338 The Ancient Wiltshire DijTces. 



to a portion of this Grimsdyke, and indicates its western course. 

 Close by that point you have Vernditch (or Verndyke), in the 

 present parish of Broad-Chalk, for the meaning of which name we 

 may refer our readers to a previous page of this number of the 

 Magazine (p. 269). Then next, in a charter^ relating to Downton, 

 an immediately adjoining parish, you have more than one allusion 

 to " the dyke," as a boundary-point, an expression tljat probably 

 refers to some portion of this Grimsdyke, since in a charter relating 

 to an estate at Fyrstfield (Frustesfeld) belonging to the Abbess of 

 Wilton (now termed the Earldoms) , we meet with the more exact 

 description " of Sam wege on "Sa ealdan die," i.e., " from that way 

 to the old dyke" ^ So that we may fairly infer that at all events 

 this dyke, of which we are now writing, ran from what we now call 

 Bishopston to Verndyke, thence along a portion of the Downton 

 boundary, and thence to what is now designated " the Earldoms," 

 and forming a portion of the northern boundary of this manor, it 

 then stretched onward to the north-east, till it came near a place 

 which takes its name from it, viz., Grimestead, within comparatively 

 recent times corrupted into Grinstead. 



III. — Grimsdyke, to the north of Salisbury. 



This dyke can also be traced, by means of ancient charters* 

 westward to within some two miles of Bokerly Hill, to which 

 allusion has been already made. Thus in a charter relating to 

 Sherrington ^ we have the southern boundary thus described : 

 " "Son on Grimesdic, andlang die " (then to Grimsdyke, along 

 the dyke, &c) . In one relating to the nest parish, Stockton, you 

 again find the description " on dic-geat iSet west andlang die on 

 Wylle-weg* " i.e., " to the dyke-gate (=entrance), then west along 

 the dyke to the Welsh-way " (or British trackway) . Indeed you 

 can clearly trace the dyke at this point to the present day. It 

 would there seem to have been utilized as a southern boundary for 



1 Cod. Dipl., 1108. 2 Ibid, 395. 



s See Sir R. C. Hoare's " Registrum Wiltunense," p. 13. 



^Cod. Dipl, 1078. 



