Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/193

 PRE-HISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF EAST DEVON. 159 about three acres in extent, enclosed by a single imllum. 7. Dumdun Castle, of a subovate form, 300 paces in length, and 60 paces in breadth, enclosed by a double aggrr of bold elevation. 8. Stockland Great Castle, twelve acres in extent, about 300 paces in length, and as many in breadth, irregular in form, and enclosed by an agfjcr in some places more than 40 feet in perpendicular height. 9. Stockland Little Castle, of nearly circular form, about 120 paces in diameter, with a single vallum of great strength, and of about two acres in extent. 10. Wid worthy Castle, a small circular camp or fort, about SO paces in diameter, almost destroyed. 11. Ilembur}^ Fort, enclosed by a tri])le circumvallation about 40 feet in perpendicular height, and divided unequally by a double agger of low elevation, extending across its area from east to west. 12. Woodbur}'- Castle, of an irregular oval form, about 300 paces in length, and about 120 paces in width, surrounded by a single vallum, except on the north- west where the defence has been doubled. 13. Belbury Castle, on the right bank of the river Otter, oval in shape, formed by a single entrenchment, about 130 paces in length, and 70 paces in brca<lth. 14. Sidbury Castle, about 500 paces in length, and 150 paces in breadth at the widest j)art, surrounded by a double rampart 40 feet in height, and with an interveninir fosse. These fortifications approximate more or less closely to a circular form, generally occupy an area of from three hundred to eight hundred feet in diameter, are enclosed within one or more trenches or ramparts of eai-th, and are monuments of the energy and industry no less than of the military skill and strategy of early British workmanship. It will be noted that they are not simply circular hill-forts, wherein we trace the mere rudimentary efforts of a people in the infancy of the art of defensive warfare ; they display supei'ior engineer- ing skill both in the choice of site, and in the elaborate adap- tation of tlie earth-works to the natural features of the ground. Though undoubtedly of native workmanship (as I have said), man}' of them having been possibly strongholds and places of retreat thrown up by the native Briton to withstand the encroachments of the Roman invader ; in the course of time they have passed into the hands of the conqueror, and have been probably occupied successively by Briton and Roman, by Saxon and Dane. But the subject has already been Vdi- xxix. a