96 Miscellaneous Notes on Deneholes.
edge of the escarpment.6 I may now add that they are
known in the neighbourhood of Witchling and Lenham.
Mr. Hatch states that they abound very much in his
locality, and that he has noted the positions mainly of those
on his own land which have concerned him from the
agriculturist's point of view. At Witchling is the pit at the
bottom of which a young girl once passed fifteen days. She
fell down one Saturday evening, and heard the church-bells
chime on three successive Sundays before she was released,
Probably she had a small quantity of solid food about her
when she slipped down; for drink she had as much rain-
water as she could catch in a thimble. She is (I was told)
still living. Witchling is about two miles from the brow of
the escarpment, and two miles and a half from Lenham.
All the pits shown me by Mr. Hatch were on the top of
the Chalk escarpment, and within half a mile of its edge,
which averages there about 600 ft. above the level of the sea.
The highest ground is the narrow belt of country, perhaps
half a mile in breadth on the average, on the top of the
escarpment and close to the edge, and in this tract of highest
ground6 all the pits we saw were situated. On the north-east
side of it the Chalk, much furrowed by valleys, slopes gently
down towards Faversham. About a mile and a half N.E. of
Lenham is a little cluster of houses, called Warren Street.
Two roads lead from its southern end to Rayner's Farm (S.W.)
and to Waterditch Farm (S.E.). In the field in the angle
between these roads two pits have tumbled in, at the spot
where a tree is marked on the six-inch Ordnance Map. They
now appear as steep-sided circular holes, perhaps 12 ft. deep
and 15 ft. in diameter. In another field close to, but W. of,
Warren Street, and on the north side of the road thence to
Pivington Farm, are slight hollows marking the positions of
five more. This field is the one crossed by the parish boundary,
which generally runs along the hedges. Towards the middle
of the field on the western side of that last named, and north
of the parish boundary, three more pits exist where the two
5 'Archaeological Journal,' 1881, No. 152, p. 396.
6 The highest point reached is 672 ft. 6 in., near Pivington Farm.