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A N C I E N T BRITISH SKULL.
FROM BAREOW ON ROUND WAY HILL, NORTH WILTS.
(REGION OP THE BELG^, TEMP. PTOLEMIBI, A.D. 120.)
Cranium from Barrow {No. 3) on Romdwaij Bill.—Qu,ttrter-size.
THE pioturesque Mil of Roundway looks down upon the town of Devizes, at a distance of two
miles to the north, and was a conspicuous land-mark to the traveller by coach to the west. The
old road to Bath passed across this hill at the time of the battle which was fought here in 1643,
when, after a sanguinary struggle, WaUer was defeated by the Royalists. Roundway HiU forms
the western termination of the great range of the chalk-downs of Wütshire, its abrupt escarpment
commanding great part of the vale of the western Avon. A Httle to the north, on
Morgan's Hill, is the Roman road between Cunetio and Aquaj SoUs,—the nearest station on this
road, Verlucio (at Highfleld, Wans House), being about three mües to the north-west. A
small earth-work or camp on the edge of the down, popularly known as "Oliver's Castle," may
have been a castrum cestivum, or exploratory post of the Romans *. Two mües to the north,
also on Morgan's HiU, is the great work of the Wansdyke, with which the Roman road her¡
forms a remarkable junctionf. Wansdyke was the probable boundary between the Belgaj and
Dobuni; so that Roundway was situated somewhat centraUy on the northern confines of the terri-
* Its character appears more Roman than British ; and
Camden and Aubrey both assign it to the former people,
t Tlio liaiTow on Morgan's Hill from which the skull
43.
figured in Plate 32 was taken is situated about three-quarters
of a mile to the east of this junction, and is marked I on the
Map on the next page.
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