ANCIENT EARTHWORKS ' " AND . ', DEFENSIVE ENCLOSURES IN this chapter, which will be found to contain a fairly complete list of the ancient earthworks of the county, an attempt is made to classify them according to their physical characteristics. This plan has been adopted partly because no other method is at present equally available, and partly because the distinctions upon which the arrangement is based are well marked. With the exception of the work done at Chyoone Castle by the Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society in 1895 an( ^ at Tregeare in St. Kew by Messrs. Burnard and Baring-Gould in 1902, nothing in the nature of organized excavation has been attempted, and in the absence of the information which may be derived from such a source, or from historical record, this classification cannot at present be regarded as final, but the differences in the typical features which lead to it are obvious, and encourage the assumption that they have a historical foundation. This method of classification has also the advantage that it agrees with the scheme for recording such works prepared by the committee appointed for that purpose by the Congress of Archaeological Societies and published in 1903, with an appendix in 1905. The first list (Class A) contains defensive works which are ' partly inaccessible by reason of precipices, cliffs or water.' In each case in Cornwall there is a rocky headland, connected to the main by a narrow neck of land across which run often two and sometimes three lines of entrenchment. On the sea side they are practically inaccessible. With the exception of Little Dinas in St. Anthony in Meneage, which perhaps may yet prove to be of a different origin from the others, it would be impossible to land except on a very few summer days, while on the land side they are completely overlooked. King Arthur's Castle at Tintagel is, as far as the situation is considered, a grand specimen of the class ; but although there may perhaps have been mere defensive entrenchments there at one time, they have long since been strengthened by the mason-built walls, which give it quite another character, and in consequence it is not included as a cliff castle coming within the limit of this chapter. 1 The second list, which corresponds with the Class B in the scheme of the committee, contains the hill castles. These are earthen or rough 1 See Maclean, iii. 194, etc. for plans, etc. 451
