Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/358

 ^2,^ Collectanea.

Earthworks. — If the natural formation of the ground has decided the relative positions of Camp and spring, it has decided too the form of the Camp itself Sometimes a spur with its steep sides is cut off from the plateau behind it by a line, or lines, of earthworks ; sometimes the whole of the hill-top is fortified by- earthworks conforming to the natural shape of the hill, as at the magnificent " Uley Bury." Thirdly, a portion of a plateau may be enclosed by a curved line of embankments, with the ends rest- ing on the escarpment; to this type belongs the largest of all our Cotswold earthworks, Minchinhampton Camp, which, from an unusual combination of circumstances, offers so many points of interest that I feel it deserves more detailed study than I can give.

The Camp is one of three upon a tongue of flat, high ground running north-west from the watershed of the Thames to the small town of Stroud, whence several valleys run up into the hills like the arms of a fiord. The three Camps stand 600-700 ft. above sea-level: Rodborough, a mere indeterminate fragment; Amberley (about 60 acres), a low, worn mound with its ends on the escarpment and " Sprig's Well " in the hollow below ; and Minchinhampton, with a mound and inner ditch enclosing some 600 acres, similarly situated above " Drooper's Stream " and " Bubble Well." All three Camps were once in the same parish of Minchinhampton, in the Hundred of Longtree. The country people say they were put up " in the time of the war," but no other lore attaches to the actual earthworks as far as I can ascertain. On the hill-top are hundreds of pit-dwellings, which have escaped destruction because of Common grazing rights ; some flint implements are found, and there have been tumuli, of which a round barrow called "Whitfield's Tump" (after the great preacher) still remains. Now, in almost every case hereabouts, the ancient Camps of the Cotswolds lie deserted on the hill-tops, with a modern town or village further down the slope, if there is a neighbouring community at all. But the little old town of Minchinhampton is huddled up in the north-east corner of the earthworks, as if cramped for room, yet standing quite clear of the mound except where the sites of the old Manor House and the church have made a gap in the great curve. Beyond church and rectory the earthworks reappear in what were