132 ON ITER XV. OP THE ITINERARY OF ANTONINUS. 



open, pasture land (or was so before cultivation had encroached 

 upon it), which extends to the rivers Stour and Allen, on the 

 south-east, and to the distant hills in the west, partially clothed 

 with the remains of an ancient forest. On the north the pasture 

 land extended unbroken to Grussage Cow-down and far beyond. 

 The station on Gussage Down did not command a wider expanse 

 of pasture, nor could it have been worthier of the name Vindo- 

 gladia. The view from Badbury extends to Purbeck, the Isle of 

 Wight, the sea, the Wiltshire Plains, and Hampshire Forest. 

 It must have been always a conspicuous object from a wide circle 

 of view. Gussage Down can bear no comparison to it, although 

 its prospects are extensive and beautiful. 



Such, then, is my plea for Badbury ! the verdict must rest with 

 those who, like the Antiquarian Members of the Dorset Field 

 Club, are disposed to be interested by the topograpliical antiqui- 

 ties of the County, as weU as by enquiries of a general archteo- 

 logical bearing. To them I take the liberty of submitting these 

 imperfect observations. In conclusion let me add I am pleased 

 to find that I do not stand alone in the advocacy of the claims 

 of Badbury. An unknown contributor to the 2nd edition of 

 Hutchins, Vol. 2, contends that Badbury is more likely to be the 

 Station Vindogladia than is Winborne, to which it was given by 

 Camden, whose etymological opinions he calls " idle guesses," 

 and thinks that the meaning of the original name is as " hope- 

 less" as it is ''unimportant." He argues that the station could 

 not have been placed so far from the Eoman military road ; that 

 the Eomans required large storehouses for the deposit of tribute, 

 which was chiefly in corn ; that the adaptation of Badbury for 

 this purpose ; its character as an entrenched garrison ; and its 

 proximity to the military road leave no cloubt whatever of its 

 being the Yindogladia of the Itinerary. 



These remarks were penned anterior to the time when Sir 

 Richard Hoare's discoveries were made."^' 



Badbury is indeed eminently adapted for a military depot, 

 which confers on it a great superiority to the site on Gussage 



*Vol. 2, " Hutchins' Dorset," 2nd edition, was published in 1803. 



