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A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



On high ground on Exmoor, with the treacherous bogs as nature's auxiliary, is a camp said by 

 a late rector of the parish to be ' the only undoubted Roman camp in this neighbourhood,' but we 

 see no sufficient evidence to attribute the work to the imperial rulers of Britain. Two swords, 



reported to be Roman, were found 

 here, but they proved to be rapiers 

 of the seventeenth century ! 



The camp is square — somewhat 

 irregular on the north — with sides 

 480 ft. in length, and is surrounded 

 by a vallum which varies from four 

 to seven feet in height. From 50 

 to 100 ft. beyond, another vallum 

 3 ft. high protects the east and north 

 sides, and half of the west, in the 

 centre of which is the only entrance. 

 The southern side is defended by a 

 sudden fall in the ground. 



In the north-east corner was a 

 mound, about eighty feet in cir- 

 cumference, which was opened some 

 years ago, but the results were 

 barren. 



The high position of this camp 

 commands a view of the chain of 

 forts from this point to Barnstaple 

 and Braunton, and the group to the 

 north, including Martinhoe. 

 A tradition is current that Alfred the Great held Shoulsbury Castle against the Danes. 

 HoLNE (O.S. cviii, 14). — Holne Chase Castle, 2^ miles north-west of Ashburton, is situated on 

 ground 200 ft. above the River Dart, by which it is surrounded at some distance on the west, north, 

 and east sides. 



It is a very perfect irregular circular entrenchment of single vallum and fosse, enclosing an 

 area of rather more than 2|- acres. The entrance at the south-west is defended on one side by the 

 northern rampart curving eastwards and extending 60 ft. into the camp ; while the end of the 

 southern rampart, 12 ft. high at this point, is considerably wider, and within its inward curve 

 nestles a circular excavation, 22 ft. in diameter, with an opening towards the entrance. This was 

 originally lined with a dry wall which partially remains, and is said to be a guard-room or warder's 

 hut, which savours too much of mediaevalism ; it was probably the more primitive defence of a 

 pit-fall, where an intruding enemy turning to the right — the only possible course considering the 

 in-turned vallum on the left — would be at the mercy of the garrison upon the agger. 



At the south-east is a minor entrance, a postern, protected by the broadened ends of the 

 rampart. 



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Shoulsbury Castle, High Bray. 





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SCALE OF FE ET 

 100 200 



300 







Holne Chase Castle. 



The easiest approach is on the south, and the defences towards that quarter are the strongest ; 

 the agger rises eleven feet and over, from the bottom of the fosse, and the latter varies both in depth 

 and width, from three to twelve feet deep and from thirty to forty feet wide. 



596 



