Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/490

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A HISTORY OF KENT bourhood is undulating, in many places reaching a greater height than this hill. The entrenchments consist of a fosse with the ballast thrown inward to form a rampart, of no great power at any point, constructed with little regard to natural defences. For instance, at the section A-B in the north-east, where the land is level, the barricade is but a ditch and rampart, perhaps rather wider in base and better defined than the ditch and rampart of the part cut by the section J-K, where the hill- side forms a natural protection, yet it is but a single en- trenchment where we should expect to find a much stronger defence. The work is in a very poor state of preservation, the north portion generally being under cultivation, while the south part of the enclosure, together with the sides of the hill, is covered with tim- ber and underwood, and is exceedingly difficult to examine. As a stronghold it is of no great strength, but it is large, and should be compared Hamdon Hill, Somersetshire : Oldbury Camp, near Ightham with Borough Hill, Northamptonshire and Nottingham Hill, Gloucestershire. The handiwork of neolithic man has been found in caves and on slopes on the skirts of Oldbury. Hence some have claimed a like remote age for the ' camp,' and, indeed, we have no proof to the contrary. 396