A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



been many variations in the form and design of these works during this 

 long period of time, some of the great prehistoric hill fortresses of the 

 Stone and Bronze Ages quite startlingly resemble in outward appearance 

 the above mentioned military defences of the present day. 



Speaking in general terms a defensive earthwork was originally 

 formed by the excavation of a ditch or fosse round a given area, the 

 earth being piled up inside to form a raised bank, rampart or vallum. 

 This bank was often increased and strengthened by turf sods or rough 

 stones, and along its top a strong fence was erected, usually made of 

 horizontal logs of timber or of upright wooden stakes interlaced with 

 wattle work. Sometimes stones were used for the fence instead of wood, 

 if they happened to be more abundant than trees in the vicinity. Of 

 course all vestiges of the perishable timber work have long ago dis- 

 appeared from our ancient earthworks, and stones, in the majority of cases, 

 have been removed for the making of field walls in later days. Such 

 an entrenched enclosure was usually placed on some point of vantage, 

 varying according to the particular ideas of its makers ; it was often at 

 the top of a high hill, or else upon a slight elevation protected from 

 attack by water and swampy marsh ; sometimes it was but in a hollow 

 for the sake of shelter, different races and peoples having a predilection 

 for very different situations. In the majority of instances the dwellings 

 of the makers of the stronghold were collected within its interior, but 

 occasionally, as in the case of the larger prehistoric ' camps ' on the ex- 

 posed tops of steep hills, their circular huts were clustered in some 

 sheltered hollow hard by. These early hill strongholds had much in 

 common with the lately extinct pa of the Maories in New Zealand, 

 while the forts on lower ground were not unlike the fenced villages still 

 to be seen among savage tribes in various parts of the world. 



Warwickshire has numerous remains of ancient defensive earth- 

 works. Some are well preserved and of sufficiently imposing dimensions 

 to attract the notice of every passer by ; very many however are mere 

 worn and damaged remnants of former considerable entrenchments, 

 relics of the past which require the eye of an archaeologist to discover 

 them, or at any rate to distinguish them with certainty from mere natural 

 features of the ground. 



Time has a very destructive effect upon these remains. Rain and 

 frost are continually at work disintegrating the material of artificial 

 mounds and ramparts, gradually making them lower and smaller. 1 

 Ditches again are continually becoming wider and shallower through 

 the same agencies ; not only do they tend to get filled up with the 

 soil washed down from the banks above, but dead vegetation accu- 

 mulates in their hollows and raises the levels within for many feet,* 

 as has been shown by excavation. Instead of ramparts and ditches 

 round a camp we sometimes now find a series of terraces, as for ex- 

 ample at Brownsover and at Gredenton Hill, which would aid rather 

 than hinder its assailants ; this of course was no part of the original 



1 See under Seckington, p. 390. * See Chesterton p. 366. 

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