Notes. 633 



workers would have chosen to live on the outer side of their defences. 



It has also been suggested that the circles mark the camping ground 

 of a detachment of soldiers quartered there during the Civil War, when 

 this road to Devizes must have been of considerable importance. 



The position commands a good view of the road from Beckhampton, 

 and Roundway Down, where the battle was fought, is scarcely a mile 

 away, so that there is nothing improbable in soldiers being stationed 

 here while fighting was going on round Devizes, but as to whether they 

 are likely to have left evidence of it in the shape of these hut circles is 

 perhaps more doubtful. 



Formerly an inn stood on the road side at Old Shepherd's Shore, and 

 its site may still be seen sheltered under the rampart of Wansdyke 

 where the road passes through the dyke. 



The Rev. A. C. Smith does not mention these mounds, and they are 

 not marked on his map, or on the Ordnance Maps. 



[Mrs.] M. E. Cunnington. 



Gospel Oak. In St. Sampson's parish, but some miles from the town 

 of Cricklade, is a Farm called " Gospel Oak," in what was formerly a 

 part of the Forest of Bradon. Here until 1865 stood the ancient oak 

 which gave its name to the place. In that year the oak was cut down, 

 and a portion of the stump was taken to Cricklade and placed on the 

 Vicarage lawn, the late Mr. Dyson being then vicar. In due time this 

 stump became overgrown by ivy, and its identity was apparently for- 

 gotten until January, 1913, when the present vicar, the Rev. C. W. 

 Jacob, learned that it was actually the remains of the " Gospel Oak," 

 which had meanwhile become widely known through the Bishop of 

 Bristol's contention in his pamphlet, Some Results of the Battles of 

 Deorham and Wanborough, and elsewhere, that it really marked the 

 meeting place of Augustine with the British Bishops in the year 603 

 the site of which had generally been placed by former writers at Aust, 

 near the Old Passage on the Severn. The weight of Bishop Browne's 

 authority is so great that his theory has come to be accepted as a fact by 

 subsequent writers, and is likely to be so stated in future. It seems 

 worth while, therefore, to place on record the very few facts with regard 

 to the tree itself which the present Vicar of St. Sampson's has been 

 able to glean and has been kind enough to communicate to myself. 

 In a letter of January 28th, 1913, he states that : — 



(1) George Hicks, labourer, of Cricklade, remembers helping Job 



Barnes to bring the tree to Cricklade. It was cut down and 

 brought in a timber cart. It was hollow inside. 



(2) Mr. William Cole, ironmonger, Cricklade, remembers that it lay 



for a time on his father-in-law's wharf, and some of it was 

 sawn into timber. He has some of the timber. He says that 

 in his young days it was said that " the first Christians in 

 England met under the oak." 



(3) Richard Toms, labourer, remembers that the stump was placed 



in the Vicarage garden, where it stood until the beginning of 

 1913, about the year 1865. 



