EARLY MAN Kilham, are some 200 mounds called in the neighbourhood Danes' Graves. Some of them being opened by Canon Greenwell and other gentlemen in 1896 proved to be the interments of people in the same state of culture as the occupiers of Hunsbury Camp, viz. Late Celtic. The fortification near Flamborough called Danes' Dyke has been shown by the late General Pitt-Rivers not to be the work of the Danes. The earthwork in Somersetshire called Danesborough is probably pre- Roman, and other instances could be adduced. Hunsbury Camp was scheduled under the Ancient Monuments Act of 1882, but it was found that owing to the mineral value of the ground it could not be brought under the Act. The excavation of it was due to a commercial undertaking ; for underlying the soil was a bed of iron- stone about 12 feet thick (this ironstone is the Northampton Sand of the inferior oolite series of beds) which the Hunsbury Hill Iron Ore Co. began to dig towards the end of 1882. No such thorough excavation of any camp of this period has been undertaken before, or is likely to be undertaken again except for a similar purpose, that is, commercial enterprise. The cost of removing the soil and obtaining the ironstone amounted to several thousand pounds, a sum which would prevent any private digging operations. Over the whole camp, that is as far as it was dug (for a small portion on the southern side was left on account of the poorer quality of the ironstone), the navvies found in what they call the ' on bearing,' that is the soil above the Northampton Sand, numbers of pits sunk in many cases to the ironstone. Most of these pits resembled in shape long beehives turned upside down ; a few of the pits were walled round with flat limestone of the Great Oolite. The usual measurement of these pits was from 5 feet to 6 feet in diameter and about 6 feet in depth. They were filled with black earth and mould, and in them were found numerous articles all of which are claimed to belong to the Late Celtic period. In shape the camp is a somewhat circular oval, with an area of about 4 acres. It was fortified by a ditch or fosse from 50 feet to 60 feet in width and about i 5 feet deep. This ditch with its sides has long been planted with trees, as was also probably the area of the camp previously to its being converted into an arable field. In later digging operations outside the camp on the north side remains of a second trench were found : this was much shallower than the fosse round the camp. In a paper by the late Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., published in the Report of the Northampton Architectural Society for 1885, he gives a plan and sections of the camp showing some of the pits, and seven plates of the more important articles obtained from them. He says : ' There is no reason to suppose the remains at Hunsbury differ widely in date from one another, and if so probably the occupiers were also the constructors of the camp.' Sir Henry in his paper was inclined to attribute the camp to the Romanized Britons, but it is only fair to state that since he wrote it various additional evidences came to light to verify and substantiate the opinion of those who hold that the remains are all pre-Roman. It is M7
