f A HISTORY OF KENT The position is slightly defended on the south-west by the gentle fall of the ground. The entrenchments vary both in width of base and in character without any apparent object, and do not now form a complete enclosure. If ever ■. „ the entrenchments continued and enclosed a space, such enclosure would have been I of large size, but / an early strong- hold defended by such irregular / entrenchments ^'.oo ""fzoa would be unusual. '~~' '■-, The whole stands
in a wood of very
marshy nature, drained to a limited extent by water courses. A m Milbay's Camp, Nettlestead. cart-track runs between the ramparts or rampart and ditch on the south- west, and on the north, where the western portion of the works may have continued, is agricultural land. Newington. — Near Sittingbourne. Keycol Hill has been thought to be the site of a defended Roman station, and vast quantities of pottery of the period have been discovered. From the description given by Hasted it is evident that traces of defensive work then existed, and that to the south-west there was a rampart with a deep fosse, and a breast-work extending west and north, * but of all this little or nothing can now be followed with certainty. The position (on 200 ft. level) is however sufficiently commanding to have affiDrded a suitable site for a defensive work, and from the height a considerable stretch of the old Watling Street would be under observa- tion. Oldbury. — See Ightham. OsPRiNGE : Judd's Hill. — When Hasted wrote there were here well-marked traces of a defenced position ; he says, 'A very deep and broad ditch remains on the summit, the south and east sides entire, etc." But to-day we find hardly a trace ; scarpings of the hill-side and faint out- lines of a fosse here and there, alone remain to tell a tale of the past ; all else has gone, and most of the site is occupied by Syndale House and its park. The hill affords so good a command of the surrounding country that it may well have been chosen for the site of a fortress in early times, and it has been stated that the Roman Station Durolevum was 1 Hist. Kent (1782), ii. = Ibid. ii. 800. 400
