The Environs of Bath, 



hogsheads of wine from the vineyards of Claverton, valued 

 at ^28. William Skrine's son sold it to Ralph Allen, of 

 Prior Park, in 1758. 



The old Manor House, which occupied an imposing site 

 immediately above a noble flight of stone steps, which still 

 arrest attention near the little church, was built in the Eliza- 

 bethan period by Sir Edw. Hungerford, and was a fine spe- 

 cimen of domestic architecture, and its destruction must be 

 considered, from an artistic point of view, a public misfortune. 



Although the name -of Claverton does not figure in the 

 early annals of England, there are some historical land 

 marks on its boundaries. The Ford and Pack-horse-road 

 which traversed it, and the Wansdyke, the ancient frontier 

 rampart of the Belgae, passed along two sides of the manor.* 



This Pack-horse road, which traversed the ford at War 

 leigh, joined the Roman road to Marlborough on Farleigh 

 Down, and the Wansdyke can be traced at Warleigh, oppo- 

 site the Belgic Camp on Hampton Down. This Camp was 

 the frontier fortified town of the Belgse, and the Wansdyke 

 was connected with it, and formed its circumference on three 

 sides. The vallum can be distinctly traced all round the 

 Camp — which must have been nearly 80 acres in extent, as 

 it is 74 now, without counting the space that has been 

 destroyed on the eastern face by the quarries. The interior 

 is parcelled out into parallelograms, divided by low grass 

 embankments, the foundation of ancient walls. Similar in- 

 closures are to be seen outside the Camp, both on the 

 Claverton and Hampton sides, showing that this must have 

 been a very considerable settlement. Ptolemy says that Bath 

 was one of the cities of the Belgse ; no doubt the Hampton 

 Camp was the Bath he had heard of. The great Foss-road 

 from Exeter to Lincoln traversed this Camp, and can still be 

 * See p. 8. 



