Cole's Pits

Abstract

IN reference to the subject of the “Cole's Pits,” respecting which a notice from Mr. A. Irving appeared in NATURE for Oct. 9 (p. 560), I find that as early as 1784 these pits, or rather perhaps some of them, were investigated by the Hon. Danes Barrington. And a paper appears on the views entertained by him regarding them in Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 236, under the head of “An Account of Certain Remarkable Pits, or Caverns, in Berkshire.” Although Mr. Barrington expresses some doubts as to his conclusions, he nevertheless leans to the opinion that they are the winter dwellings of a pre-Roman people, the entire series constituting perhaps an ancient British town. He estimates them at about 273 in number, and covering a space of about 14 acres. In depth they vary from 7 to 22 feet, and are 40 feet and upwards in diameter, the largest being not in all instances the deepest. They extend in regular series, and are placed rather closely to each other. They are referred to a period anterior to that of Stonehenge; and it is conjectured that if each pit contained five occupants the entire community would have numbered something like a population of 1400 souls. As suitable for the residence of uncivilised people stress is laid on the fact that the place is entirely of the dried sand on the rich vale of the White Horse. The dwellings are supposed to have been entered by climbing down a rude ladder or notched pole after the manner adopted by the natives of Kamchatka in reaching their underground habitations. It is remarkable as bearing on the theory that these pits are abandoned quarries, that no objects, such as pottery, indicative that they (the pits) were used as dwellings, were found by Mr. Barrington. There can be no doubt that the pits are simply the sites of shafts dug for the purpose of obtaining the underlying ironstone. Indeed, Mr. Godwin-Austen appears to have set the matter at rest many years ago; and although I am not able at the moment to state in what paper on the subject the opinion occurs, I am in possession of a note in which Mr. Godwin-Austen, with the keen perception of the skilled geologist, observes that although “the Faringdon tradition points this spot out as the site of the castle of King Cole, whose memory is preserved in a well-known fragment of popular poetry, geology can countenance no fictions except its own, and Cole's Pits are evidently the remains of the open workings for the ironstone underlying the mass of sand.”