On the Excavations at Rotherley, Woodcuts, and BoJeerly Dyke. 299 



the settlement in the same manner as at Woodcuts and Rotherley. 



It was evident that a settlement must have existed on the ground 

 before the dyke was thrown up. The greater part of the coins and 

 relics were found in the lowest part of the rampart, in dark mould, 

 just over the old surface line, and it appeared quite certain that this 

 mould must have come from the upper part of the ditch when the 

 diggers threw up that part first before they reached the chalk 

 beneath, all of which was found overlying the mould in the rampart 

 and containing comparatively few coins. 



But there was no trace of any settlement or inequalities on the 

 surface of the ground near the dyke, or for some distance from it. 

 Feeling convinced, however, that some such settlement must have 

 existed, I commenced trenching the ground on the outside of the 

 ditch to see if any trace of habitations could be found, and soon 

 came upon some pits and a drain 4ft. to 6ft. wide and 3ft. deep, on 

 an average, running nearly parallel to the dyke. This, from its 

 position in front of the entrenchment, I called the Fore Drain. I 

 then followed this drain, and found that it ran close up to the Roman 

 Road and then curved round and turned away from it to the north, 

 in which direction it extended in a straight line for about 530yds. 

 and then terminated. Roman coins and pottery were found in the 

 drain and in the surface soil on the sides of it and of the pits. This 

 ditch drained from north to south, and then from east to west, as 

 far as the ditch of the dyke. To the north of this, and nearly at 

 right angles with it, a somewhat larger ditch — 9ft. to 10ft. wide 

 and 4ft. deep — which, from its being the outermost ditch discovered, 

 I called the Boundary Ditch, ran west to east, close to the end of the 

 Fore Drain, but not touching it, and under the Roman Road and 

 Salisbury Road, terminating in front of the Shoulder Angle of the 

 dyke. The West Drain, about the same size as the last, marked 

 the extent of my diggings on that side. About midway between 

 the Boundary Drain and the dyke, another, which I call the Mid 

 Drain, ran in a zig-zag course, cutting the Fore Drain about its 

 centre, and having two short drains running out of it to the south, 

 one of which ended in a pit, probably a dry well. This terminated 

 in the Cross Drain, which ran parallel to the Roman Road, and was 



VOL. XXV. — NO. LXXV. Y 



