ANCIENT EARTHWORKS OF CRANBORNE CHASE. 33 



court of final appeal in matters of antiquity. There are 

 omissions, and there are misunderstandings, and so the 

 antiquary has still got his part to plaj^ and ma}' still help to 

 perfect such a record. 



The method that I have adopted in making this survey 

 has been — first, to make a tracing of the 25-inch O.S. sheet 

 that records the earthwork under examination. Then to 

 study the 6-inch O.S. sheet of the same place, in order to 

 note the rise and fall of the land, which are shewn by contour 

 lines on the 6-inch scale, but not on the 25-inch. Then to 

 examine the site with both the 25-inch tracing and the 6-inch 

 sheet, in order to verif}^ the record, and to supplement 

 omissions. And finally to measure up typical sections of the 

 earthwork. 



In one case — the large pastoral enclosure on Rockbourne 

 Down — I have made an original survej', as it is not recorded 

 in any of the maps of the Ordnance Survey. 



The limits of this district of Cranborne Chase have been 

 the cause of much contention. But with this we have no 

 concern. The outer bounds or extreme limits of the Chase 

 as recorded by the Perambulations, 29, Henry III., and 8, 

 Edward I., and in two maps of A.D. 1618 by Richard 

 Hardinge and Thomas Aldwell respectively, are the bound- 

 aries of our survey. These boundaries, though mediaeval, are 

 founded upon natural features, that have always tended to 

 impart a certain local and separate character to this district. 



Even now Cranborne Chase is a peculiar district. It lies 

 apart from railroads, and apart from most of the road traffic 

 that passes through Ringwood, Wimborne, Blandford, 

 Shaftesbury, or Salisbury. It is a solitary tract of down- 

 land, corn-land, wood-land, and Avaste. Dry valleys run far 

 up into the steep flanks of the Oxdrove Ridgeway that is the 

 backbone of the Chase. Streams emerge with intermittent 

 flow in the lower slopes of these valleys. The present villages, 

 with the exception of Whitsbury and Ashmore, are in the 

 lowlands. While, on the uplands will be found the sites of 

 many ancient British villages. Barrows, both long and 



