Letters

I read your contributor Mr. Aldridge's piece on the Earthworks at Kenardington (see Newsletter No. 17) with considerable interest as it brought to mind one of my last conversations with the late Prof. McDougson over lunch at my College. It is not my wish to steal his thunder, particularly as he is sorely missed by me among so many, but I think he would like me to say that he was at the time working on an entirely different approach to the whereabouts of Eorpeburnan and with his usual charm revealed that it would cause a stir in the dovecots of the K.A.S.

He was going back to first principles in his reading of the Burghal Hidage and stressed it was a small fortified site somewhere on a line between Southwark and Hastings. After all it only enclosed two to two-and-a-half acres in total and was the fourth smallest burgh in the list.

We picked out several possible sites, some turning on the meaning of "Eorpeburnan" and one in particular showed promise as the new interpretation.

Zena Bamping, BA