{72}

IV

ST. MARTINSELL HILL

St. Martinsell Hill is a great chalk promontory jutting into a plain. At its base is the village of Oare near Marlborough. St. Martinsell Hill, Oare Hill, and Huish Hill together form a great amphitheatre, the steep sides of which rise some 400 feet or 500 feet above the underlying plain.

We here find an excellent example of the means adopted by neolithic man to preserve and maintain the community.

Approaching St. Martinsell Hill from the south we see that there is only one natural way up its steep sides; but even here the pathway to the summit is worn into steps as being the only secure method of reaching the top.

At the foot of the hill and on either side of the pathway we may see the wolf-platforms. Those lying to the east of the path are constructed in tiers; some three or four Titanic steps guarding the approach on this side. These steps are thirty to forty feet wide, and the sloping face is but little less. On the west of the path is one great platform scooped out of the face of the hill, on which some fir-trees are now growing. Near the summit of the hill the ground is pitted with small cup-shaped depressions, marking the sites {73} of prehistoric dwellings. Situated as they are, they guard the entrance to the citadel, at the farther end of which a great earthen embankment has been piled up. On the eastern side of the summit a level platform has been constructed as though to withstand the attack of wolves which may have climbed the steep side from the arena within the amphitheatre. The view from the summit extends away over plains and downland to a distant blue horizon, which is merged into the sky and cloudland of the heavens. Each headland standing out in this vast view shows the sites of other settlements.

Standing within the citadel a large circular depression, like a deep saucer, some seventy or eighty feet in diameter, is very clearly seen. As the ground on which this depression was excavated was not level, the excavated earth has been thrown up in such a manner that the brim is level all round. This depression marks the site of a dew-pond. It is now dried up, but it is as old as the earthen embankments of the citadel in which it is situated, and forms an essential part of the scheme.

Proceeding along the saddle of the down we come to the entrance to the citadel through the great embankment at the further end. In the ditch beyond, from which the earth was excavated to make the embankment, the ground is pitted, again showing that this entrance was also guarded.

This, however, is but the first of a series of defences {74} on the north. A short distance in front of the main embankment an entrenchment has been cut across the ridge, and perhaps one hundred yards beyond this there is a low embankment, with a ditch beyond it.

An interesting point in this low embankment is to be found in the fact that there are clear traces that it was patrolled, for a small worn path has made a slight depression on its upper surface. Seeing that this low embankment runs from one steep side of the down across the saddle to the steep descent on the opposite side, it could not at any time have served as an ordinary pathway.

We may perhaps pause here for a time to picture to ourselves the weird sight of our early ancestor, longhaired and dressed in wolf-skins, armed with flint implements, patrolling this low embankment. On one side of him was the citadel, and on the other were the fortified enclosures where the herds were kept. During the dark nights he must have heard the howling of the wolves, and the frightened noises from the herds, and in the dim distance he could see, no doubt, the firelight from other settlements. From our over-civilised point of view, the life may appear a hard one, but it was probably a healthy one for the strong, and the weaklings died early.

Continuing along the ride, certain winding paths may be noticed which have a tendency to converge. By following the track of these paths it will be found that they lead into a country lane descending on the
{75}   XXVI.—Sketch plan showing Neolithic settlement on St. Martinsell Hill, Wiltshire {76} eastern side of the slope, and in places cut twenty or thirty feet deep.

As soon as we saw the convergence of these winding tracks leading to the deep cutting of the lane, we recognised that these were the tracks left by the herds going towards a cattle-way leading to the plains.

We next looked for, and found, a confirmatory piece of evidence which we knew from previous experience would be present if this country lane had been, indeed, a neolithic cattle-way. We sought a cup-shaped depression in the ground at a point at the top of the lane before it dispersed itself into the radiating paths. There, exactly in the position anticipated, the depression was found which marks the site of a cattle tally-house.

It is interesting to note from what was subsequently observed in connection with the settlement on Huish Hill, that this particular cattle-way leads down to the grazing-grounds lying to the east of the settlements.

It will be presently demonstrated that considerable confusion resulted from the mingling of the herds which descended respectively from St. Martinsell Hill and from Huish Hill, and that neolithic man had to rearrange the grazing-grounds for the herds which were encamped on Huish Hill.

Continuing our journey along the ridge, and leaving the cattle-way and the cattle tally-house on our right, another depression in the ground is found. This de-{77}pression does not possess the appearance of having been the site of a dwelling, owing to its considerable size and depth. Such depressions may be seen in neolithic settlements, and they generally have a low mound or hump across the centre, thus roughly dividing the depression into two compartments. The frequency with which these humped depressions are found wherever neolithic man has settled, proves that they served some purpose in his economy, and the absence of any cartway leading into the pits precludes the idea that they are of modern origin.

At the margin of the pit in question there is a faint indication of a worn path leading away from the raised hump in the centre. It leads to the edge of the steep side of the down, and here the excavated earth had been tipped.

These pits are, in fact, flint quarries, and the hump was left as a means of ingress and egress.

Before the age of metal, flint working must have been one of the most important industries, for out of this material most of the primitive tools had to be wrought. It is therefore not surprising that flint quarries should be discovered on most hilltops where neolithic man had settled.

It is also interesting to note that the surplus chalk and unsuitable nodules of flint had been tipped where it made the steep sides of the downs still steeper, and so added additional protection against any assailants.

