Mine-pits of uncertain nature and date on Wye Downs. In the mid-19th century the pits were erroneously referred to as an "ancient British camp" consisting of "more than 200 caves". The site was visited by Flinders Petrie in the later 19th century. He suggested that the site represented flint extraction. Some excavation occurred in 1955, but no artefacts were recovered except for a few potsherds described at the time as Iron Age. The director of the excavations suggested that the pits represented ironstone extraction rather than flint. The site was visited by RCHME staff in 1995 as part of the Industry and Enclosure in the Neolithic project. Overall, the superficial appearance of the complex is very unlike known Neolithic flint mines. Although flint exists in considerable quantity in the iron/sandstone stratum which overlies the chalk, the interpretation of the site as one of ironstone extraction is probably correct. There is very little struck flint in the vicinity of the pits or in the adjacent ploughed field, but there is ironstone. The possibility of a Neolithic date for the pits can in any case be rejected on the grounds that spoil from some of them overlies a set of lynchets. One of these was misinterpreted as the rampart of the "British camp". The pits are probably of various dates, and the lynchets may have been re-used as tracks to provide access to them. Basic cartographic and documentary research uncovered no references to the origin of the mining complex.