ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



an irregular excavation on the summit. The other entrenchments are 

 narrow of base, 2 i ft. at the widest for the rampart and ditch together ; 

 all now so poorly defined that it is hardly possible to recognize them as 

 defensive earthworks. The whole is covered with underwood. Where 

 the original entrances were is uncertain ; the mount however has a slight 

 causeway, ancient or modern, on the west side. 



LuDDESDowN : Henley's Wood. — Here is a slight banking of 

 polygonal outline, with a corresponding shallow rounded fosse on the 

 outside, enclosing a considerable space which has been regarded as a 

 'camp.' 



It is, however, one of those doubtful enclosures which may have 

 been occupied as a British village settlement, or may be a piece of land 

 imparked in feudal days. The present wood within which it is 

 included extends beyond the lines of the earthwork ; the brushwood 

 being very thick, examination can be conducted only with difficulty. 



The earthwork was locally known as the ' Cam,' a word which 

 indicated an ancient earthen mound or camp.' 



Maidstone : Mangravel Wood. — This enclosure is without 

 natural defence, standing upon ground which is practically level 300 ft. 

 above the sea and 250 ft. above the river Medway, which flows two miles 

 away on the north-west side. The entrenchments are exceedingly slight, 

 the base of the rampart and ditch together being only 24 ft. wide, and 

 though in their perfect condition they would have been rather better 

 defined they could have formed no true defence. The shape of the 

 enclosure is entirely artificial. What entrenchments exist are well 

 preserved, and are within and upon the edge of a wood. The 

 Ordnance Survey (18 19) shows neither a wood nor this earthwork, but 

 the later maps entitle it a 'British camp.' The site of original entrance 

 is doubtful, but the north and south openings appear older than the 

 others. An earthwork called the Coniger five miles west of Amesbury 

 in Wiltshire is of the same shape and encloses tumuli. 



The origin of such low-banked slightly-ditched enclosures is in 

 most cases extremely doubtful.' 



UNCLASSIFIED EARTHWORKS 

 [Class X] 



Appledore. — From the Saxon chronicle we learn that in a.d. 893 a 

 part of the Danish army made a work at 'Apuldre,' but we have sought 

 in vain for traces of a camp at Appledore. 



North of the tract of land, immediately south-west, still known as 

 the Isle of Oxney, flowed the river which drained the hinterland covered 

 by the great forest of 'Andred'; where the water flowed are meadow 

 lands, and it may be that the deposit of silt of which this now dry land 

 is composed has buried the camp we seek, for doubtless it was placed 



' Halliwell, Diet, of Archaic Words, etc. 



2 See notes on Shingleton in Eastry parish and Preston in Aylesford. 



439 



