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Mr. J. Tom Burgess, F.S.A., of Worcester, said he had visited the camp on a 

 previous occasion, and was much struck by the intervening ramparts. These inter- 

 vening ramparts were not uncommon, and were frequently found where they had 

 written records of Saxon occupation. This camp, however, was peculiar from its 

 large size, and it would seem to have had portions added to it, as its occupants 

 increased, so that whilst one portion was occupied by the people, the other 

 might form a cattle pen, or what in India was known as " the compound," and in 

 Ireland as the " Faha," or open court of exercise, and which is there a common 

 feature; and with respect to the origin of the camp, he begged to point out the 

 absence of any direct evidence that the Saxons were given to erect earthworks. 

 They were shipbuilders and carpenters. Their grave mounds were small. The 

 sites of their kingly palaces were undefended by earthworks, and though they un- 

 doubtedly used and held the strong military posts which already existed, there was 

 no record that they erected any of these great camps and mounds, and yet they 

 lived in historic times. He knew that in that neighbourhood he should be con- 

 fronted with the name of Offa, and the dyke which bore his name. He had 

 examined that dyke at various points, and, doubtless, it was a line of demarcation 

 in which Offa took some interest. They must not, however, forget that these 

 dykes were not uncommon, and tfae very name of some of them seemed to indicate 

 that the Saxons thought these remarkable earthworks had a supernatural origin, 

 as for example, " Wan's dyke," in Wiltshire. This has been thought to be a cor- 

 ruption of " Woden's dyke " ; and the northern part of Ofla's dyke bore a similar 

 name — whilst the common appellation of " Thorbury," or " Thornbury," to earth- 

 works seemed to indicate a reference to the god Thor. They must remember that 

 Offa was a great king and a power in mid-England for a great many years, and he 

 might possibly, and indeed probably, have repaired the dyke which bore his name, 

 and also have proclaimed it as a line of demarcation under the penalties they were 

 all familiar with, and which he (Mr. Burgess) had embodied in his paper on the 

 subject, read before the British Archaeological Association during the Congress at 

 Llangollen. They must not forget that on this side of Oswestry the dyke divided. 

 The eastern fork joined the great camp at Old Oswestry, which he took to be the 

 great oppidum of the Ordovices, just as the Herefordshire Beacon was obviously 

 the great stronghold of the indomitable Silures. The dyke called " Wan's dyke " 

 went through a broken country, full of nooks and dingles, which were far more 

 likely to hold a foe, than to be a protection against enemies. Offa might have 

 found this detrimental, and made the western fork to the Dee, and thus gave his 

 name to the whole. His palace at Sutton Walls was obviously a Koman settle- 

 ment, and the regulation that the space between the two dykes near Wrexham 

 should be considered as neutral ground, favoured the suggestion he threw out, and 

 accounted for the western fork passing over the site of a Roman settlement or villa, 

 near Wrexham, which a Cambrian archaeologist had found out to be the case. 

 That was not the time nor the place to enter into any details of the Saxon invasion 

 and mode of settlement. After the first flush of conquest, they left the towns and 

 the old inhabitants undisturbed, and many of them retained their old Roman 

 municipal privileges, and those towns which were destroyed were regarded aa 



