ENCLOSURES AT SMALLACOMBE. U 



early Cornish settlements, and the care with which they were 

 constructed, are proofs that there must have been long intervals 

 of comparative peace, whoever the enemy may have been. We 

 find no traces of agriculture ; but folds extending over many 

 acres show that our forefathers had here led quiet pastoral lives. 

 Tracts now presenting the most dreary appearance of desola- 

 tion were the scenes of active life, of which the sole evidences 

 that remain may be, perhaps, a rude circle of stones, or a low 

 earthen bank, at first scarcely discernible as the work of art, 

 encrusted with lichens and overgrown by herbage, yet imper- 

 ceptibly crumbling away and again becoming one with the earth 

 from which it had been formed. 



Although this may be said to be the general condition of the 

 earlier cyttiau in Cornwall, some examples of primitive habita- 

 tions still exist in comparatively good preservation, enabling us 

 to make out distinctly the arrangement of the structures and the 

 manner in which they were built. 



By examination of a great number of examples in diff"erent 

 parts of the kingdom, some clue may be obtained as to the differ- 

 ent peoples by whom they were constructed, or to what extent 

 the habits of tribes in various parts resembled or differed from 

 each other. Even in Cornwall I have found a marked distinction 

 between the primitive hut-dwellings of those who occupied the 

 eastern, and those who occupied the western, lands. In West 

 Cornwall the prevailing type consists of a massive encircling wall, 

 in its breadth containing several small chambers, whilst.in the 

 centre is a large open area. The Chysauster huts are constructed 

 on this plan. In East Cornwall I have not yet found an instance 

 of these wall-cells ; each hut is generally unattached, forming a 

 separate building of itself, though occasionally having two circular 

 compartments leading one into the other. 



In Wiltshire the ancient inhabitants formed, as the basements 

 of their dwellings, excavations in the ground ; thus rendering it 

 unnecessary to carry walls to any great height. Boughs of trees 

 and sods of earth composed the roofs. The cyttiau in many of 

 the Welsh fortifications were constructed in like manner. First, 

 a shallow pit was seooped out, and then stones set around the 

 upper edge at once gave almost sufficient height to the structure. 



This method has not yet been observed in Cornwall, though 



