentic form, and enclosing a comparatively 

 small space of ground, wherein we may well suppose the buildings, 

 if any, were erected buildings most probably of wood, adapted 

 more for temporary uses, as the holding of Courts and other 



* For further particulars of the Manor of Downton see Sir R. C. Hoare's 

 " Modern Wilts;" Hundred of Downton, by George Matcham, Esq. 



t Ex. gr. The earthworks of the Castles of Kayleigh and Hedingham in 

 Essex. (Strutt). 



"The Earthworks of Norfolk," by G. W. Irving, Esq. (Brit. Arch. 

 Assoc. Journal, September, 1858). 



