By Mrs. '31. E. Gunnington. 595 



One distinctive feature the two enclosures certainly have in 

 common, and that is that they are both completely surrounded by 

 their respective ditches, no entrance causeways having been left 

 in either case. This feature is so remarkable that it certainly may 

 be taken as affording good presumptive evidence that both works 

 were made by the same people. The two ditches, although not 

 quite of the same size, are alike in general outline and appearance, 1 

 and nothing of a contradictory nature having been found, it may 

 be said, therefore, that, on the whole, evidence is in favour of the 

 common origin of the two enclosures. 



As to date, the pottery found at different depths in the inner 

 ditch to within a few inches of the bottom is sufficient to show 

 that this ditch at any rate is neither prehistoric nor Eoman, but 

 mediaeval. 2 In 1720, when Dr. Stukeley wrote, all memory of the 

 use of the enclosures had faded. Their date, therefore, is probably 

 somewhere between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. 



Lastly, for what purpose were the enclosures made ? Had they 

 been the site of regular habitation, there must have been 

 more evidence of it than there is. Not only in the excavations 

 was pottery very scarce, but in repeated and diligent search among 

 the earth thrown out by the moles not a single scrap of pottery 

 was found — and this was certainly not due to a want of activity 

 on the part of the moles. 3 The entire absence from the ditch of 

 any pigs' bones, the presence of dogs' bones, and the fact that some 



1 Ditches of enclosures, proved by General Pitt-Rivers to be of the 

 Bronze Age, were much more formidable than these. They were not so 

 regularly cut, and of a quite different shape in section ; they sloped to a bottom 

 narrow in proportion to their breadth and depth — they were, indeed, funnel- 

 shaped — whereas the ditches here had wide and shallow bottoms. 



2 It is remarkable that all the pottery, with the exception of one piece 

 of Roman manufacture found in the turf mould, seems to be of the 

 same period, and that there is not a fragment of the hand-made Bronze 

 Age type. In addition to the finding of mediaeval pottery, this is of im- 

 portance as evidence of date, because had there been a Romano-British or 

 earlier settlement on the site pottery characteristic of these periods must 

 have been found. 



3 Sir R. Colt Hoare dug into several parts of the enclosure, but " could 

 find none of the usual marks of residence." {An. Wilts, p. 97.) 



2e2 