A little farther on is another dew-pond, in this {78} case still containing water. By the side of this second dew-pond is a straw-thatched shepherd’s cottage, where the kind wife of the shepherd made some tea with the water drawn from the dew-pond, and her young daughters gathered a dishful of wild raspberries for us. Not the least of the pleasures in roaming over the wild downs is the pleasant rests we make in the cottages of these kind shepherds, who are as pleased to extend their hospitality as we are to accept it. They refer to the larger embankments as the “giants’ graves,” or the great wolf-platforms as the “shepherd’s steps”; but they know nothing further about them, except that they existed beyond the memory of man.

A short distance beyond the garden of the shepherd’s cottage may be seen the outlines of a great encircling earthen embankment and a ditch on its outer side. Within this enclosure the herds were driven for protection during the night. The circumference of this enclosure must be at least a mile and a half, and it surrounds a level tableland with steep sides to the downs on almost every side. On the north, however, the ground falls away gradually, and here on the northern side the embankment and ditch are pierced by sundry openings. Opposite each opening is a field with an old hedge growing on the top of a bank. It seemed to us as we looked down upon these fields divided by the banks that they may have been small grazing-grounds for the herds near home. There must have been times of danger when it would {79} have been inadvisable to allow the herds to roam in the valleys even by day, and the necessity of securing small grazing-grounds near the encampment is apparent.

By the side of these small grazing-grounds a spur pitted with the sites of dwellings runs out from the great promontory. From the position of these dwellings it appeared as though the occupiers of this small outlying camp were the watchmen of the grazing-ground. Only by the alertness and watchfulness of the men could the cattle be protected, and every precaution appears to have been taken to save the herds from the wolves.

All these works exist on the eastern arc of the great amphitheatre, and the western arc is in sight, a mile away, on our left.

In the distance we have seen great furrows scoring the south side of the western arc known as Huish Hill, but, viewed as we saw them, we had no conception either of their extent or depth. The furrows certainly did not appear to have been constructed for any defensive purpose, and it was not for some time after we had been examining them on the spot that their true meaning dawned upon us.

To pass from the eastern arc to the western it is necessary to cross the road leading from Salisbury to Marlborough over Oare Hill. This road passes through a deep cutting, and, as we scrambled down one side and climbed up the opposite, we were immediately struck by the fact that a second deep cutting {80} was scored in the ground running parallel to the road.

At a little distance beyond this was yet another trench, perhaps twenty-five or thirty feet deep, with particularly steep sides. Proceeding along the edge of this trench in a south-westerly direction, we found that it branched off into two. Each branch curved down the hillside to the plains below.

These trenches, without any embankments on either side to account for excavated earth, are cattle-ways. Occasionally other cattle-ways cut obliquely across the great one, and we were considerably perplexed to find that these oblique cattle-ways were not more than about six or eight feet deep. If both were cattle-ways it appeared as though the cattle travelling along the shallow trenches would have to make a mighty leap across the great ravine in order to continue their journey along the trench by which they were travelling. Hence the perplexity, for there was no evidence to show that the herds had clambered clown the steep sides of the deep ravine from the shallow trenches above. We were therefore determined to follow up one of the shallow trenches in order to seek a solution of the problem. Our bewilderment was increased when we found that the end of the trench, where it opened upon the tableland at the top, had been deliberately blocked, and that in other cases the shallow cattle-ways had been likewise blocked at points just before they reached the deep one. {81}

We presently realised that, for some reason or another, it had been found necessary to divert the herds from their accustomed tracks which led down to the arena contained by the amphitheatre, and to conduct them into others which opened out upon the level grazing-grounds lying to the west.

Cattle had been herded here just as they had been on St. Martinsell Hill. It must have been found that these herds when they descended into the plains by the old or shallow cattle-ways mingled with the herds which belonged to the inhabitants of St. Martinsell Hill, and in order to avoid the continuance of this confusion it was obviously determined to block up the old cattle-ways, and construct new ones, which conducted the herds down to the plains in the opposite direction. This explanation completely accounts for what we had discovered, and if any one cares to ramble over Huish Hill, bearing our solution of the difficulty in mind, he will find how carefully neolithic man took all the necessary steps to carry out the alteration.

Apart, however, from the solution of the difficulty, any one must be very forcibly struck by the age-long custom that must have continued century after century of driving the herds over the same road.

Even if one accepts the view that man may in the first instance have indicated by a cutting in the ground the line he intended his herds to follow, and making allowance for the deepening of the cutting by the washings of the storms and rain, it still remains that the {82} trampling feet century after century could alone satisfactorily account for the depth of something like twenty-five or thirty feet of the great trench.

In conclusion, we may say that we know of no more pleasant occupation, or healthier one, than to leave the high roads and strike inland and upland and trace out the works of neolithic man. It is safe to say that nowhere in the high lands of the downs can the explorer find himself without the evidence of the great earth-workers. When the eye has once become accustomed to their works, it is always possible unerringly to detect their labours. Sometimes it may be only the slightest indication on the surface of the soil but at others it may be that neolithic man has hewn great gaps through the downs, like gigantic railway cuttings, and the course of the country lanes occasionally has its origin in a neolithic cattle-way, or runs along one of the level wolf-platforms.

The hills and the plains speak eloquently of the prehistoric past to those who are willing to forget their own mode of life in the interpretation of the writing on the scroll which they spread before us.