310 



On Bevizes Castle. 



the most remarkable discovery was not that the mound was com- 

 posed of gravel from the adjacent Severn, but that it was thrown 

 up at a time when the tide flowed past Worcester, for it contained 

 the remains of shells that are not now found in the Severn save 

 where the tide affects it. There are also mounds and " lowes " which 

 were the meeting* places of the earlier tribes, and subsequently of 

 the inhabitants in Saxon times. On Martinmas morning, even at 

 the present day, the inhabitants of the old hundred of Knightlow 

 in the county of Warwick assemble at the site of the old mound to 

 pay their wrath money, and Dugdale has preserved the proceedings 

 of the Saxon mote which was held at Molslow Hill in the same 

 county, which took place in mediaeval times. These, though used 

 by the people under Saxon rule, were earlier in construction, and 

 were not the work of that timber-working, tree-felling Nimrodic 

 race. Fortified mounds were seldom, if ever, used for this purpose, 

 though it is possible that Silbury may have been the scene of a 

 national Tynwald like those which periodically take place in the Isle 

 of Man when the new laws are proclaimed to the people. Fortified 

 mounds, though of varying sizes and of several types, have many 

 features in common. Though the exigences of site and of the people 

 who built them might vary somewhat there is not one of the many 

 scores I have visited which does not present the same general 

 features. There is the mound, sometimes natural, sometimes arti- 

 ficial, and sometimes a compound of both, like the mound of Devizes, 

 adapted and altered by the military architect, who surrounds it first 

 by a ditch, then by a vallum or valla, each of them in turn being 

 strengthened by pallisades and stockades, and then, if the area is 

 not large enough a further area is added to form a courtyard or 

 " faha ! " as it is called in Ireland, in which the young men could 

 exercise and into which the cattle could be driven in case of attack 

 or for safety at night. There is another feature which is seldom 

 neglected or overlooked. Means of retreat must be found as well as 

 of defence, and one feature of this kind I have noted in so many 

 that it may be said generally to comprise all. If we take the mound 

 to be the citadel of the entrenchment, for it is placed on the strongest 

 position possible, so that the outworks are sure to be attacked first 



