ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



' " AND . ', 



DEFENSIVE ENCLOSURES 



IN this chapter, which will be found to contain a fairly complete 

 list of the ancient earthworks of the county, an attempt is made 

 to classify them according to their physical characteristics. This 

 plan has been adopted partly because no other method is at present 

 equally available, and partly because the distinctions upon which the 

 arrangement is based are well marked. With the exception of the 

 work done at Chyoone Castle by the Penzance Natural History and 

 Antiquarian Society in 1895 an( ^ at Tregeare in St. Kew by Messrs. 

 Burnard and Baring-Gould in 1902, nothing in the nature of organized 

 excavation has been attempted, and in the absence of the information 

 which may be derived from such a source, or from historical record, 

 this classification cannot at present be regarded as final, but the 

 differences in the typical features which lead to it are obvious, and 

 encourage the assumption that they have a historical foundation. 



This method of classification has also the advantage that it agrees 

 with the scheme for recording such works prepared by the committee 

 appointed for that purpose by the Congress of Archaeological Societies 

 and published in 1903, with an appendix in 1905. 



The first list (Class A) contains defensive works which are ' partly 

 inaccessible by reason of precipices, cliffs or water.' In each case 

 in Cornwall there is a rocky headland, connected to the main by a 

 narrow neck of land across which run often two and sometimes three 

 lines of entrenchment. On the sea side they are practically inaccessible. 

 With the exception of Little Dinas in St. Anthony in Meneage, which 

 perhaps may yet prove to be of a different origin from the others, it 

 would be impossible to land except on a very few summer days, while 

 on the land side they are completely overlooked. King Arthur's Castle 

 at Tintagel is, as far as the situation is considered, a grand specimen of 

 the class ; but although there may perhaps have been mere defensive 

 entrenchments there at one time, they have long since been strengthened 

 by the mason-built walls, which give it quite another character, and in 

 consequence it is not included as a cliff castle coming within the limit 

 of this chapter. 1 



The second list, which corresponds with the Class B in the scheme 

 of the committee, contains the hill castles. These are earthen or rough 



1 See Maclean, iii. 194, etc. for plans, etc. 

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