Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T16:41:02.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

III.—Ancient and Modern “Dene Holes” and their Makers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Extract

The name “Dene Holes” has been locally given to certain ancient artificial caverns usually found excavated in the Chalk of Essex and Kent. They have deep vertical entrances by shafts, being of varying depth, but the caverns themselves all bear a general similitude in design. They have been chiefly explored in the counties of Essex and Kent, although they undoubtedly exist in many other counties.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1898

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 293 note 1 The writer and Mr. John Lewis, C.E., F.S.A., descended two very fine ones at Brighton, Sussex. One of these was incomplete with respect to depth. in the floor were excavated two or three steps. The workmen seemed to have been excavating the chalk laterally from these steps and thus lowering the floor.

page 294 note 1 See MrHolmes, T. V. paper in the Essex Field Club Transactions, 1887, p. 253.Google Scholar

page 294 note 2 See Essex Field Club Eeports, especially MrHolmes, T. V.' paper, vol. 1887; also Mr. Miller Christy's paper in the Reliquary, April, 1895.Google Scholar

page 296 note 1 Near Crowborough Warren New Water Mill.

page 296 note 2 Beside the writer's own authority on the subject may be quoted Mr. William Topley's memoir on the Weald Geological Survey: see titles “Iron Works” and “Lime.”

page 296 note 3 Argentaria (whitening), so called, (as we learn from another passage in Pliny) because of the brightness it imparted to silver when rubbed with it (see book 35, chap. lviii, Pliny's “Natural History”).

page 296 note 4 This passage has been misquoted by modern writers as “the veins running about.”

page 298 note 1 Mackery End Farm, Harpenden ; Hyde Farm, near Luton; Xew Mill End Farm, near Luton; and many others.

page 299 note 1 See Report on the Blackmore Museum, pt. ii, p. 152.

page 299 note 2 The interior of these dwellings as described are perfectly distinct in form from the so-called “dene holes.”

page 299 note 3 The Hints are sometimes found squared, and are used to line the mouth of the well. in the two Brighton ones the upper or had chalk had been similarly used.

page 301 note 1 See his “Notes on Agriculture,” chap, xviii, title ‘Chalk Manure.’