Poundbury Camp is situated on a bluff of the Upper Chalk overlooking the river Frome and its water-meadows (pl. LXVII). The approach from the south and west slopes gently riverwards, but to the east the site is separated from the outskirts of Dorchester by a shallow combe. Though its situation is hardly that of a hill-fort, usually isolated on a detached hill or promontory, nevertheless the camp holds a commanding position in relation to its immediate surroundings, and its multiple defences, now sadly defaced, must once have presented a considerable obstacle to enemy attack. Though not comparable in size to the oppidum of Maiden Castle, for it encloses an area of only 15 acres, the existence of such a stronghold less than two miles distant from the major hill-fort seemed to require investigation. By whom had it been constructed, for what purpose, and to what extent had it been occupied, were questions demanding explanation. It was with the intention of bringing some light to bear on these problems that excavations were carried out at Poundbury in the spring of 1939.

The ruins of Dudley Priory lie a short distance north of the town in the valley below the castle. The surrounding grounds belonged to a house recently acquired by the Borough Council. They have been laid out as a public park, and the plan included the clearance and preservation of the monastic remains, a task which was entrusted to the Ancient Monuments Branch of H.M. Office of Works. In the course of the clearance small trial excavations were undertaken in order to explore the earlier history of the conventual buildings. The results of these excavations and the following survey of the architectual remains are recorded by the courtesy of the Town Council of Dudley and of the Office of Works. In particular I am indebted to the Borough Surveyor and to Mr. A. Heasman, then Chief Architect in charge of Ancient Monuments. I have also to thank the Office of Works for the plan and the photographs which illustrate this paper, while in the preparation of the text I owe much to Dr. Rose Graham, F.S.A., and to Mr. A. W. Clapham, President of the Society of Antiquaries.

The Island of Jersey being now (August 1940) in the occupation of the enemy, I should like to put on record the present state of the thus interrupted excavation of the Palaeolithic site known as La Cotte de St. Brelade. Here, as is well known, important finds have been made in the past, notably during the years 1910–16. There was every reason to believe, when operations were suspended in the course of the last Great War, that more remained to be discovered near by; but the far greater bulk of the ‘head’ covering the untouched parts long deterred us from so laborious and expensive an undertaking. At length in 1936 we were moved to make a fresh start, thanks largely to the generosity of the Royal Society, which made us grants of £50 for two successive years, followed by three more of £25 per annum, the last of which could not be used. This money has been entirely spent in securing the expert assistance of quarrymen in charge of Mr. W. Bichard; tools and other material aids being provided at the expense of the Société Jersiaise.

Rams Hill is an inconspicuous knoll of the Berkshire Downs (Berks. O.S. 6 in. XIX, NW. and NE.) on the ridge overlooking the Vale of the White Horse. It lies within the 700-ft. contour, with the ground sloping gently to the south and falling steeply to 400 ft. on the northern escarpment. To the west, a mile away, the land rises to White Horse Hill, a bluff over 800 ft. high, crowned by the hill-fort of Uffington Castle and with the eponymous turf-cut Horse on the westward slope slightly below.

The Ridgeway runs along the crest of the downs, south of Uffington Castle but on the north edge of Rams Hill, while along the bottom of the escarpment the Ickneild Way winds in and out of the coombes between the 400- and 500-ft. contours.

A small but interesting find of Roman coins was made recently by Mr. Stuart Piggott during his examination of the site at Rams Hill, near Uffington, described in the preceding paper; and I may here recapitulate his description of the discovery. Two adult skeletons were found, buried one above the other, in a ditch which appeared to belong to an enclosure of the Ditchley–Wootton–Fawler–Kiddington type, and of which three sides were defined, suggesting a square 260 ft. across. There had evidently been occupation within this (although a trench encountered no foundations)—probably a wooden building on analogy with Ditchley; and the pottery in the ditch was first-century, with abundant Belgic types. Into the filling of this ditch, or rather in a cleared-out portion of it (since no grave dug through the filling could be detected in the section), the two burials had been deposited, the upper on his back with no grave-goods, the lower on his left side with the coins. Two coins, one silver and one bronze, were enclosed between two thin silver-foil discs folded over each other in the mouth; the other coins (seven) were all together in a compact mass high up against the ribs, a fact which suggests the previous existence of a bag or purse slung round the neck. Thus there is no doubt of the strict contemporaneity of the whole group. There was nothing else to suggest late Roman occupation of the site.