62 Casterley Camp Excavations. 



their boundary which is common to both is rectilinear, and clearly 

 an integral part of that, and not of the other enclosures. 



A curious feature about the l'ecti linear enclosure is that the 

 bank was on the outside of the ditch, not, as is usual, on the inside. 1 

 The only advantage of this arrangement seems to be that it would 

 allow for more level space within the enclosure, but it seems in- 

 consistent that such a large ditch should have been made at all, 

 when apparently so little regard was paid to defensive strength. 



Within this enclosure it will be seen there is a smaller ditch 

 (No. 2), forming an inner enclosure, roughly parallel to the outer 

 one. The eastern boundary of the two enclosures coincide, 

 or in other words the smaller ditch disappears into the larger 

 one, and the entrances are identical. There is indeed no way 

 of getting beyond the smaller enclosure without in. some way 

 bridging the inner ditch. It was suggested that the smaller ditch 

 might have been intended for drainage purposes only, on lines 

 analagous to some of the ditches found by General Pitt- Rivers, in 

 the villages he excavated, and considered by him to have been 

 drains. But as the whole of this ditch was cleared out and no 

 cross drains were found to run into it, and as its position and the 

 nature of the soil would render such a large drain entirely su- 

 perfluous, this explanation of its existence cannot be maintained. 

 It seems not unlikely that this ditch represents a slightly earlier 

 enclosure, that was soon found to be inadequate, and that the 

 larger enclosure was then made, utilising all that was possible of 

 the smaller ditch, the rest being filled up, and the entrance being 

 retained in its original position. 2 



1 Sir R. Colt Hoare noticed this, and suggested that the enclosure must 

 therefore have been used for religious purposes, taking for granted that 

 this fact did away with any idea of defence. " By having the ditch within 

 the vallum, denoting probably a place appropriated to religious purposes." 

 Anc. Wilts, South, 177. An old man who had worked on the land for many 

 years, and who remembered seeing the banks and ditches, volunteered the 

 statement that the bank was outside the ditch, it having struck him as 

 peculiar, and unlike that of the outer entrenchment. It will be seen later, 

 that the other enclosures at Casterley seem to have shared in this peculiarity. 



3 The fact that below the surface soil nothing later than the bead rim 

 type of pottery was found goes to support the view that it was filled in at 

 an early date. 



