masonry, or dry stone walls without mortar, similar to those on Worle Hill, are described as the ramparts round many ancient British fastnesses, as at Caer Bran Chun castle, and castle An Dinas in Cornwall[1]; and this kind of masonry agrees with the description given by Tacitus, who describes the Britons under Caractacus as occupying fortified posts situated on steep mountains, and that wherever the access was easy he blocked it up with stones like a wall[2], and Strabo describes the huts of the Gauls as being of a circular form.
The remains of this supposed ancient British masonry are yet considerable, and in the works of Rowland, Pennant, Borlase, and King, we have the position of several described and pointed out. On a more minute investigation and comparison than has perhaps yet been exercised, there may be found in these remains some peculiarities or features of construction which have not hitherto been noticed. It is a point of Archæology on which the field is still open for research.
That the Romans after they had obtained a permanent settlement in this country soon commenced the construction of public edifices, is evident from the notice taken by Tacitus of the temple of Claudius at Camalodunum, when that colony was attacked and the temple destroyed in the revolt of the Britons under Boadicea.
But of the numerous structures, both of a public and private nature, erected by the Romans during the four centuries of their occupancy of this island, we have, notwithstanding their gradual demolition and destruction during fourteen centuries, ample vestiges remaining, though not in an entire state, to shew their peculiar masonry and construction.
These remains consist principally of walled inclosures or fortified posts, such as those at Richborough and Pevensey: of fragments of public edifices, as at Leicester and Wroxeter: of the walls of their cities, of which remains exist at St. Alban's, York, Lincoln, and Silchester: of towers, such as that within the precincts of the castle of Dover: of gateways, as at Lincoln. It is much to be regretted that the ancient Roman gateways, which existed in the city of Canterbury till within the last century, should have been destroyed, and that a similar fate should have befallen the old east gate of Chester, which is said
