Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/365

 ANCIENT EARTHWORKS space intervening between the tops of the two ramparts is at least ioo feet. Yet the inner area is only about 300 feet from the top of the stirrup to the bottom, and somewhat more across it. Mossbury, near Bedford, also stands very high on the end of a ridge, rising out of once swampy ground to south and east. Old trackways crossed the plain at its foot. There is a long stretch of exterior bank to the south and traces of it on the west. Its interior ditch is 35 feet in width, and the rampart top rises 14 feet above its base. On the northern flank the remains have been much levelled, but here there seems to have been a ditch outside the bank. Within this again at the east end a small en- closure 88 by 120 feet is cut ofF from the rest of the interior space by a narrower cross ditch. The hilltop near it, on the south, seems to have been levelled, thus producing a very visible terrace line round the work. Small bits of Romano-British pottery were extracted from a rabbit hole about a foot below the surface. 1 Water often stands in parts of the moat. Shillington Bury and Holwellbury are both remains of strongly ramparted and moated sites. They stand on flatter, less elevated ground, as do also Newton Bury and ' Grimesbury,' miscalled Greensbury, both with fine exterior ramparts. There are many other ' bury ' sites in various parts of the county, and the whole group should be carefully examined and compared. The examples described have all the appearance of being very early home- steads, with a fallacious show of strong defence. Another type of early enclosed homesteads have a square moat in- side one corner of a larger square or oblong ; as at Moggerhanger, and ill IU
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§s <■ y> ':::<<,,, -~ S A> NM, ^"< 1 ';"""/>;;'J'.: -J,""'/, '".' ""'I'liMiniiiimiMmO - " "'lllllllllllllll, - "'Mi' "iiiiimni inn!",',** " THE CAMPS BUSHMEAD SCALE OF FEET O IOO r J 200 30 1 L 1 r the 'Bigginwood ' near Tempsford. Sometimes the two moats are quite distinct, as at ' The Camps ' at Bushmead, with only a bank between. This example has also curious rounded banks inside two of its angles, and three or four small mounds. It has an exterior rampart. 1 Over much of the ground rough morsels of coarse burnt brick earth occur. The surface earth below the soil also shows signs of fire. These puzzling appearances may have been due to the burning of the clay of the ramparts dug down for ballast, a practice reported in various parts of the county. 307