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III.—An Examination into the character and probable origin of the Hill Forts of Sussex

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

Augustus Henry Lane Fox
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Extract

In the month of September last whilst staying at Brighton I examined nearly the whole of the ancient earthworks which occupy the summits of the highest eminences of the Downs between Beachy Head on the east, and the neighbourhood of Chichester on the west.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , 1869 , pp. 27 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1869

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References

page 27 note a See Ordnance Survey, sheets Nos. V. and IX. scale of one inch to a mile.

page 28 note a “Rivers of Sussex,” by Mark Antony Lower, M.A. F.S.A.—Sussex Archæological Collections, xv. 148–164.

page 28 note b Mantell'a Fossils of the South Downs, p. 286. History and Antiquities of Lewes. By the Rev. T. W. Horsfield, F.S.A. i. 59.

page 29 note a Horsfield, History of Lewes, p. 10–14.

page 29 note b Ibid.

page 29 note c It may, perhaps, be considered in some degree confirmatory of this assumption, that the church in the adjoining village of Southese (which has a round tower exactly resembling that of Piddinghoe, and of the same date) was discovered, in 1851, to stand on the site of an ancient tumulus.—Sussex Archæological Collections, v. 205.

page 30 note a Memorials of the Town, Parish, and Cinqueport of Seaford, by Mark Antony Lower, M.A. F.S.A.

page 30 note b Dixon's Geology of Sussex, p. 48. Bramber Castle is most likely the Portus Adurni of the Notitia. See Archæologia, xli. 439.

page 30 note c Murray's Handbook of Kent and Surrey, p. 316.

page 31 note a The Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain, &c. by Major General Roy.—Prefatory Introduction, p. 5.

page 32 note a These specimens were exhibited on the occasion of the reading of this paper.

page 33 note a See Proc. Soc. Antiq. 2 S. i. 73.

page 34 note a Since the above was written, Mr. John Evans, who spent a few weeks at Seaford during the autumn of 1867, and who had therefore greater opportunities of carefully examining this work, has informed me that he found a scraper and a few flakes within the fort.

page 34 note b Memorials of Seaford, by Mark Antony Lower, M.A., F.S.A. p. 1.

page 34 note c Journal of the Anthropological Society, No. 15, Oct. 1866, clxxxvii. The deposit included, besides flints, the evidence of the artificial workmanship of which appeared doubtful, fragments of pottery, supposed to be Roman, and bones of domesticated animals.

page 35 note a See a map of these ancient waters in Horsfield's History of Lewes.

page 38 note a History of Lewes, p. 37.

page 40 note a Since writing the above, my attention has been drawn by Mr. Boyd Dawkins to the evidence of an extensive flint manufacture which exists in the neighbourhood of Hollingbury, and which leaves little doubt on my mind that this work, like the others, was of British origin.

page 40 note b Sussex Archæological Collections, xiii. 240.

page 41 note a Since writing the above I have ascertained that the interior of this work has been extensively dug for flints.

page 42 note a Sussex Archæological Collections, xiv. 176.

page 44 note a After a second visit to this place, and from information kindly afforded me by Mr. Goring, on whose property the fort stands, I have come to the conclusion that this must be an ancient well, probably constructed by the Romans, coins of which people, of a late date, were found in great numbers when planting the inclosure. During the excavations I also found Roman tiles in the advanced circles. The water supply for the original British intrenchment was probably obtained from a good spring about a quarter of a mile distant, at the foot of the hill to the north-east, to which spot there is an ancient roadway, which, like that of Ditchling, has a rampart thrown up on the side of the valley. It runs obliquely down the hill from the fort to the spring.

page 48 note a There were earth-works at Soraers Town called The Brill, which Stukeley considered to be Roman, though Lysons (Environs of London, iii. 343) very strongly opposes this opinion. The coincidence of the name is in any case worth remark.

page 49 note a Vegetius, lib. i. c. xviii.