AT HANGMAN'S WOOD, GRAYS. 247
British kings in the period between the expeditions of Julius Caesar
B.C. 55 and 54 and the beginning of the Roman occupation A.D. 43,
a king whose capital was Camulodunon or Colchester. And when
we consider the greatness of the changes, ethnological, political, and
social, that had taken place between the reign of Cunobeline and
that of Henry IV., this tradition seems specially important and
interesting; for, while an attribution of the origin of these deneholes
to the period of Danish invasions need not necessarily imply more
than that they were much used, or supposed to have been used, at
that time, a tradition taking them back not merely to the time of the
Roman occupation, but to the period preceding it, gives in itself a
very strong presumption in favour of their British and pre-Roman
origin. And the mediaeval supposition that they were "gold mines"
certainly shows that the purpose of their makers was then an
unfathomed mystery, whether they were supposed to have been
secret gold mines or secret hiding places for treasure.
With these natural inferences from the scanty documentary
evidence at our disposal, the slight additional evidence obtained
during our exploration is quite in harmony. For though the pieces
of Niedermendig millstones are not necessarily Roman in date, yet
these millstones were very largely imported by that people, and
fragments of them are, as Mr. Rudler remarks, "found at most
Roman stations in this country" (see Appendix II.). And the
fragment of rude primitive British ware carries us back to pre-Roman
times. Possibly exploration in some of the much less choked-up
pits of the Bexley groups may some day reward the investigator
with more precise evidence as to date than seems obtainable at
Hangman's Wood, without the expenditure of an amount both of
money and of labour much greater than can be fairly expected.
Little doubt, however, has usually been felt by people interested
in deneholes as to their date, which has commonly been supposed
to be either Roman or pre-Roman; much more discussion has
arisen as to the purposes they were originally intended to serve.
For that reason a brief account of modern chalk-wells and of ancient
flint-works has just been given, in order that the reader may be made
acquainted with their respective characteristics, and be able to com-
pare them with deneholes as described in this Report, and illustrated
by our plans and sections. Though all we have learned about dene-
holes would at least lead us to class them as denholes or secret hiding
places of some kind, whatever difference of opinion might be enter-