NOTES ON ANCIENT DEFENSIVE EARTH-
WORKS IN CONNECTION WITH THOSE
OF RAYLEIGH "CASTLE," ESSEX.
By T. V. HOLMES, F.G.S., F. Anthrop. Inst. (Vice-President).
[Read at the Meeting on July 10th. 1897.]
SITES for ancient castles or camps possessing any consider-
able amount of natural strength are very rare in the Eastern
Counties. For the Chalk, which abounds in strong natural
positions in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire and
Dorset, occupies very little of the surface of Norfolk, Suffolk and
Essex, being generally covered in the last-named counties by the
Chalky Boulder Clay and other superficial beds. And where the
Chalk does appear, mainly on their western borders, it is much
less bold in outline than it is on the North and South Downs and
elsewhere south of the Thames Valley.
If we turn our attention to the positions of the defensive
earthworks on the Chalk of the Southern Counties, we find that
we may expect to see an ancient entrenchment wherever there is
a strong natural site. Indeed, my own experience is that they
invariably go together, but exceptions doubtless occur here and
there. If we follow the course of the Chalk escarpment (or out-
crop), we notice spots where combes, or natural hollows along
the face of the steep hillside, almost isolate a few acres of land
from the high ground adjacent, and find that the high ground
thus isolated has been converted into a primitive stronghold by
means of a rampart and ditch, which are most developed where
the ground is weakest. Sometimes more than one rampart and
ditch surround the fort, as in that magnificent example, Maiden
Castle, near Dorchester, and in other cases. These hill forts are
by no means confined to the Chalk escarpment, but are to be found
wherever a nearly isolated hill appears. Thus, in Sussex, the
Devil's Dyke, near Brighton, a very steep combe, nearly isolates
a fort on the edge of the Chalk escarpment ; while Cissbury
Camp, north of Worthing, is about midway between the Chalk
escarpment and the sea. And others, at Seaford and Beachy
Head, have the Chalk cliffs for their southern boundary.