Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/535

 ANCIENT EARTHWORKS Mr. F. C. J. Spurrell, who examined the site with extreme care, At the time when the earthworks were constructed the tides flowed up to these valleys across which the road passes. The eastern one has a square-shaped work around the bottom of the valley at a distance secure from the reach of the tide, and its bank on one side, if not on both, at one time continued much further northward (to the river) than it does now, in an irregular manner influenced by the shape of the ground. The square-shaped hythe wall continues westward up the hiU, then in a general direc- tion southward, skirting the hillside for some distance. The ditch all along this bank is landward, for the protection of the waterside community. It presents in section several peculiarities, and notably the upper angle ; for here the hill rises so high and quickly that it required clever arrangement for protection at so unfavourable a spot. All the rest of these works are lost in the improvements required by the abbey. The west valley is stopped by a dam, making an upper pond, while the roadway lower down formed another dam.^ T/iamos Marsh/anc^. rc£rJ/-h r ^a/se'^ rcod,'^or_ o YARDS '^&^(if'!lu u, v^^;«in><^ fr^:Former/y ^^//> ^ WORKS AT LESNES. KENT. It is probably with accuracy we may picture these two creeks occupied by the vessels of Saxon or Danish settlers, vessels so Hght of draught that they could be drawn sufficiently high up the valleys to be sheltered from enemies by the protection of the ramparts and fosses. GouDHURST. — Entrenchments of great length exist in the woods south-east of Bewlt bridge. They are more or less joined in Shearnfold Wood and Cats Wood, but form no enclosure, and seem to partake of the nature of boundary banks rather than of defences. In these woods they may be traced for about 6,000 ft., and in Chingley Wood, Dunster's and Polecat Woods, near by on south-west, the Ordnance Early Sites and Embankments,' Arch. Journ. (1885) xlii. 441 se