EARLY MAN 



to have been found near it. In shape it is elliptical, and at the base is 

 512 yards in circumference. It has been said to be a British broad bar- 

 row, but there is no evidence of any kind that the mound is sepulchral 

 or as to its character in any way. 



(2) In the parish of Kidderminster Foreign near the Severn, a little 

 above the place where the Birmingham aqueduct crosses the river, is a 

 small tumulus, but there is not even a tradition as to it or what it is. 

 From its situation and size it is probably sepulchral, but there is nothing 

 to furnish any clue as to it. 



(3) The Devil's Spadeful. Adjoining the railway from Kidder- 

 minster to Bewdley on the sandy ground near Spring Grove, is a tumulus 

 called by the above name. It is said the devil was going to dam up the 

 Severn, and carried the earth forming this tumulus on his spade for the 

 purpose, but losing his way he dropped it down here. There is no record 

 of any examination having ever been made of it. Probably it is sepulchral. 



(4) Towards the end of the last century there was a group of five 

 barrows on the Clent Hills ; these were opened and examined by Nash. 

 All contained remains of burnt bones and charred wood. In one was an 

 urn which was broken by the spade of the workman who was excavating 

 the mound ; it appeared to be of very ill-burnt clay. Probably they 

 were a group of British barrows. 



This account of the earthworks in the county is meagre in the 

 extreme, and it is much to be regretted that a better list cannot be 

 furnished. It however comprises all the known earthworks that have 

 up till now been recorded. 



Trackways 



No account of Prehistoric Worcestershire should omit some allusion 

 to the ancient roads or trackways in the county. Some writers have 

 recognized a large number of these leading from the different camps to 

 other places in the county ; the existence of most of them has however 

 to be proved. That there were tracks crossing the Severn at different 

 places seems clear, the survival of the name ' Rhydd ' as a place on 

 the Severn would seem to locate a ford where one of these tracks crossed 

 the river. There were probably others that crossed at Worcester and 

 at Bewdley, while the names of Bransford, Knightsford and Stanford on 

 the Teme point to tracks crossing that river at those places. The tracks 

 seem to have been of two kinds : — 



(a) The ordinary trackway from camp to camp or from place to 

 place. These often kept the high ground and ran along the ridge of the 

 hills. 



(6) The trackways leading to the saltsprings at Droitwich. 



Of the first kind there seem to have been at least three : — 



(i) A track from the Midsummer Hill camp on the Malvern Hills 

 to the east, crossing the Severn at the Rhydd, and then probably turning 

 to the left and running parallel to the Severn to Worcester and on to 

 Droitwich, and thence to the Staffordshire border. 



