EXPLORATION OF SOME "RED-HILLS" IN ESSEX, 171
and another. Barber had known the Red-hills about 28 years.
He told us that it was then about half an acre in extent, and
that hundreds of loads of soil had been taken away. He also
said that in making the foundations for the shed "a number of
coins were found, one silver, and quantities of pot, some of them
whole, and pieces of bene." A carpenter named Baker, of
Southminster, found the silver coin. Of course, I give these
particulars wholly on hearsay.
Judging from what we saw, and were told, the red-hill had
been much interfered with, and very great quantities of the
burnt rubble taken away. It was consequently very shallow,
and only one of our cuttings afforded anything like a good
section. We made four trenches:—
No. 1 was 16ft. long and 2ft. Sin. wide. We dug down to
the apparently undisturbed clay (? London Clay) first finding
a thin layer of sand at a depth of about 2ft. 6in. The reddish
burnt rubble appeared to be very uniform throughout.
No. 2 trench was 20ft. long and 2ft. 6in. wide. The sur-
face soil was thick, about 2oin., and much may have been cast
over the "hill." Then came 3m. of burnt red clay and sand;
1in. charcoal; 2in. burnt clay; another layer of charcoal, very
thin; then 2in. burnt clay, and finally about 10in. sand over the
clay bottom.
In No. 3 we went down about 2oin. finding red-earth below,
but we could not get a section to the bottom because a burrow
had been cut through the part years ago, apparently as a shelter
for hares.
Our last trench (No. 4.) was 10ft, long, aft. 6in. wide, and
about 18in. down to the undisturbed clay. The soil here, after
the superficial surface layer, was of the red burnt-earth kind,
which apparently had been sifted; it was quite fine in grain, and
contained little or no pottery.
It will be gathered from the above that the "red-earth"
formed by far the greater part of the "hill." This substance
was quite like the burnt clay now-a-days prepared for making
paths and roads during suburban building operations.
Interspersed with this burnt rubble, in all the cuttings
excepting No. 4, were vast numbers of fragments, mostly quite
small, of a very coarse and thick pottery, presumably made
from the same kind of clay (see specimen drawn at A, Fig. 1).