"Lastly, the late Dr. S. Palmer, F.S.A., of Newbury, reported to the Wiltshire Archæological Society in 1869 that oaken piles and planks had been dug out of boggy ground on Cold Ash Common, near Faircross Pond, not far from Hermitage, Berks." (B. 312, p. 424.)
The following is Dr. Palmer's notice of the pile-structures at Cold Ash Common above referred to:—
"Recurring to the antiquities of the peat proper, I would refer to the subject of lake-dwellings. I do not despair of finding them in our neighbourhood, for I believe traces of them have been found near Cold Ash, some such structure having been uncovered in digging bog-earth for horticultural purposes. It was circular, measuring 30 feet across, and the planks were 16 to 18 feet in length, roughly hewn, and with beams crossing from side to side, and resting on the piles. There was also a kind of causeway to it. It was on the borders of a morass, the resort of wild fowl within the memory of man. The general appearance of the valley at this place leads me to surmise that it was not long since covered with water; there is still a pond in the centre. The bog-earth had been carted away before I heard of the discovery, so that I had no chance of examining it for animal or other remains."
The editor of the Transactions of the Newbury District Field Club adds the following note to the above extract:—
"Mr. Walter Money, F.S.A., has gathered some information about this interesting relic of the past. It is situated on a part of what was Cold Ash Common ... and has long been known as 'Wild Duck Pond;' it is now an oval piece of water, not much more than 20 feet across, surrounded by arable land.
"About thirty years ago, before the Common was enclosed, the season being dry, the 'Wild Duck Pond' was cleared by Mr. Whiting, of Longlane Gate, who thought the accumulated soil or mud might be useful on the land. After the removal of the top soil, some rough timber framing was met with, lying across the centre of the pit, forming, it would seem, a rude platform. A space was cleared about ten feet deep, where a heavy log of oak was found lying across from side to side. This was not removed. The work was then abandoned; the soil taken out being found to be of no use to the land. About thirteen years ago, the excavation was repeated by Mr. Lancaster, the then tenant of this part of Col. Loyd-Lindsay's property; but the investigation was not pursued far, and the water having flowed into the digging, 'Wild Duck Pond' was again restored nearly to its former condition." (Trans. of Newbury District Field Club, vol. ii. p. 148.)
Remains suggestive of a pile-structure were also observed by Mr. Dolby in 1870 in one of the ponds at Fence Wood, near Hermitage. Here in digging they found "a sort of pyramidal dwelling beneath the ground, the roof being covered with clay about a foot thick. This roof was supported by a large piece of timber, some twenty-six feet long, which they had got out. There were causeways there also at a depth of fifteen or sixteen feet. The water had long since rushed in and filled up the excavation, so that nothing further is known of this place." (Ibid., vol. i. p. 123.)
LAKE-DWELLINGS IN HOLDERNESS, COUNTY OF YORK.
The discovery of lake-dwellings in Holderness is due to Mr. Thomas Boynton, Bridlington (lately of Ulrome Grange), whose attention was first directed to the subject in the spring of 1880. Previous to the excavation of a great drainage scheme about the beginning of the present century this district appears to have been intersected by a series of sinuous and irregularly shaped lakes, whose surplus waters partly found an outlet, not in the present artificially constructed channels which convey them directly into the German Ocean, but in quite a different direction, along a sluggish watercourse, still extant, which falls into the Humber near Hull. That this latter was in former times the natural drainage course of the entire waters of Holderness is the opinion of Mr. Boynton and other geologists with whom I had the pleasure of discussing the matter. Mr. G. W. Lamplugh believes that the Gypsey Race—a stream which now enters the sea at Bridlington—at some former period continued its course through this chain of lakes and finally debouched by the same route into the Humber. The natural causes which have effected this great change in the hydrographical conditions of Holderness are to be found in the steadily progressing encroachment of the sea on the land, which here goes on at a very rapid rate. When the sea lay many miles farther off, which undoubtedly was the case in former times, it is supposed that the intervening land stood somewhat higher, and that consequently Holderness was a complete water-basin, with its outlet towards the Humber. But as the sea advanced, gradually undermining and washing away the soft glacial deposits which here form its shores, this natural basin became, as it were, tapped in the middle and so allowed the waters of its upper reaches to escape directly into the sea—a process precisely analogous to that by which its final drainage was effected by human agencies.
Nor is this opinion based exclusively on geological considerations, as we have positive historical proofs in the early annals of the country that formerly towns existed whose sites are now far out in the sea. Thus Mr. Poulson ("History of Holderness," p. 467) states that "the writer of the chronicle of the Abbey of Meaux, in lamenting the losses which the abbey had sustained, observes that they received nearly £30 from the town of Hythe, in the parish of Skipsea, chiefly from the tithe of fish; but now, says he, 1396, the place is totally destroyed—a proof that it was gone into the sea before the commencement of the fifteenth century." The lake of Withou, which is recorded as having paid tithe for its fish in 1288 (Ibid., 468), is not only at present completely drained, but more than half of its bed is washed away, and the sea beach, which runs right across it, presents a most instructive section of its sedimentary deposits and subsequent growth of peat.