CENTURIATION IN ESSEX. 215
It is possible, however, that Plumberow Mount may have
performed some such function as a landmark from quite a
different direction. The artificial mound enables an observer
to view the country to the south-west. Any such observer,
granted the ability to see thus far, would be able to follow the
line of the road through Laindon to which reference has been
made. The stake and ashes suggest that the mound was
concerned in some way with the laying out of centuriation;
the stake providing a surveying mast for near distances; the
charcoal resulting from a fire by night and smoke column by