The marvellous earthworks that crown the hill were undoubtedly prehistoric in their origin and, like the walls of Maiden Castle, they have been faced at a later date with stone.  There are four lines of wall and ditch, and they enclose an area of nearly twenty acres.  Old Leland becomes enraptured at the sight:  “Good God! what vast ditches! what high ramparts! what precipices are here!” It will be seen at a glance how well adapted this eminence was for defence.  There is nothing to the north but the great expanse of the Somerset plain broken by the isolated Glastonbury Tor.  In the wide and beautiful view from the earthworks the Mendip range runs away toward the Severn Sea on the right; to the left front are the broken summits of the Quantocks and to the extreme left the beautiful hills of the Somerset-Dorset borderland.

The Shaftesbury road passes through pleasant country, with no particular features but with occasional good views, to Milborne Port, not quite three miles to the east.  A few new buildings on the outskirts of the little town have failed to rob it of its medieval air.  It can actually boast of a Norman guildhall, or at least the building has a doorway of that period, which is near enough.  The poor battered and despoiled remains of a market cross stand in the centre of the street.  This mere village once sent two members to Westminster, and its former importance as a market town and county centre is shown by its magnificent and ancient church.  Although the nave has been rebuilt and the chancel is not the most perfect form of Perpendicular, the centre of the church will repay scrutiny, for it is of peculiarly solid and majestic appearance.  It is even thought by some authorities to be Saxon.  The Norman details to be noticed include the fine south door, the arches of the transepts and the windows in the south arm.  The old font and the piscina in the wall of the nave, as well as other piscina in the chancel, are noteworthy.

The Shaftesbury road goes by the parklands and early eighteenth-century mansion of Venn, the seat of the Medlicotts, and then bears south-east towards the village of Caundle Purse.  There are several Caundles in this part of Dorset, but “Purse” is the only one of much interest.  It lies just off the road to the right, under the wooded Henover Hill.  Its sixteenth-century manor house bears the name of “King John’s House,” as do several others over the length and breadth of England.  It is probable that a hunting lodge used by the Angevin kings once stood hereabouts, as this countryside was in their time the great forest of the White Hart.  The church is small and over-restored, but it contains a few interesting brasses.