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• APPENDIX ON THE TOPOGKAPHY OF SIGWELL. 451 



Both these small camps, therefore, covered springs. Whether 

 there is a camp on Gurt Hill to the south I am unable to say with 

 certainty ; my impression is that there was. There has certainly 

 been a low bank with a ditch on the outside across the gorge or 

 narrowest part of the hill, but the greater part of it has been 

 destroyed by a quarry, and there is no spring on this hill that I am 

 aware of. There are also traces of a small bank on Littleton Hill 

 to the north, but not of sufficient extent to afford trustworthy 

 evidence of a defensive work. 



Whether there were two or more of these banks, it appears 

 unlikely that such small and feebly-defended camps could have 

 held their own as the strongholds of independent tribes in the 

 vicinity of so large and powerful a fortress as Cadbury, defended by 

 three ramparts and almost precipitous declivities on all sides ; and 

 we might therefore assume on a priori grounds that they were out- 

 posts dependent on the larger fortress. But other and more cogent 

 reasons may be urged in favour of this assumption. The occupiers 

 of Cadbury had flocks and herds, as proved by animal remains dis- 

 covered in the interior and described first by Mr. Winwood and 

 subsequently by Professor Rolleston. These flocks and herds must 

 have had pasture somewhere. To the west, as I have said before, the 

 great valley is low and swampy, and probably at that time was an 

 impassable jungle. The high, dry, and well-watered Valley of Whit- 

 comb, between the camp and the hills, would be the only place in 

 the neighbourhood where these flocks could be pastured ; but with 

 the commanding hills to the east, and the springs arising from 

 them in the hands of an enemy, there could be no security against 

 surprise by hostile neighbours who, approaching unperceived from 

 the tableland, might at any moment make raids upon the cattle 

 from the hills above. The sources of water-supply and the com- 

 mand of the hills must therefore have been a matter of vital con- 

 cern to the possessors of Cadbury, and the small camps of Sigwell 

 and Charnwell appear to have been thrown up to command the 

 springs and secure an uninterrupted communication with the 

 plateau beyond. From these considerations it would appear that we 

 have here evidence of a central fortress defended on one side, and 

 that the most approachable, by a chain of detached but dependent 

 outposts, which affording as it does some insight into the social 

 condition and military organisation of the inhabitants of this 



Gg2, 



