By Tom Burgess, Esq., F.S.A. 



311 



—if the defenders are beaten they can retreat to the stronghold, 

 and if still hardly pressed, they take advantage of the night to 

 escape by a path known only to themselves into the neighbouring 

 marsh, bog, forest, or ford, where strangers and heavily-armed troops 

 could not and dare not follow them. I have in my mind's eye a 

 small but typical illustration of these features. It has never been 

 described. It is situated at Kineton in the county of Warwick, 

 within the lines occupied by the Parliamentary troops at the Battle 

 of Edge-hill. The mound is entirely artificial, and not more than 

 sixty to eighty feet across the top. The mound itself is from twenty 

 to twenty-five feet high above the level of the ditch, which is partly 

 surrounded by a rampart similar to the one depicted before you. 

 The mound is further enclosed in the horns of two overlapping 

 lunettes defended by fosses, and beyond these are the remains of a 

 slight embankment of sufficient size to hold the cattle and domestic 

 animals of so small an establishment. It is situated on the fork of 

 a small river, hence its name Kyndun, corrupted into Kineton or 

 Kington. To the north was the burial place of the chieftains, and 

 from which have been exhumed British urns, pottery, and signs of 

 cremation. The present town lies away to the south between this 

 fortified position and the steep oolitic bluffs known as the Edge-hills, 

 and which form part of the vale of the Red Horse. Seccington, 

 which was the site of a Mercian battle, is of a larger but similar 

 construction to this, and Brinklow, which I alluded to on Wednesday 

 as being situated on the direct line of the Fosse Roman way, which 

 diverges to avoid it, is another instance. There are present, doubt- 

 less, many of the Associates who stood with me on the Castle Hill 

 at Huddersfield, during the Sheffield Congress, who will recognize 

 in the hill fortress of the Brigantes this feature, which is very 

 marked. In cases where the mound was large enough it was seen 

 simply but elaborately fortified by a series of over- lapping ramparts 

 and extensive fosses like old Oswestry, or by linchets as in the hour- 

 glass fortifications of the Herefordshire Beacon — the great border 

 stronghold of the Silures. That your hill side was fortified in this 

 manner, there is scarcely a doubt, when the dawn of written history 

 throws its light o'er this land. There was a forest on one side and 



