Miscellaneous Notes on Deneholes. 95
been mainly formed by some active creature, such as a wolf,
hound, or fox, which, after falling down the shaft, had been
either stopped by rubbish at this point or had managed to
scramble up to a ledge there from the bottom, which ledge it
had afterwards enlarged.
A point worth noting may be raised with regard to the
conversion of a six-chambered Denehole into a pillared one.
It is this :—The Denehole-chambers were evidently increased
in height by the gradual lowering of the floor. But how (it
may be asked), when they had attained a height of 16 ft. or
18 ft., were the upper parts of the partitions between the
chambers removed, and the roof made smooth and even ?
The precise mode of operation can be but mere conjecture,
but the situation would offer no real difficulty. For that
most primitive of ladders, a ragged fir-stem, was in all
probability the means of descent into the earliest and rudest
Deneholes, in which the bee-hive shape made foot-holes out
of the question. And one or two short ladders of this kind
would be all that the removers of a partition could possibly
require in addition to their ordinary implements.
IV. Notes on the Pits near Lenham, Kent.
Through the kindness of Mr. J. T. Hatch, a well-known
resident at Lenham, I had an opportunity, on July 13th, of
descending one of the best-preserved pits of this neighbour-
hood, and was shown by him the positions of several others
in various stages of decay. As the pits of this neighbourhood
have never, so far as I know, been described before, the
following particulars may be of interest:—
The village of Lenham lies at the foot of the Chalk escarp-
ment of the North Downs, about nine miles E.S.E. of
Maidstone. Mr. Spurrell has noted the existence of Dene-
holes about Deptling and Hollingbourne, both similarly
situated at the foot of the escarpment, but the first-named
eight miles and the latter four miles away towards the north-
west. Deneholes are also known, he says, at Wormshill,
Bredgar, Stockbury, and Rodmersham, all places on the dip-
slope of the chalk, and from two miles to five miles from the