them, but the number of alehouses increased by leaps and bounds. In 1632 Thomas Bartlett, of Puddletown, was distinguished by the illrule and drunkenness in his alehouse, which was to be suppressed. But Bartlett was not an easy man to deal with. He abused the constables who came to carry out the orders and successfully resisted them, no doubt with the assistance of some of the villagers, for Puddletown possessed only this one alehouse, and its suppression would have meant total abstinence from beer on the part of most of the smaller householders. After the lapse of several months, and when another man was ready to take his place, Bartlett was removed, but little was gained by getting rid of this particular offender. A very few years later, Puddletown was able to boast of four alehouses, besides an inn, and the place was then said to be very disorderly. There were few parts of the county where similar measures were not required. Wambrook, Chardstock, Hawkchurch, Netherbury, the Hundred of Buckland, Sturminster Newton, Shaftesbury, and Wareham all earned especial orders from the Court. Also, in a petition from the ministers of Yetminster and adjacent parishes, complaint was made that the excessive number of alehouses occasioned much drunkenness on the Sabbath as well as on weekdays. They add that from this cause the word of God looseth its fruit, God is dishonoured, men's estate exhausted wch should be spent on their families, and for the intollerable abuse of the Creatures a famine, without God's especial mercy, is justly to be feared." But nothing effectual was accomplished. Subsequent to all these orders for suppression comes the old complaint, this time from the Grand Jury in 1646, of the multiplication of alehouses and the increase of abuses and disorders; and there are still later entries in the Order Books showing that the want of a licence did not always deter an alehouse keeper from carrying on his business. So far as the Assizes were concerned, the campaign against alehouses was abandoned soon after 1650. It would appear that the people wished to drink to excess, and no power on earth could stop them.

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A perusal of the Assize Books leaves the general impression that a great part of the inhabitants of Dorset in the 17th century were addicted to crime, drunkenness, or other vice, or were submerged in poverty; but there is at least the redeeming fact that those in power fought strenuously, according to their lights, against all these evils, and such records as these serve to remind us of how much the present generation owes to the improvements in social conditions effected, little by little, in past centuries.

The Ancient

Earthworks of Cranborne Chase.

By HEYWOOD SUMNER, F.S.A.

THE plans which I am submitting for your inspection to-day are an attempt to put into practise the preaching of the Archæological Committee on Ancient Earthworks.

This committee has urged that plans and schedules should be made of our Ancient Earthworks throughout England; that a definite area should be undertaken by each worker; and that the plans should be made on the 25 inch scale. My daily view extends over Cranborne Chase, and curiosity had often led me to investigate its varied earthworks. In so doing I had felt the want of a complete record of their plans. Thus it came to pass that two years ago I ventured to undertake a definite survey of the Ancient Earthworks on Cranborne Chase, the results of which you see before you.

It is curious that the old cartographers, Saxton, Norden, and Speed, did not mark camps and earthworks in their surveys. Speed records a few in his letterpress descriptions

of the counties, and in writing of Dorset he mentions Maumbury, Poundbury, Maiden Castle, and Badbury-but that is all. Evidently they were held in small estimation by our ancestors, a neglect that increases the debt of gratitude that we owe to Dr. Stukeley, whose "Itinerarium Curiosum (published in 1724) was the first contribution to a study of these priceless relics of our history by means of plans.

When maps were few, and surveys scant, how exciting must have been the search for Ancient Earthworks! Imagine a description of Dorset-as Speed describes it-with never a word about the camps on Hambledon Hill, or on Hod Hill, and with no mention of Bokerly Dyke! And then think of riding afield as a roving enquirer, and coming upon these forgotten earthworks that express such indomitable energy, and that confront us with such great problems of prehistoric life. This was the happy fortune of the antiquary in the 18th Century. What Dr. Stukeley began, Sir Richard Colt Hoare continued. In the early years of the 19th Century he gave up hunting foxes in favour of hunting earthworks, and the ardour of his new chase led him across the borders of his native Wiltshire into Dorset and the district of our survey. His folio volumes on 'Ancient Wiltshire" contain most beautifully engraved plans of several of the earthworks on Cranborne Chase; but their accuracy is not equal to their execution. Mr. Charles Warne's "Illustrated Map of Dorsetshire also includes some of these earthworks, but this admirable map only locates sites; it is on too small a scale to give any details of plan. In "Ancient Dorset," by the same author, there are a few wood-cuts of camp plans that are scarcely worthy of their purpose. The most accurate plans of Earthworks on Cranborne Chase are to be found in General Pitt Rivers' works; but they only include the sites of his excavations. Accordingly, if we wish to study plans of the various earthworks in this district, we must obtain about 40 6-inch Ordnance Survey sheets whereon they are recorded. The Ordnance Survey is a most admirable and exact work, from its own point of view, but it is not the

court of final appeal in matters of antiquity. There are omissions, and there are misunderstandings, and so the antiquary has still got his part to play, and may still help to perfect such a record.

The method that I have adopted in making this survey has been-first, to make a tracing of the 25-inch O.S. sheet that records the earthwork under examination. Then to study the 6-inch O.S. sheet of the same place, in order to note the rise and fall of the land, which are shewn by contour lines on the 6-inch scale, but not on the 25-inch. Then to examine the site with both the 25-inch tracing and the 6-inch sheet, in order to verify the record, and to supplement omissions. And finally to measure up typical sections of the earthwork.

In one case the large pastoral enclosure on Rockbourne Down-I have made an original survey, as it is not recorded in any of the maps of the Ordnance Survey.

The limits of this district of Cranborne Chase have been the cause of much contention. But with this we have no concern. The outer bounds or extreme limits of the Chase as recorded by the Perambulations, 29, Henry III., and 8, Edward I., and in two maps of A.D. 1618 by Richard Hardinge and Thomas Aldwell respectively, are the boundaries of our survey. These boundaries, though medieval, are founded upon natural features, that have always tended to impart a certain local and separate character to this district.

Even now Cranborne Chase is a peculiar district. It lies apart from railroads, and apart from most of the road traffic that passes through Ringwood, Wimborne, Blandford, Shaftesbury, or Salisbury. It is a solitary tract of downland, corn-land, wood-land, and waste. Dry valleys run far up into the steep flanks of the Oxdrove Ridgeway that is the backbone of the Chase. Streams emerge with intermittent flow in the lower slopes of these valleys. The present villages, with the exception of Whitsbury and Ashmore, are in the lowlands. While, on the uplands will be found the sites of many ancient British villages. Barrows, both long and