EARLY MAN to have been found near it. In shape it is elliptical, and at the base is 512 yards in circumference. It has been said to be a British broad bar- row, but there is no evidence of any kind that the mound is sepulchral or as to its character in any way. (2) In the parish of Kidderminster Foreign near the Severn, a little above the place where the Birmingham aqueduct crosses the river, is a small tumulus, but there is not even a tradition as to it or what it is. From its situation and size it is probably sepulchral, but there is nothing to furnish any clue as to it. (3) The Devil's Spadeful. Adjoining the railway from Kidder- minster to Bewdley on the sandy ground near Spring Grove, is a tumulus called by the above name. It is said the devil was going to dam up the Severn, and carried the earth forming this tumulus on his spade for the purpose, but losing his way he dropped it down here. There is no record of any examination having ever been made of it. Probably it is sepulchral. (4) Towards the end of the last century there was a group of five barrows on the Clent Hills ; these were opened and examined by Nash. All contained remains of burnt bones and charred wood. In one was an urn which was broken by the spade of the workman who was excavating the mound ; it appeared to be of very ill-burnt clay. Probably they were a group of British barrows. This account of the earthworks in the county is meagre in the extreme, and it is much to be regretted that a better list cannot be furnished. It however comprises all the known earthworks that have up till now been recorded. Trackways No account of Prehistoric Worcestershire should omit some allusion to the ancient roads or trackways in the county. Some writers have recognized a large number of these leading from the different camps to other places in the county ; the existence of most of them has however to be proved. That there were tracks crossing the Severn at different places seems clear, the survival of the name ' Rhydd ' as a place on the Severn would seem to locate a ford where one of these tracks crossed the river. There were probably others that crossed at Worcester and at Bewdley, while the names of Bransford, Knightsford and Stanford on the Teme point to tracks crossing that river at those places. The tracks seem to have been of two kinds : — (a) The ordinary trackway from camp to camp or from place to place. These often kept the high ground and ran along the ridge of the hills. (6) The trackways leading to the saltsprings at Droitwich. Of the first kind there seem to have been at least three : — (i) A track from the Midsummer Hill camp on the Malvern Hills to the east, crossing the Severn at the Rhydd, and then probably turning to the left and running parallel to the Severn to Worcester and on to Droitwich, and thence to the Staffordshire border.
