Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/35

Rh by the masons, with links about two feet long. It is situated on the slope of a steep and high hill, and would be a good place for a watch-tower, as there is a defile on the south-east side which it would guard. It would command an extensive view to the north, being in full view of the station at Bew- castle, but not visible from the Little Beacon Tower.

About a hundred yards below the Side, on the edge of a small ravine, in Robert Calvert's meadow, are the ruins of an ancient pisrina. Here the attention of the antiquary must be arrested by one of the most beautiful phenomena of vegetable development—the evolution of the circinate fronds of the fern—a plant in every respect associated with elegance and beauty of form, and which grows very luxuriantly in this ravine.

Skirting past the south-east corner of the High-house wood, the Maiden Way crosses the Whitebeck rivulet, about forty yards below the gate leading out of the Herdhill; it leaves a plot of stones near the middle of the White Knowe, and a larger quantity may serve to mark the track in the sod fence, where it enters into the Wood-head closes.

(1400 yards.) At 10,070 yards it crosses a road leading to the wastes, at the distance of ninety yards from the north- east corner of the Oakstock ground. This road to the wastes is merely a cart-track, never having been covered with stones to the east; but to the west there is a branch Maiden Way from this point to the station at Bewcastle, and as far as the waste road follows the track of this branch (nearly 500 yards) it is thickly covered with stones of every shape and size, which have never been broken small.

(280 yards.) At 10,350 yards it arrives at a farm-house called "the Bush," which appears to bear the marks of great antiquity about it, but it is impossible to form any certain conclusion as to what it may have been, as the garden and farm-buildings have been placed on its site. There appears to have been a rampart on the south side of the garden, about fifty yards long, from east to west, with a small round tower at the west end. The stones have been removed, and the occupier stated that on digging the garden he finds a great quantity of bones. About two years since, he added a small piece of ground to his garden, and it was so full of stones, that he was obliged to remove many cart-loads before he could dig it properly. As the Romans were not in the