252 JERBOURG AND ITS FORTIFICATIONS. 



Cornet was fortified, this latter always became the place of 

 refuge and the last defence against any enemy getting pos- 

 session of the island. 



Mr. W. A. Luff has kindly supplied me with a manuscript 

 note written by Mr. F. Lukis, who explored our dolmens, 

 which may tend to confirm the idea that these trenches 

 were made by Celtic people. The note says : " On the 

 heights of Jerbourg in St. Martin's parish on the east side 

 of the island was another manufactory of arrow-points. 

 We have found some of these in the ancient military em- 

 bankments which surround the column erected in 1818 to 

 the memory of Sir John Doyle, Lieut.-Governor of the 

 island. The quantity of flakes scattered in all directions, 

 especially in the embankments, is enormous, and besides these 

 and the perfect arrow-points occasionally discovered, there 

 is so vast an amount of broken pottery of decidedly Celtic 

 character mixed with them as to lead irresistibly to the 

 belief that a very considerable cromlech existed here, which 

 must have been replete with these interesting relics. We 

 have also seen several stone celts and mullers from the 

 vicinity." 



In support of the Celtic origin of these lines, I may 

 also quote from Pitt-Rivers's " Excavations in the Wans- 

 dyke"* : "Isolated encampments on tops of hills were 

 simply places of refuge for some local tribe inhabiting 

 the vicinity, to which they resorted when attacked by a 

 neighbouring tribe. . . . (Later), tribes combined and threw 

 up, continuous lines of ditch and bank, probably surmounted 

 by a stockade along the open country from an inaccessible 

 position on one flank to some other natural defence on the 

 other," exactly as we find at Jerbourg. 



Tupper in his History and Dr. R. Gr. Latham in Ansted's 

 Channel Islands speak of these entrenchments as Roman. The 

 latter says (p. 429) " Of Roman remains there are few. . . . 

 Across the isthmus of the peninsula of Jerbourg is a true 

 Car-dyke, i.e., a fosse connected with a fortification, the 

 fortification bearing the Keltic name of Caer, as in Caer- 

 narvon, Carlisle, Caerleon and other towns in Britain. That 

 this -. ord is the first syllable in Jerbourg (as well as in 

 Cherbourg) is almost certain." With great diffidence I dare 

 to express a different opinion. The second syllable " bourg " 

 is Teutonic, Anglo-Saxon in origin. A. S. burh, from byrig 

 — an earthwork, hence burh — burg — a fortified town. Heri- 

 cher in his valuable dictionary says : Bourg is connected with 

 * Vol. III., pages 7 and 8. 



