The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1885-04-28 00:00:00

NIAII)C1 CASTLE.

This astonishing work has ever been a place of war
and comsat. Many • Homan heart has beat .iVer
quickly hereabout. at the rattle of the war cars and
the tramp their teams tearing across Fordington
Yield. nenty of clashing of or, •w..rd against
bream kelt at and around Maiden Castle. And it is
a battle Field still, • grand skirmishing groond for the
anticinanes. What is the meaning .4 the name!
How old is the work! Who made it! On each el these
siumitiosis there is fine disputing. Far be it fools me
to give any, even the mad diffident, opinion of my
AIM Only will I try, as shortly se may be, to sketch a
feer of the conolusions arrived at by professed
The attractive name is commonly
Stitleo =ma that "Ire, never took," am I heard
Dorset men explaining to • tourist,
siatouished at the leaped' of the it... against the even.
ins sky. "Tim milled Malden Cattle co. 'liver Dever
=maid me man "And Dever will," his ems.
aimed in. That Is the country lees. But it
course it will not do for the etymological antiquary.
Hutchins. in the " History .4 Dorset," avers that
in the Highland language" Maiden means • castle
em a hill; Satter that it equals Mai Don Castle. the
castle of the great hill. Our venerable and admirable
Donet autitt. Mr. Warne. thialts Maiden to he
" partly founded on the Keltic Mai, a plain or open
field," and he quotes an opinion that this aced is akin
to the Oriental Maiden, of the same sense. Thus the
emele would take its name, not front the bill, but
from the plain. Stich are the chief opinions, so far as
I knew, about the name. There is another to the
effect that the monad syllable, Dun, is the
origin of the same, given by the ancient geographer,
Ptolemy, to a town hereabouts, and that this is the
phew. The other two questions—when was Maiden
Ltle made! and by whom !—are much intermixed.
believe' that the very vari..l4. ..i.inions on
this isiint or points rimy be broadly ulisiuleil
into three classes. First, there is the theory that
Maiden Castle was constructed far lack in the
dimne. .4 time by a civilised race—n.mlioman and
non-Keltie. This race was by some thought to he the
Phomician. What could have induced the Ploeni•
clans, even if numerous enough, to make this huge
earthwork far from the sea and from mime, when
they mime as mariners and buyers of metal, is hard to
perceive, and indeed this idea is now aliand.sied by
All. I thick. Secondly, the KAM made it, "there
affirm. This is the firm belief both .4 Mr. Wann.
and .4 the Rev. W. Barnes, names which deservedly
carry Feat weight with as all here in Dorset. They
ore evidence .4 Keltic work is the shape .4 the camp,
so freely following the contour 44 the ground, and in the
elaborate nature .4 the defence.. Mr. Wants ...letting
that the Roman idea .4 earthworks was • mash
eimitiler one than that here carried out, and that thvY
habitual! formed theirs into a more ilf leas regular
He further denies the common idea
atia ever, great work in England done lefore
A. Oconnerer w of nemesity Roman, believing that
in the face .4 a great danger the Kelt. were capable
of uniting to defend thenweivee aid of making the
Slaillms trenches V.I. that national par)...... lii short
Ise thinks that the smaller division of Maidess Cootie
that brineda the east was an ancient British" iidat
dam" as (sawn, which was added to and vastly
strengthened by the Kelts from fear of the ftomans
shot this work was carried on for many years, but
sever. he believe., finished on the .s.uth side, and that
it was Vespasian's advance which put a stop to the
maiden of what, if cmipleted, (ha Kelts erhape
fond' thought would have held great Itome in check.
argument for the Kettle origin Maiden
Male is that neither Romans, P.Menicians, nor any
other pre-Saxon Meaderm were in. force enough to
meupy such • vast sump. Thirdly, it was believed Ivy
some of the older writer., moth se Hutchins, that the
,eamp is, nevertheless, Korean. Aad now in our days
this amnion is energetically revived mid support,'
Ii y say friend Mr. Conningtoo..4.lhwelte.tor, He has
am far as I know, excelled all antiquaries in the as. of
the span at Maiden Castle. He hrtyln his 11.1Irn.r.KU
excaystiosa Agee, believing that he was in a Keltic
city of eche. Hellas Wag ago coin.. to the lirm con.
elusion that it was • &slum Limp -nay, an established
town. He has had diggings made in many
_places,
both of the inner circuit of the He has,
reerwltere (nand Roman remains, jutic.
I believe, indeed, that he is the first to prove by
actual research that the ROllllllll4 had pevinanent
%eases there at all. Only last autumn, for instance,
be aseevered • large extent of evidently Roman
foundation, sad I saw there many fragments .4
lumdsomely panted encaustic plaster from walls 4
rooms, piece, of tilmy and some tessera. There were