OLD ENGLAND'S HOLE" 



223 



charge was followed by a general advance into the 

 dense thickets, into which, excellently suited, both 

 by nature and by art, for defence, the Britons had 

 retired. Here they fought in small bands, protected 

 by mounds and trenches and by felled trees cunningly 

 interlaced. One of these oppida remains in Bourne 

 Park, on the summit of Bridge Hill and beside the 

 Watling Street which, until 1829, was identical with 

 the Dover Road. In that year a slight deviation 

 was made to the left over the hilltop for about two 



OLD EXGLAXD'S HOLE. 



hundred yards' length of roadway, and in the course 

 of cutting through the hill a number of Roman urns 

 and skulls were discovered at a depth of five feet. 

 The circular earthwork of the redoubt still remains 

 in very good preservation, surrounded with trees, 

 the successors of those which covered the hill when 

 the Britons and Romans contended together here. 

 The place is known locally as " Old England's Hole," 

 and tradition has it that here the Britons made their 



