ANCIENT EARTHWORKS assist the artificial construction, a simple description is made still more difficult. In the hill side above Hardwell Farm several springs break out of the chalk, which have carved deep gullies for their courses into the valley below. Five or six of these have joined together to form one gully, and about three hundred yards farther north have met another gully of a similar type. Between these remains a chalk plateau with steep escarpments on nearly every side, and very suitable as a place of temporary defence, though its position immediately beneath the steep hill must have rendered its position untenable for any considerable period. Around the upper and broader part of this plateau a vallum has been thrown up, following for the most part its very irregular outline, though it omits to include all the spurs between the minor gullies. Across the neck at the south, between the heads of the two main gullies, two extra valla have' been thrown up to defend this, the weakest part of the construction. Here was the entrance, further defended by another vallum on the east, at right-angles to the others. 1 BOUNDARY DITCHES Like most of the southern counties of England, Berkshire contains many ditches or dykes, some of them running for miles along the Downs, while others are to be seen crossing the valleys from ridge to ridge. These have been considered to mark the boundaries of tribes at some former date, and have been attributed by some to the Belgic peoples and by others to the West-Saxons. No satisfactory evidence has, however, been produced which will enable us to fix their date with any certainty, nor need it be taken for granted that these lines were thrown up by one people at one date. The usual form of construction is a vallum with a fosse on one side, but sometimes there are traces of a ditch on both sides, as if the vallum alone were the important feature. Their height is such that in most cases they can have had but little value as works of defence, unless a stockade had been erected upon them, while their great length makes it unlikely that such an addition could have been made. That they were boundaries of kingdoms or tribal lands seems to be a more probable explanation, but when and by whom they were erected it would be hazardous to suggest. Three of these lines, running parallel from east to west, are known as Grim's ditch, a name found in association with similar banks in other parts of the country. There are two of these on the Downs, formerly known as Ashdown, lying about three or four miles apart, while the remains of the third are to be seen south of the Kennet, not far from the county boundary. i Cough's Camden, i. 222. Lysons, Mag. Brit. i. 214. i 273 35
