12 MISCELLANEOUS DENEHOLE NOTES, 1906.
mation about British pits, collected by a man who had never visited Britain,
from another, or others, without any definite knowledge of them.
Nevertheless, Mr. Conybeare remarks on the above passage from Pliny.
"Here we have an exact picture of those mysterious excavations, some of which
still survive to puzzle antiquaries under the name of deneholes." A description
of those in Hangman's Wood follows. He adds that "the data are conclusive
against their having been either habitations, tombs, store-rooms or hilling ; and
in 1898 Mr. Charles Dawson, F.S.A., pointed out that in Sussex chalk and
limestone are still quarried by means of identically such pits."
It is thus evident that, in the opinion of Mr. Conybeare, the "conclusive
data" against the view that the Hangman's Wood pits were storehouses are
derived from Mr. Charles Dawson's account of the pits in the Purbeck Beds at
Brightling, Sussex.
An article by Mr. Dawson, "On Ancient and Modern Deneholes," appears in
the Geological Magazine for July, 1898. In it he comes to the conclusion that
the bell-pits to a stratum of Purbeck-stone at Brightling are identical in general
character with groups of deneholes such as those of Hangman's Wood. In the
Geological Magazine for October, 1898, there is au article, by myself, in which the
superficial resemblances and fundamental differences between these Brightling pits
and groups of deneholes, such as those of Bexley and Hangman's Wood, are
pointed out.
The Purbeck Beds, in which the Brightling pits exist, occupy, in Sussex, an
extremely small area, and are found only at and near Brightling. They consist
mainly of Shales, but also contain thin bands of Limestone, valuable on account o
its local scarcity. The shaft of the bell-pits, by means of which the stone is
obtained, is three or tour feet in diameter. When the top of the stone is reached
the lower part of the shaft is widened or "belled" on all sides (the extension
varying with the stability of the strata), and the stone, thus uncovered, removed.
The debris from a new shaft fills up an old one. This, of course, becomes
necessary when so small a proportion of the rock in which the excavations are made
is removed for use elsewhere.
Putting aside the differences in detail between the shape of bell-pits and that
of the Hangman's Wood and Bexley deneholes, we find these fundamental
differences between them. The Brightling bell pits are as obviously mines to a
band of stone as the Grimes Graves pits are mines to a band of flint, the shafts
in each case are numerous, partly for reasons connected with stability and the
thinness of the baud of stone extracted, partly to keep in touch with the stone
or flint which may thicken or diminish in certain directions, or may improve or
deteriorate in quality in the course of a few yards.
The Chalk, whether at Hangman's Wood, Bexley, or anywhere else, is a
formation hundreds of feet in thickness, and there is plenty of bare Chalk within
a mile of both those denehole centres. Here and there, of course, a man might
naturally prefer a comparatively deep pit on his own land to sending for chalk a
few miles away. But the matter assumes a totally different aspect when we are
asked to believe that any set of men, ancient or modern, ever deliberately pre-
ferred to concentrate their pits for chalk where they knew it was from 40 to 60ft.
beneath the surface, though they also knew that there was plenty of bare Chalk
within a mile. As I have already remarked more than once only lunatics would
act in that way.
Indeed, where chalk is wanted for lime and for agricultural purposes, pits in