Page:VCH Herefordshire 1.djvu/290

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A HIST6RY of HEREFORDSHIRE Wall Hills. See Ledbury, Thornbury. Wapley Hill. See Staunton-on- Arrow. Whitchurch : Great Doward. — Upon this hill, which is separated from Little Doward Hill by a valley, and is about 6i miles south-west of Ross, is an oval inclosure, surrounded by a bank of 6 ft. to 8 ft. in height, and a fosse of corresponding depth. The inclosed area is about a third of an acre in extent, and may have been used as a cattle-keep or shelter by the Britons who occupied the well-defined camp on the Little Doward (see Ganarew). The earthwork is referred to by Gough,"' and briefly described in the Transactions of the Woolhope Field ClubP SIMPLE DEFENSIVE INCLOSURES (Class C) Kenchester. — Four and a quarter miles west of Hereford. Discoveries beneath the soil of Kenchester leave us no room for doubt that the site was occupied by a Roman or Romano-British settlement. A wall of masonry seems to have inclosed the irregularly hexagonal area, but now no sign of stonework appears, nor is there any rampart, but a simple scarping of the ground. Even when Stukeley wrote there was little more to be seen, though he showed ' the track of the Roman wall ' on his plan, he found no evidence of a fosse or ditch.'" The settlement was on ground rising a little above the surrounding level, and about a mile north of the River Wye, but was not naturally protected ; though standing about 280 ft. above sea level it is lower than points not far removed, especially on the north-east, where within a mile, Credenhill boldly rises. Whether Kenchester and the great stronghold on Credenhill bore any relation to one another cannot be said. It may be that the latter was a British fortress, and that the Romans constructed Kenchester for the reduction ^„>"«"'"""* ■ t"'"': Kenchester " Camden, Brit. (ed. Gough, 1789), ii, 448. " Itin. Curiosum (1776), 69. "Op. cit. (1883-5), 218. 222