Page:Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 6.djvu/134

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ANDERIDA OF ANDREDESCEASTBR.

Mr. Wright.[1] Beside those just enumerated, there is also Brook Street between Ham Street and Tenterden, as well as Gardiner Street between Hailsham and Boreham Street.

It might be an inquiry of much interest, and certainly the field of research is hitherto untrodden, to endeavour to ascertain the course of the Roman road between Kent and Sussex. The vestiges still observable in the neighbourhood of Limme would afford a most favourable starting point, and, should the clue anywhere fail, it is confidently presumed that the recovery of it must be sought in one or the other of the two lines now indicated. If Newenden Castle is not recognised as the probable intermediate post between Pevensey and Limme, or if two such posts are deemed more likely than one, the site or sites are yet to be discovered. Beside that at Newenden, and two others a little northward in Rolvenden, (of the character of which, having never visited them, I cannot speak), neither my own knowledge, nor acquired information, whether public or private, lead me to imagine the existence of any vestiges of military works in that district.[2] If such vestiges should ever be found, it can hardly fail to be solely in woodland, which still covers a very large proportion of the Wealds of Kent and Sussex, the undisturbed remnant of the ancient Grand Forest of Anderida.

  1. Gentleman's Magazine, already alluded to.
  2. After this dissertation was completed I have learned the positive existence, twenty or thirty years ago, of a (rather vague) rumour of ancient works still visible in a wood upon Burg Hill, very high ground in the parish of Etchingham on the border of Sussex, though my informant had no opportunity of searching for the reported remains. Arguing merely from a knowledge of the name "Burg Hill," Professor Airy suggests this locality for the storming of the British fortress by the Romans, shortly after Cæsar's landing, on his second expedition, in the neighbourhood, as the astronomer-royal supposes, of Pevensey, whence the direct route to London would pass very near Burg Hill along the present Hastings and London road. The same spot might have been included in the Roman line of communication between Pevensey and Limme, though I consider it would have been too far to the west, and that the natural features of the country render the course already proposed much the more probable of the two.