Haesten's Camps at Shoebury and Benfleet, essex. 151
that buildings, gravel-pits, and tennis grounds then in process of
formation somewhat obscured the line.
The wall on the north is still bounded by the ditch, along the
outer margin of which runs "Rampart Street." The wall on the
south was plainly seen with the ditch, although overgrown with
trees and brushwood and somewhat knocked about. But in the
centre of the west side, protected by a small clump of thick trees, a
part of the wall and ditch remained but little altered, and by digging
I was enabled to obtain an exact measurement, quite sufficient to
get the original dimensions and to conjecture even the height of
the earthen wall within a matter of inches. Also, at the point where
the sea had cut the outline, good measurements could be got.
The outline is irregular, seemingly constructed in short stretches
of nearly straight lines joined by rounded-off corners. Its dimen-
sions are:—ditch 40 feet wide at surface and 8 to 9 feet in depth,
except in one place (at the section A—B) where 2 feet has to be
allowed for a kind of step on the inner side and which extends for
one-third of the width of the ditch. The ditch was half filled with
earth. The land, which is very level, had been raised to a bank,
then standing 12 feet high, with a slight platform inside the wall
about 3 feet above the general level, and extending inwards to a
little distance. Some of this platform, as well as the filling of the
ditch, may have been caused by the degradation of the wall, but
some certainly was intentional.
The area enclosed by the Camp was perhaps once about one-third
of a square mile, as inferred from the inclination of the walls
towards the sea, and the larger half has been lost.
The top of the cliffs is about 12 to 13 feet above high-water
mark; they are of sand and easily destroyed. At the time when
Hasting constructed the Camp (in A.D. 894) the coast was of
different aspect to the present. The Camp by its own showing was
an inland Camp ; I mean that the ditch did not then impinge on the
sea. Had such been the case it could not but have happened that the
muddy water would have invaded it and, in stormy weather and
high tides, have washed into it, for the bottom of it is only three feet
above high-water mark now; but no mud or shells are to be found.
In accordance with the customary mode of forming Camps among the
Saxons and Danes, the form was an irregular kind of square, so it
will be seen that if the present lines be carried round, enclosing as
much more land as remains still (as in the little plan), the coast