On Deneholes. 51
thick Woolwich sand occurs also at Bexley, where (as is the
case in many of the woods about Dartford) shafts forty to
fifty feet in depth have been sunk through it at an early
period for the purpose of extracting the subjacent chalk, as is
now done at Reading and Plumstead brick-kilns. Mr.
Hasted, in his 'History of Kent,' conjectures that many of
these quarries were excavated by the Saxons as places of
retreat in times of danger. He states that some of them are
twenty fathoms in depth, and that they are to be found also
near Faversham, and at Fritwood, on the south of Murston
Passage, near Milton. The explanation that is suggested by
the geological position of all these places appears to be much
more satisfactory."
We have seen that the shafts of Cissbury and Brandon
were variable in size and shape, though usually of much
greater diameter than those of Deneholes; were larger at the
top than at the bottom, and were connected together by a
network of low galleries from about three to five feet high,
which followed the course of a particular flint-band. The
Deneholes of Bexley or Grays have, on the contrary, shafts
perfectly cylindrical in shape, of very small diameter,—two
feet six inches to three feet, where they have suffered but
little from the weather,—and the chambers at the bottom are
lofty and symmetrical, from ten to thirty feet in height or
thereabouts. There is no communication between adjacent
shafts, though they are often as close together as those at
Grimes Graves, and they do not appear to owe their shape to
any desire to extract any particular band of flint. The shaft
of a Denehole may be wholly in the chalk, or may be almost
entirely in the Thanet sand and other overlying beds. It is
obvious, however, that those Deneholes which differ from
pits of the Grimes Graves class in geological position, as well
as in structure, will most surely illustrate the primary
intention of their makers.
No better examples could consequently be chosen for
investigation than those which the Essex Field Club pro-
poses to examine in Hangman's Wood; or those at Bexley,
which correspond so closely to them in structure, and in