ANCIENT EARTHWORKS England, of which the Ridgeway or Icknield Street is the best known example ; and most of them are connected by roads which are thought to date from the Roman period or earlier. Another curious fact is that the large majority of these camps lie near the boundary of the parish in which they are situated. In some cases the boundary actually skirts the rampart, sometimes making a con- siderable detour to do so ; in others the boundary runs through the camp, and in two cases the county boundary does likewise. No systematic investigations have been made which will enable us to fix the period at which these earthworks have been constructed, but certain evidences which have been forthcoming at Cherbury and Letcombe lead us to suspect that these, at any rate, date from the neolithic period. ASHBURY, ALFRED'S CASTLE. The camp called c Alfred's Castle ' stands on an elevated part of Swinley Down, to the west of Ashdown Park, commanding the two passes across the Downs from the Vale of White Horse to the Lambourn Valley. Its shape is an irregular circle, and it is much smaller than the other camps of this type, being only 140 yards in diameter. It is surrounded by a vallum, and the fosse outside is visible for more than half the circuit, being much deeper on the south side than elsewhere. The principal gateway is on the south-east, and was defended by a double rampart, part of which still exists. There is another gateway to the north-west, and a third, apparently, to the north-east, though perhaps this is due to the destruc- tion of the vallum at this spot in later times. Lysons mentions that formerly there were traces of buildings here, and Aubrey says that in his time the earthworks were ' almost quite defaced by digging for sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven's house in the park.' ' An iron axe-head figured in the Arch. "Journal^ and other weapons of the same material have been found in the immediate neighbourhood. BLEWBURY, BLEWBURTON HILL. Around this hill are two parallel steep escarpments, forming terraces, and on the north-western side are three more rows, while several fragments may be seen on the south. The space enclosed by these terraces is on the top of a hill commanding an extensive view of the Valley of the Thames and the Vale of White Horse. Owing to its commanding position and the conspicuous nature of the terraces, it has long been looked upon as a camp, and the elongated 1 Lysons, Mag. Brit. i. 214 ; Arch. Journ. vii. 391-2. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, i. 151. 253
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ALFRED'S CASTLE, ASHBURY.
