THE FLORA OF WARWICKSHIRE. 
108 
he has suggested that the Pen Pits may have had their origin in a 
similar process of mining.* 
Edward King has alluded to the conical pits on Household, near 
Norwich, with which he was inclined to class Pen Pits.f These may 
all have been sand or gravel pits.f 
On Edgefield Heath there are several pits; one occurs west of the 
Holt and Edgefield Koad, a little north of the 20th milestone. It was 
10 yards across and 8 feet deep, and appeared to be simply an old 
gravel pit. Similar pits occur on East Rudham and Syderstone 
commons. 
Diggings are frequently made in Norfolk for “ stone,” that is for flint 
boulders to be used for building purposes, and when a sufficient quantity 
of material has been obtained the pit may be abandoned. Such a method 
of working, especially on heath-lands, may have been more common in 
former years, when the boulder gravel was obtained for building the 
greater part of the Norfolk Churches, for many walls, and for paving 
as well as road-mending. 
The -irregular occurrence of the gravel, in shoals or masses of 
uncertain extent in finer gravel and sand, may partly account for the 
irregular workings. Moreover the boulder gravel often occurs at the 
surface resting on sand, and it may have been easier to open a fresh 
pit when stone was wanted, than to enlarge the old one and haul the 
material from it. Some old pits, as Mr. T. G. Bayfield has suggested 
to me, may have been made by charcoal-burners ; others of course 
may have been used as the foundations of dwellings, but of this we 
want in Norfolk more positive evidence. 
The miscellaneous information here brought together may perhaps 
be useful in stimulating further inquiry into the interesting subject of 
Pits and Pit-dwellings. 
THE FLORA OF WARWICKSHIRE. 
AN AtH'OUNT OF THE FLOWERING PLANTS AND FERNS 
OF THE COUNTY OF WARWICK. 
BY JAMES E. BAGNALL. 
( Continued fro7n page 88. j 
COMPOSIT-^ (continued ). 
CARLINA. 
C. vulgaris, lAnn. Carline Thistle. 
Native; On heaths, banks and pastures, in marly and calcareous 
soils. Rare. July, August. 
I. Marly banks near Arley Village. 
II. Oversley Hill, Part, ii., 386; between Leek Wootton fields and 
Ashow ; Welcombe Hills, near Stratford, Ferry FI., 68 ; Green’s 
Grove, Hatton, Herb. Per.; near Birdingbur}-, R. S. R.; Hatton, 
Harbury, H. B.; Wellesbourne; Lighthorne, Bolton King; 
Yarningale common ; between Kineton and Edge Hills. 
* ‘‘Jour, Ethnol. Soc.,” vol. ii, 1871 
i “ Muuiinenta Antiqua,” 1799, pp. 50 — 53, 
