Half a mile south of Monaughty the Bleddfa Brook from the Cwm-y-gerwyn Hill, a spur of the Radnor Forest, enters upon the right bank about 1 miles east of Bleddfa. About one mile below this tributary the Lugg crosses the site of the Battle of Pilleth, A.D. 1402, opposite the hill Bryn-glas, and near Castell Forelallt, four miles south-west of Knighton. In this battle, in the early part of the rebellion of Owen Glendower, Sir Edmund Mortimer was taken prisoner, and the Herefordshire men suffered severely. The battle is thus alluded to in Shakespeare's King Henry IV. :— 66 When all athwart there came Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse; By those Welshwomen done, as may not be, Henry IV., Part I., Act I., Scene I. The last four lines refer to the "shameful villanie used by the Welshwomen towards the dead carcases," as we read on the authority of Hollinshed. Near Whitton a small feeder flowing through Cwm Whitton supplies the Lugg upon its left bank. A much larger feeder from the Radnor Forest on the west empties upon the right bank under the name of the Cascob Brook. Close to its junction, but upon the opposite, or east side, Offa's Dyke may be traced for the length of four miles along the western slopes of Furrow Hill and Hawthorn Hill, in its northern course towards Knighton. Near Boultibrook, the residence of Lady Bridges, the Norton Brook enters upon the left bank, and at Presteign the Lugg enters Herefordshire. The Hindwell Brook, fed by the falls of Water-break-its-neck on the south of Radnor Forest, enters on the right bank at Combe above Kinsham. The Limebrook stream, flowing from Lingen by the ruins of Limebrook Abbey, enters below Kinsham on the left bank, near Deerfold Bridge, where the Lugg enters the parish of Aymestrey, through which it flows, reckoning all its windings, for a length of nearly five miles. When it has reached Aymestrey Bridge the Lugg has flowed over a course of twenty-seven miles of Silurian formation, and has received in that course five main tributaries on its left, and four on its right bank. After a total course of 47 miles from its source, and after draining a large area, the Lugg empties into the Wye at Mordiford, below, and four miles east Hereford. of, CROFT AMBREY CAMP. In Brayley and Britten's Topographical description of the county of Hereford published in 1810, on page 360 we read: "Croft Ambrey, a British camp on an eminence to the North of Croft. On an eminence to the S.W. above Avemestre is a smaller camp of a square form." The smaller camp is a six acre camp in Pyon Wood, one mile south west of Croft Ambrey, half a mile north of Aymestrey bridge, and commanding the main road, named Watling Street, which runs along the eastern base of the hill on which the camp is situated. Although this camp is not quite square in plan, it has at least one straight side about 200 yards in length, and military engineering skill is displayed in the profile of its foss and vallum. The fine camp at Croft Ambrey is situated on an elevation of 1,000 feet, commanding a very extensive view, especially the open view towards the north. Every advantage has been taken of the natural features of the ground so as to convert a position strong by nature into a formidable place of defence. A natural ridge of Aymestrey limestone traverses the camp from west to east, from each side of which ridge excavated material has been piled upon it until a rampart of extraordinary, and apparently unnecessarily large, dimensions has been formed, in fact, in one place, from the bottom of the ditch to the summit of the rampart, the actual measurement is as much as 60 feet. This rampart is mainly upon the south, the most readily accessible side, where there is a double line of earthwork and ditch, and upon the sloping glacis, at the distance of about 150 yards, a parapet forins a triple line of defence. From the general section of the defences this camp has been planned on the same lines as Wapley, although the lines of defence at the latter camp are more numerous. The original entrance to the camp at the south-west corner winds along a covered way which is further protected interiorly by an earthwork traverse. Towards the north east extremnity the camp narrows considerably, leaving only space for the entrance which is used at the present period, and presents every appearance of a modern introduction. Upon the northern side there is a steep declivity, which would require but little artificial defence in the days of archers and pikemen, and before the days of artillery. A low parapet would here provide sufficient