832 



Bj the Rev, Preb. W. H. Jones, M.A., F.S.A., 



Vicar of Bradford.on-A.Ton, and Rural Dean. 



il^MONGrST the memorials of the distant past that are to he 

 found so plentifully in Wiltshire, few are more interesting 

 than its large dykes, which may still he seen, though only in frag- 

 ments, in various parts of the couaty. They are to be found north- 

 ward as far as to Monkton Farleigh, Lacock, and Marlborough, and 

 extend southward to the very borders of Wiltshire. It is the object 

 of this paper to oflFer suggestions as to their names, purposes, and 

 probable dates. 



In the course of this essay, attention will be directed not only to 

 those fragments of those ancient works that still remain, as yet un- 

 destroyed by the plough-share, or by other ruthless and less excusable 

 agencies, but to those entries or allusions in ancient charters, which 

 enable us to trace the lines of such dykes in places where there is 

 no longer any outward sign of them. It would have been desirable 

 if possible to have provided an illustrative maj) to accompany this 

 paper, but one on a sufficiently large scale to be of much real use 

 was hardly feasible. I will therefore ask my readers kindly, with a 

 coloured pencil, to mark on a map of Wilts the various lines of dykes 

 which do not already appear, and which I endeavour to trace out 

 from ancient documents. Two of the sheets of Cruchley's Reduced 

 Ordnance Map (Nos. 11 and IS) uncoloured, and printed on thicker 

 paper, are, as far as my experience goes, as suitable as any for the 

 purpose. 



My plan will be, first of all, to offer a few remarks on the various 

 theories that have been put forth by way of explaining the objects 

 for which these ancient dykes were first made — the different heads 

 under which they may be classed — and the people who first dug them. 



The most probable opinion concerning their chief purpose, is, I 



