for military service in case of urgent necessity still exists in our Militia Act; the maintenance of bridges remains as a county charge; but the liability for the repair of local defences has passed away. It is, however, interesting to us when studying the remains of these ancient fortifications which still exist in most parts of England. Some of them are great mounds of the later Saxon period. but many of them are old Celtic earthworks which the Britons made, and the Saxons adopted for their own defences. In some parts of the country, as on two hills close to Burghclere in Hampshire, the remains of two great British camps may be seen, one of which, on Beacon Hill, was maintained apparently during the whole Anglo-Saxon period, and the other, on Ladle Hill, allowed to fall into disuse and decay, the banks being now almost obliterated, while the other is in a much more perfect condition. In the confirmation of Magna Charta by Edward I. we read that ‘no town nor freemen shall be distrained to make bridges nor banks, but such as of old time have been accustomed to make them in the time of King Henry our grandfather, and no banks shall be defended from henceforth but such as were in defence in the time of King Henry our grandfather, by the same places and the same bounds as they were wont to be in his time.’ All freemen among our Old English forefathers were trained to the use of arms, and were always ready to take the field or defend their fortifications. When the repair of these banks ceased there is, so far as known, no record, but from the above quotation it is certain that they must have been kept up as local defences to be used in case of need for at least two centuries after the Norman Conquest. It is no doubt owing to the ancient local obligation to repair them that so many remain in a fairly perfect state. Maiden Castle, near Dorchester; Uffington Castle in Berkshire; and Painswick Castle in Gloucestershire, are other examples of earthworks that were probably kept in repair until a late period.