security; no traces, however, now exist of any such parapet. The inner defences extend from east to west, a length of 600 yards, and in their greatest width hardly attain 200 yards, but the area of the whole, including the ditches and ont-works, cover a space of 24 acres, and the camp might have held half a legion, say 3,000 foot soldiers on an emergency. Although there is an absence of water supply within the enceinte, there exists a water spring down the hill, about two or three hundred yards distant from the north-eastern angle. This spring in the present day supplies Leinthall Hall in Gatley Park half-a-mile distant, and apparently has done so for at least two centuries and a half, judging from the fact that there is upon the premises a large leaden tank dated 1637, and that in the course of the restoration of the water supply a large extent of corroded leaden pipes has been excavated. Croft Ambrey Camp is one of the largest of the numerous ancient Camps, more than forty in number, in Herefordshire, as the following comparison displays -Credenhill, the largest, embraces 50 acres; Wall Hills, near Ledbury, 33 acres; Sutton Walls, near Hereford, 30 acres; Ruckhall, at Eaton Bishop, 30 acres; Wall Hills, Thornbury, 25 acres; Croft Ambrey, 24 acres; Wapley, 21 acres; Midsummer Hill, near Eastnor, 21 acres; Herefordshire Beacon, 21 acres; Aconbury, 18 acres; and the walled Roman town of Kenchester, 17 acres. The above areas include the outer defences enclosing the ditches, and are taken from an advance proof of the Archæological Survey of Herefordshire. The acreage of the Camps have been calculated by a professional surveyor at Oxford, using the 25-inch Ordnance Maps. The earliest history bearing upon this locality is given in the "Annals of Tacitus," Books XII. and XIV., also in his "Life of Agricola," and it associates the territories of the Silures and Ordovices, on the borderland of whose possessions this Camp is situated, with the early struggles of our ancestors with the Roman invading forces. We find Ostorius Scapula marching against the Silures, "whom neither rigour nor clemency could induce to abandon their resolution of prosecuting hostilities," and immediately afterwards following Caractacus to his retreat amidst the lofty mountains in the territory of the Ordovices, where, after nine years from the commencement of the war in Britain, Caractacus and his family were made prisoners. Afterwards revolts were frequent, and many an attack was made upon the Roman legionary cohorts which had been left to rear fortified posts against the Silures, who are described as a people "resolute and fierce by nature," "the most determined of all.” Other tribes north, south, and east, joined in the general cause against the invaders. Suetonius Paulinus quelled the revolt in the south under the British Queen Boadicea. The credit of subduing the strong and warlike nations of the Silures in a difficult country belongs to Julius Frontinus, probably about A.D. 70 to 78, and after many years of forays in which the Ordovices had some successes, it is recorded that they were almost totally extirpated by Agricola about A.D. 80, before he advanced into the northern parts of the kingdom. Let us now glance at the map of Roman Britain according to Antoninus, Ptolemy, and the discoveries of modern times, which accompanies Iter Britanniarum by Rev. T. Reynolds, published in 1799. We find on the northern boundary of the Silures a prominence given to Stretford and Street, a few miles south of Bravinium (Leintwardine). Proceeding westerly the Silurian boundary embraces Old Radnor, Cwm, thence to the sea in the present Cardigan Bay. Cwm is most probably a square camp in Radnorshire, on the right bank of the Ithon, near Castell Collen, seven miles north of Builth. Ostorius most probably advanced from the territories of the Trinobantes in the east, having left his base secure at Camulodunum, and his left flank protected by the Cotteswold Hills on the south, he would probably cross the Malvern range, possibly by Herefordshire Beacon, whence his route would take him by Wall Hills (Ledbury), Wall Hills (Thornbury), Garmsley, near Kyre, the diminutive camp of Ashton near Berrington, Croft Ambrey, and only seven miles west of it the camp at Wapley, before he arrived amongst the difficult hills of the Ordovices, to which Caractacus had prudently retired with the crafty purpose of entangling Ostorius amidst their fastnesses. Within sixteen miles march south of Croft Ambrey is the site of the Roman walled-town of Magna (Kenchester), through which the road from Isca |