THE BLACKHEATH SUBSIDENCES. 
245 
falling into them, and refers to the Germania of Tacitus, who 
describes the Germans as digging out subterranean caves. 
‘ They pile upon them great heaps of dung, as a shelter from 
winter and as a receptacle for the year’s produce, for by such 
places they mitigate the rigour of the cold, xlnd in case an 
enemy approaches, he lays waste the open country, while what 
is hidden and buried is either not known to exist, or else escapes 
him, from the very fact that it has to be searched for.’ ( Tram l . 
Church and Brodribb.) 
Hearing that Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell, of Belvedere, was the 
chief authority on the subject of these Danes’ Holes, I wrote 
asking where they might best be seen in the neighbourhood 
of Bexley, having always thought that the Blackheath sub- 
sidences were the result of artificial excavations of some kind. 
Mr. Spurrell replied that Joy den’s Wood was a good place, and 
that he thought the Blackheath subsidences would be found to 
result from the presence of Danes’ Holes there. On the 7th of 
April he read a very interesting paper on Danes’ Holes at the 
Archaeological Institute, in which he stated that they were 
known to exist as far west as Charlton Park. A remarkable 
pit, probably originally a Dane’s Hole, was discovered in 
February 1878 at Eltham Park,* and a strange subsidence 
occurred five years ago in Kidbrook Park Poad, on the eastern 
border of Blackheath. And it is almost certain that the 
extensive cavern under the Point at the north-west corner of 
Blackheath should be referred to this class, though it was 
entered by a gallery driven into the hillside, and not by means 
of a vertical shaft. 
The pits of Joy den’s Wood are most abundant in that part 
called Cavey’s Spring. The shafts seen by me were all in 
Thanet Sand, and were very narrow, though, of course, con- 
siderably broader at the mouth than they were five or six feet 
lower down. I do not think that, except just at the mouth, they 
were more than 2 feet 9 inches in diameter. Two of them 
probably communicated with each other below, as they were not 
more than 80 feet apart. The ground, indeed, for a space of 
4 or 5 acres, is covered by bell-shaped pits 8 or 10 feet 
deep, while here and there appears one of these shafts, some- 
times from the bottom of a bell-shaped pit, sometimes not. I 
was informed that these shafts sometimes appeared suddenly 
and unexpectedly, and that they were about 70 feet deep. The 
pit at Eltham Park is 140 feet deep, and has (probably since 
it was first made) been lined with courses of brick and chalk, 
so that its present diameter is from 4 feet 1 inch to 4 feet 
2 inches. A bed of flint forms the roof of the chamber, which 
* See Paper by Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, Proc. Roy. Archceol. Inst., 
March, 1878 ; and for plan and section of pit, Engineer, March 18, 1881. 
