ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 
space intervening between the tops of the two ramparts is at least 100 
feet. Yet the inner area is only about 300 feet from the top of the 
stirrup to the bottom, and somewhat more across it. 
Mossbury, near Bedford, also stands very high on the end of a ridge, 
rising out of once swampy ground to south and east. Old trackways crossed 
the plain at its foot. There is a long stretch of exterior bank to the south 
and traces of it on the west. Its interior ditch is 35 feet in width, and 
the rampart top rises 14 feet above its base. On the northern flank the 
remains have been much levelled, but here there seems to have been a 
ditch outside the bank. Within this again at the east end a small en- 
closure 88 by 120 feet is cut off from the rest of the interior space by a 
narrower cross ditch. The hilltop near it, on the south, seems to have 
been levelled, thus producing a very visible terrace line round the work. 
Small bits of Romano-British pottery were extracted from a rabbit 
hole about a foot below the surface.' Water often stands in parts of the 
moat. 
Shillington Bury and Holwellbury are both remains of strongly 
ramparted and moated sites. They stand on flatter, less elevated ground, 
as do also Newton Bury and ‘ Grimesbury,’ miscalled Greensbury, both 
with fine exterior ramparts. 
There are many other ‘bury’ sites in various parts of the county, 
and the whole group should be carefully examined and compared. The 
examples described have all the appearance of being very early home- 
steads, with a fallacious show of strong defence. 
Another type of early enclosed homesteads have a square moat in- 
side one corner of a larger square or oblong ; as at Moggerhanger, and 
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the ‘Bigginwood’ near Tempsford. Sometimes the two moats are quite 
distinct, as at ‘The Camps’ at Bushmead, with only a bank between. 
This example has also curious rounded banks inside two of its angles, 
and three or four small mounds. It has an exterior rampart. 
* Over much of the ground rough morsels of coarse burnt brick earth occur. The surface earth 
below the soil also shows signs of fire. These puzzling appearances may have been due to the burning 
of the clay of the ramparts dug down for ballast, a practice reported in various parts of the county. 
307 
