46 Knap Hill Gamp. 



been ploughed out. At its best the bank is less than a foot high 

 and has no ditch. At close quarters it requires care to trace out 

 its course, but at a little distance it shows up plainly. From the 

 road up Alton Hill it can be seen well, and looks like a wide cart 

 track, and locally is known as the " Devil's Trackway." Our 

 labourers knew it well by sight, but appeared to think it a kind 

 of optical delusion that vanished at close quarters, and were much 

 interested when the actual bank was pointed out to them. 



It was suggested that the bank might be merely the result of 

 levelling to make a pathway, possibly down to the nearest water, 

 but the hill is so steep at this point as to make this very improbable, 

 if not indeed impracticable.^ 



The ditch of the main entrenchment has become silted up level, 

 and the rampart is much worn down with several gaps or openings 

 through it. It was thought that, as often happens on ancient 

 banks, some of these gaps were due to cattle tracks, or had been 

 made for agricultural purposes. 



There was, however, a certain regularity about them, and it was 

 •difficult to see why on such an isolated spot so many tracks should 

 have been made. The difficulty of accounting satisfactorily for 

 these breaks in the rampart and for the ridges corresponding to 

 them that were noticeable on the surface of the silted-in ditch 

 suggested excavation at these points, and led to the discovery of 

 a remarkable feature which appears not to have been observed 

 before in prehistoric fortifications in Britain. 



It was found that the ditch, instead of being continuous, is cut 

 into short and irregular sections divided by portions of unexcavated 

 ground, forming apparently gangways or causeways leading into 

 the camp. Ttiese causeways are in every case opposite a gap in 

 the rampart, clearly showing that these gaps are not the result of 

 any accidental circumstance, but that they, with the causeways, 

 form a part of the original construction of the camp. Thus the 

 entrenchment, consisting of the rampart and ditch, instead of being 

 continuous, except for what might be deemed reasonable provision 



' This possibly may be a comparatively modern boundary bank, of which 

 the remnant of the old rampart is the starting point. 



