MISCELLANEOUS DENEHOLE NOTES, 1906. 13
it might tend to be concentrated where it is close to the surface, like those at
Purfleet and Grays at the present day, or to be scattered like those in the
Chalky Boulder-clay of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northern Essex. In no circum-
stances would they be concentrated in places like Hangman's Wood or like
Stankey or Cavey Spring, Bexley. Other essential differences between deneholes
and excavations of the bell-pit class I have already pointed out when discussing
the view of the Messrs. Forster,
In spite of Mr. F. J. Bennett's paper on "Chalk Wells,'' appended to our
Denehole Report, some writers about deneholes still appear to think the
existence of pits of that class unknown to us. It may be, therefore, useful to
mention that an account of some seen by the present writer near Stifford, at a
spot where the Chalk is 11 to 12 feet beneath the surface, appears in the Essex
Naturalist for 1889.
An article in The Times, "From our special correspondent," on "The
Deneholes of Essex," appeared on September 30, 1905. However, as it has been
already noticed in the Essex Naturalist (Vol. XIV., p. 74), I content
myself with quoting the following remark from it :—" Whatsoever may have
been the original purpose of these excavations, or the successive uses
to which they have been put, no sane man ever made them simply for the
purpose of obtaining chalk." Full justice is done in the article to the
"exploration by the Essex Field Club."
Few matters in connection with this subject seem to me more curious and
amusing than the way in which the opinion of the great antiquary, Camden, that
the deneholes near Tilbury "were of British origin, and were constructed for the
purpose of storing corn, as underground granaries," is mentioned by Mr. Roach
Smith in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1867, to be dismissed without the
slightest reason being given for its rejection. Of course there are many subjects
in which the knowledge gained since Camden's time might amply justify such a
course. But so far from this being the case with deneholes or ancient primitive
appliances of any kind, the disadvantage is decidedly with the antiquaries of the
present day. Camden was not only a man of great, sane intellect, with an
unrivalled knowledge of English antiquities, but, living three centuries ago, he
must have had an acquaintance with old English traditional habits and practices
hardly possible to men of the present time, when machinery and rapid intercom,
munication have destroyed so many local habits and customs, and sometimes,
doubtless, have even caused all recollection of them to perish. Persons interested
in deneholes and other ancient pits should remember that we have the testimony of
Diodorus Siculus that harvest with the Britons meant the cutting off the ears of
corn and storing them in pits under ground, as well as that of Pliny that pits
were sunk in Britain for the extraction of chalk. It then becomes obvious that to
determine the probable former uses of a group of ancient excavations with any
probability of attaining sound results, it is necessary to make a thorough exami-
nation of the geology and physical geography of the districts in which they exist,
as well as the shape and other characteristics of the pits themselves. Then only
can we ascertain whether they belong to the class made for the sake of the exca-
vation, or to that of pits for the sake of the material extracted—to that mentioned.
by Diodorus Siculus or by Pliny.