A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
and these remains, of which he took the semicircle to be a temple and 
the great stone an altar, Comparing his plan with those of early 
remains of the Scandinavian settlers in Iceland—which throw much 
light on the domestic arrangements of the people who, as Danes and 
Norse, colonized our country—there is a certain resemblance to some 
examples of the dwelling-house and temple, of which one end was built 
in the form of an apse, the whole surrounded by the ¢éngarth. 
Other extensive dykes may perhaps have been the téngarths of such 
settlers. The Bishop’s Dyke at Dalston, though used in the Middle 
Ages as a defensible barrier, may have been originally intended as 
marking off the homefields of the settler at Dalston Hall. Near Great 
Salkeld, at the hamlet of Salkeld Dyke, is a ‘camp’ about 400 yards 
long and 4 yards high, about a quarter of a mile from the stone ruins 
called Aikton Castle. The Baron’s Dyke, Crosby-on-Eden, is medieval. 
On Cumwhitton Common were several square entrenchments from 
20 to 100 yards wide (Hutchinson, i. 177). On Penrith Common was 
a square entrenchment 20 yards each way, at or near which cistvaens 
were found, and others similar were known in the neighbourhood in 
Hutchinson’s time (i. 321). 
‘Collinson’s Castle’ at Upper Row in Hutton-in-the-Forest was 
an ancient fortification about 100 yards square, with a ditch 30 feet 
wide and a well ; querns had been found there (Jefferson, Leath Ward, 
p- 438). On Pykethwaite Fell north of Bewcastle, at Christenbury 
Crags, the existence of a camp with ruins of a wall about 24 feet wide, 
and another about 14 feet wide, and ‘a sunken évedywv’ (nine-cornered 
pit) nearly paved round with strongly cemented stones, and sunken 
circles ‘paved as if for fires,’ was reported by J. Hudson in 1804 
(Gentleman's Magazine Library, ‘Romano-British,’ i. 38). At Braystones 
was once a camp on the beach called Maidencastle (anonymous Antiquities 
of West Cumberland, 1849, p. 67). 
These items, to which more might be added, give an idea of the 
variety of non-Roman, and probably post-Roman earthworks, of which 
many are lost and none properly explored. 
A class of square ruins exists on the high fells—the remains of 
stone-built houses, sometimes with garths surrounding them, and possibly 
analogous to the Castlesteads of Stockdalewath and Height Rigg Camp 
at Westward. On Armboth Fell, between Thirlmere and Shoulthwaite 
Castle, are many little buildings with one, two or more chambers, cer- 
tainly not sheepfolds. On Bootle Fell and near Gosforth are old home- 
steads with garths complete, exactly like Icelandic ruins of the saga time. 
Indeed, in spite of losses, there is a great field for study in these remains 
as they exist even to-day; and meantime it would be to very little 
purpose to theorize upon them. 
Mores 
Some of the grave-mounds which have been opened in Cumberland 
have been proved to belong to the Anglian or Viking age. Such are 
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