ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



those in sand, gravel or loam have perished. For the latter, which would usually need 

 strengthening by means of timber and other supports, make their sites known, in almost every 

 case, when their sudden collapse has caused a subsidence at the surface. This connexion of 

 well-preserved deneholes with the chalk has tended to the identification of deneholes with 

 pits in chalk, if not for chalk. And the fact that in certain localities, where chalk is near 

 the surface, it has sometimes been sought (by those requiring it for lime, or for manuring clay 

 land) by means of shallow pits with vertical shafts, has caused a confusion between deneholes 

 and ' chalk-wells.' Of course, whether a particular pit in the chalk is a chalk-well or a 

 denehole — in other words whether it was made for the sake of the material extracted, or to 

 obtain an excavation for a secret storehouse or other domestic purpose — is a question to be 

 decided upon the evidence afforded in each particular case. 



Pits of both kinds have been noted by ancient writers as existing in Britain. Pliny ^ 

 speaks of chalk-wells in describing the extraction of chalk ' by means of pits sunk like wells 

 with narrow mouths, to the depth, sometimes, of one hundred feet, where they branch out 

 like the veins of mines ; and this kind is chiefly used in Britain.^ On the other hand, Dio- 

 dorus Siculus states that the people of Britain had mean habitations, made for the most part 

 of rushes and sticks, and that their harvest consisted in cutting off the ears of corn and storing 

 them in pits underground, some of the corn which had been longest stored being taken out 

 each day for food. 



To illustrate the fact that pits traditionally called deneholes have no necessary connexion 

 with the chalk, it may be well to note here that at BiUericay, Essex (where the top of the chalk 

 must be at least 500 ft. below the surface) it is recorded ^ that a young labourer's father in- 

 formed Mr. J. E. K. Cutts, in 1871, that an ' excavation like a gravel pit ' was a ' denehole 

 which had caved in.' It is also stated on the same page that a series of deneholes in Mucking 

 Woods ' was filled up within the last few years, and these were in sand.' Turning to Kent, 

 we learn from Hasted * that deneholes were once numerous on Dartford Heath, and that 

 some there were in the sand : ' About a mile south-westward from the town is Dartford Heath, 

 where there are a great many of those pits and holes, so frequent in these parts. Some of 

 these reach as low as the chalk, others no farther than the sand ; many of them have been 

 stopped up of late years, to prevent the frequent accidents which happen of men and cattle 

 falling into them.' 



The existence of deneholes at Tilbury on the Essex side of the Thames, and of some at 

 or near Crayford, Faversham and some other Kentish localities is noted by Camden. Hasted, 

 in his History of Kent, mentions some in the Isle of Thanet and elsewhere. But the fullest 

 list of places in Kent is that given by Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell in his paper on ' Deneholes, and 

 Artificial Caves with Vertical Entrances.' ^ This paper was read before the Archaeological 

 Institute in April, 1 88 1, and is the earliest in which deneholes and pits, ancient and modern, 

 more or less resembling them, as regards the purposes of their constructors, are fully treated 

 in a scientific spirit. Mr. Spurrell gives, as denehole localities, Blackheath, Kidbrooke, Charl- 

 ton, Eltham, Bexley, Crayford, Greenhithe, Swanscombe, Cobham, Rochester, the land be- 

 tween Greenstreet and Teynham Railway Station, and the country around Sittingbourne. 

 He also mentions Halstead, Knockholt and Cudham. To these may be added the Chalk Downs 

 near Lenham, and Lydden and Alkham near Dover, also Darenth and Stone. 



In many of the above localities, however, those wishing to see and examine deneholes for 

 themselves would find no examples sufiiciently well preserved to be inspected, though here 

 and there their sites might be pointed out, or traditions of their former existence be obtained. 

 For where they are scattered singly they are usually discovered at the present day through the 

 sudden appearance of a subsidence at the surface, which marks the site of an imperfectly filled- 

 up shaft. This is especially likely to be the case where the land is above the average in fer- 

 tility or where the population living on it has greatly increased. But where the land is poor 

 and population scanty, or where deneholes are collected in numbers so large as to make any 

 attempt to use the land they occupy for agricultural purposes ridiculous, there they may be 

 found preserved from all destructive influences but those of the weather operating during 

 centuries of disuse. 



In giving some description of a few examples of the deneholes of Kent, it seems best to 

 begin with those which are wholly, or almost wholly, in the chalk, as they are, in the main, 



1 Nat. Hist. lib. xvii. cap. 8. » Trans. C. Roach Smith, Coll. Ant. vol. vi. 



3 Palin, More about Stafford, p, 40. « Hist, of Kent, i. 226. 



« Arch. Journ. xx.xyiii. 391-409 ; xixix. I-22. 

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