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Updated: May 13, 2025
The "dover" in the town-name is probably the pre-Celtic root which meets the traveller when he arrives at Dover and greets him again in unsuspected places from the "dor" in Dorchester and the Falls of Lodore to the "der" in Derwent and smoky Darwen. All have the same meaning water; and "an," strangely enough, is a later and Celtic word for the same element, the equally ubiquitous "afon."
Millar's opinion of these novel handicraft remains was that they were the products of a pre-Celtic civilisation. "The articles found," he writes, "are strongly indicative of a much earlier period than post- Roman; they point to an occupation of a tribe in their Stone Age."
This was once the highway between that mysterious and wonderful district in Wiltshire, of which Stonehenge is the most outstanding monument, and the largest prehistoric stronghold in England the Mai dun "the strong hill," south of Dorchester. The South Western station is close to another fine relic of the past, though this cannot claim to have any Celtic or pre-Celtic foundation.
But in no part of the United Kingdom is the Teutonic strain free from either the Celtic or pre-Celtic strain; nor do I believe that the Celtic strain has anywhere a predominance such as that which, speaking very roughly, the Teutonic strain possesses in the East of these Islands, or the pre-Celtic strain in the West.
There is a strain of difference something that is possibly pre-Celtic something at times sinister, passionate, incoherent; but there is nothing that is more romantic, more thoughtful, than may be found in the average countryman of the southern counties. We have all met delightful Cornish people hospitable, kindly, lovable; but, thank God, such are to be met with elsewhere.
It was just one of those places that the ancients loved to fortify, almost insular and easily defensible. The dry-stone defence known as the Two Edges was probably constructed by men of the Stone Age; it is certainly pre-Celtic. Other strongholds of the same date may be found at Gurnard's Head, at Trencrom, and at Bosigran, to name only a few.
Besides the old "Anglo-Saxon," in other words North German, element which is conventionally represented as the basic strain, the English blood comprises Norman French, Scandinavian, "Celtic," and pre-Celtic elements.
These were the Belgae, the Galli, and the Aquitani, the last of whom, however, were not Celts, but, like the Iberians in Spain, belonged to a pre-Celtic race. The Helvetii and Vindelici were in Switzerland. The Celts of Gaul had attained to a considerable degree of civilization. Their gods were the various objects of nature personified.
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