DAVENTRY.
The country here, which is probably the highest in England, is a quarry of reddish stone, in small strata; the uppermost very full of shells, especially belemnites. The air must needs be exceeding good, as in the centre of England; the soil is a reddish clay. This is a neat pleasant town, well situate: two springs of the Avon run close by it. Eastward the great hill whereon is Borough-hill camp: a very pretty spring arises in the inner ditch, probably the highest in England; it is on the north-east side, which way the hill declines. This camp is on that end of the hill which it fills up, and conforms to its shape; double ditched, but toward the entrance the ditches separate, and meet at the entrance obliquely, after a manner I have not seen elsewhere. All round the mid-way of the hill it is boggy and springy: the whole hill is stone. Upon it are many more works of great compass; I suppose, some later camps of the Danes, Saxons, or Britons against them: there seem to have been some entrenchments round that part of Daventry town where the church stands: the inner ditch of the first-mentioned camp is very broad, and the vallum proportionable. Spellwell is the name of the spring on Borough hill; it looks blue: they say it is good for sore eyes, and is a great dryer.
It is a stony and clayey soil all the way from Daventry to Warwick: the country is open and full of corn-fields. The river divides countries of different nature; for on the other side it is a very good sort of large rocks: the country is very woody.