A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



bone-caves. Valley, or dale, would not be at all an appropriate term to 

 apply to the short and singularly beautiful sudden dips in the earth's 

 surface which converge at this old mill-pond, and the exceptional place- 

 name of grip, or grips, seems peculiarly appropriate. Hollinhill Grips, 

 which diverges westward from the mill-pond slightly to the north, and 

 Markland Grips, which takes the like direction whilst bearing slightly 

 to the south, have both the same characteristics ; they bear some resem- 

 blance to Dovedale in its narrow places, on a much reduced scale. In 

 each case the grip takes the form of a sudden depression in the ground, 

 flanked on both sides by limestone cliffs of the Lower Magnesian, which 

 are mostly quite precipitous, and vary from 25 feet to 40 feet in height. 

 These cliffs or limestone walls abound in places with small yew trees, 

 and are rendered beautiful by trails of ivy and other creepers, whilst 

 larger trees crown for the most part their summits, and some have grown 

 up at the base. The ground within the grips is level and rich in grass, 

 the width between the cliffs varying from 50 to 70 yards. 



These grips, as they diverge westward, leave between their inner 

 walls or cliffs a triangular or irregularly tongue-shaped piece of table- 

 land, which seems marked out by nature, after a striking fashion, for 

 defensive purposes. Early man availed himself of this exceptional con- 

 figuration of the surface, and flung three great ramparts, with corresponding 

 fosses, across the open western base of the triangle, as shown on the plan. 

 By this means a great level space of tableland was enclosed, measuring 

 in extreme length, from the inner rampart to the tip of the tongue over- 

 hanging the mill-pond, 433 yards. The original width at the base, 

 previous to the railway cutting off a corner, was just 200 yards; but this 

 soon decreases to 133 yards, and thence tapers away to the tip. 



On the top of the inner rampart grows a series of big-rooted gaunt 

 thorn trees, the remains of an old quickset hedge. This rampart has 

 been chiefly formed of large rough stones ; many of them are partly exposed 

 and of considerable size. The present elevation of the rampart at the 

 south end is about 7 feet above the inner level ; the top of this great 

 rampart in the same part is 24 feet wide, and the ditch beyond, which is 

 8 or 9 feet deep, has a width of about 1 5 feet. The width and height 

 at the northern end of the rampart, where more earth and less of large 

 stone seems to have been used, are somewhat less, and appear to have 

 been worn away. The remains of the two outer ramparts were con- 

 siderable and well defined at the southern end, as shown on the plan, up 

 to recent years ; but a slice of that angle was unfortunately cut off by the 

 making of the Teversall branch line of the Midland Railway. A 

 comparatively modern farm entrance has been cut through the triple 

 ramparts in the centre ; north of that the land is ploughed, and though 

 the lines of the two outer ramparts can be still detected right through, 

 their traces are becoming less and less year by year. 



The great enclosure of pasture land is almost perfectly level, and 

 shows no traces of having been hollowed for pit dwellings, thereby sup- 

 porting the theory that it was used as a refuge camp for men and cattle, 



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