ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



LANCASHIRE SOUTH OF THE SANDS 



Earthworks of one kind or another have been made and used for pur- 

 poses of defence by well-nigh every race of mankind ; they date from the 

 present day, back through successive ages, probably to those far-off prehistoric 

 times when war was waged with primitive weapons of flint and stone. 



Speaking in a general way, a defensive earthwork was originally formed 

 by the excavation of a ditch or fosse round a given area, the earth being 

 piled up inside to form a raised bank, rampart, or vallum. This bank was 

 often increased and strengthened by turf sods or rough stones ; along its top 

 a strong fence was erected, usually made either of horizontal logs or of 

 upright wooden stakes interlaced with wattle work. Sometimes stones, if 

 they happened to be more abundant than trees in the vicinity, were used for 

 the fence instead of wood. Of course all vestiges of the perishable timber 

 work have long ago disappeared from our ancient earthworks, and stones 

 have, in the majority of cases, been removed in later days for the making of 

 field walls. Such an entrenched inclosure was usually placed on some point 

 of vantage, varying according to the particular ideas of its makers ; it was 

 often at the top of a high hill, or perhaps it was upon a slighter elevation 

 protected from attack by water and swampy marsh ; sometimes it was even 

 in a hollow for the sake of shelter — different races and peoples having a 

 predilection for very different situations. In most instances the dwellings of 

 the makers of the stronghold were constructed within it, but in others their 

 huts were clustered in some sheltered hollow hard by. 



Lancashire has many remains of ancient defensive earthworks, although 

 they are not nearly so numerous here as they are in some parts of the country. 

 Some are well preserved and of sufficiently imposing dimensions to attract the 

 notice of every passer-by ; very many, however, are mere worn and damaged 

 remnants of former considerable entrenchments, relics of the past which 

 it requires the eye of an archaeologist to discover or to distinguish with 

 certainty from mere natural features of the ground. 



Time has a very destructive effect upon these remains. Rain and frost 

 are continually at work disintegrating the material of artificial mounds and 

 ramparts, gradually making them lower and smaller, as has been proved by 

 recorded measurements. Ditches again are continually becoming wider and 

 shallower through the same agencies ; not only do they tend to get filled up 

 with the soil washed down from the banks above, but dead vegetation 

 accumulates in their hollows and raises the levels within. But the greatest 

 destroyer of these interesting memorials of the past is undoubtedly man — 

 the agriculturist and the builder. In Lancashire, as everywhere else, the 

 ancient earthworks have unfortunately suffered greatly from this wear and 

 tear of time. Nevertheless they are still numerous enough and sufficiently 



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