248 REPORT ON THE DENEHOLE EXPLORATION
tained as to what was probably hidden or stored in them, opinions have
yet been largely entertained that they were ancient chalk-wells or flint-
workings, or even Roman sepulchral vaults. In the "Archaeologia,"
vol. xxxiv., page 21, is an "Account of the Discovery of Roman and
other Sepulchral Remains at the village of Stone, near Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire," by J. Y. Akerman, Esq., Secretary to the Society
of Antiquaries, in which the writer gives a drawing of a columbarium
or receptacle for the ashes of the dead after cremation, discovered at
Rome in 1692. Admittance to this columbarium is given by means
of a shaft 51 ft. deep, with footholes at the sides like those of our
deneholes, at the bottom of which is a domelike vault with a corridor
outside it. The chamber is stuccoed, and the niches for the ollae,
or cinerary urns, painted light blue, etc., etc. Mr. Akerman, after
describing certain pits at Stone, the contents of which showed them
to be of like character, and alluding to others more or less similar at
Ewell and Richborough, states his belief that Royston cave was
clearly a Roman sepulchral vault, and that the East Tilbury and
Hangman's Wood pits are of Roman origin, and were used for the
same sepulchral purposes. Now it cannot be said that there is any-
thing in the position of Hangman's Wood geologically or topographi-
cally, or in the separation of each pit from its neighbour against this
view. But it is evident that had these Hangman's Wood pits been
columbaria the fact would have been evident from the existence of
niches for the cinerary urns, and of some fragments at least of the
cinerary urns themselves. Even if the latter had all been removed
or destroyed, the niches must have remained, for, as we have seen,
appearances are decidedly against the supposition that the pits have
been perceptibly altered in shape since their original construction.
The Royston cave, on the other hand, is a dome-shaped chamber
with numerous niches in its walls, which may well have been at one
time a columbarium, whether originally constructed for that purpose
or not. And we have some record of the finding of what seems to
have been a Roman sepulchral vault in the immediate neighbour-
hood of Hangman's Wood. At a meeting of the Royal Archaeo-
logical Institute in 1869, Mr. R. Meeson exhibited antiquities from
Grays Thurrock, mentioning at the same time that in every field
in that neighbourhood below which was a substratum of chalk, deep
cavities known as daneholes existed, which he believed had been
originally formed to obtain chalk for lime. He added that he had
opened one of these pits, which he had found full of Roman burial