Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/327

Rh however the loose stones having been cleared away, the masonry of the wall is visible, and this discloses a regular surface or flat facing of irregular-shaped stones put together without mortar, few of the stones being larger than what a man might lift, and, as far as can be judged, the thickness of the walls thus constructed may be from eight to ten feet.

Within the area inclosed by these walls is a space of about twenty acres, this has been planted with trees, and in the course of a few years many interesting features will be obliterated, or nearly so, but at present numerous small pit-like cavities or excavations of a circular form are visible, most of them no more than from five to six feet in diameter, though some are of a larger size. Many of these are now filled with stones, and there is, I think, little doubt but that these cavities are the sites of the huts of the ancient Britons, and that the stones with which they are filled are those of the walls; whilst this apparent reason may be assigned for the formation of these cavities, that they served as a protection from the cold and bitter winds of the wintry storms to which this elevated site was much exposed.

Some of these excavations are nine or ten feet in diameter, and in some places there appears to have been a continuous range or cluster of huts, or one much larger than usual, and in one place on the south-east side of this inclosed area is a space, whether of a circular or square form can now with difficulty be ascertained, sixteen or eighteen feet square or in diameter. In one part are the apparent remains of the walls of one of these huts standing to the height of eighteen inches or two feet; these walls are eighteen inches in thickness, constructed of stones, mostly small, piled one above another, inclosing a space not more than four feet six inches long by four feet wide. Some of the excavations are not filled up with stones, and some of the stones seem to have undergone the action of fire.

The whole of these remains are worthy of a more minute examination than that which, in the course of a recent and hurried visit, I was able to bestow upon them.

In the Munimenta Antiqua, remains and traces of what are supposed to have been the ancient dwellings of the Britons, very similar to those at Worle Hill, are enumerated as existing in several places in the Isle of Anglesey, in Caernarvonshire, in Cornwall, and elsewhere; remains also of ancient British