100 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



miles of Tilshead, when it gradually died away in cultivated land. 

 Ancient roads occasionally entered its ditch, more particularly at the 

 salient angles, and its mound was broken and pierced in all directions 

 by the trackways leading to the two British villages north of Knook 

 Castle; but still, amid all the changes of two thousand years, its 

 crest was seen stretching over the plain, and could be followed with- 

 out the chance of a mistake. The next day I found the ' Tilshead 

 Ditch/ ' within little more than a mile from the spot where I had 

 lost the former one. It was a ditch with two mounds, and these 

 gradually became lower as I traced it to the eastward, a mile or two 

 beyond Tilshead. If this ditch be a continuation of the former one 

 I cannot satisfactorily account for its change of character. I could 

 find no remains of this Belgic boundary — if we may venture to give 

 it such a title — north of Beacon Hill. Even the ' unmutilated re- 

 mains of a bank and ditch,'' on Wick-down, turned out to be merely 

 a deep ditch with a low mound on each side of it. But south of 

 the hill, the Amesbury bounds presented appeai'ances which strongly 

 resembled those of an ancient earth-work, and we may be allowed to 

 conjecture that they were once connected with ' The DeviPs Ditch ' 

 east of Andover, and with the boundary-line, a fragment of which 

 still remains to the south of Walbury. 



" According to these speculations, the second Belgic boundary 

 must have included the valleys of South Wiltshire, and then have 



' Dr. Thurnam, in his work on "British Barrnws," (p. 15,) says: "The 

 position of some of the long barrows in relation to the very ancient earthworks 

 known as Belgic dykes is indicative of the superior antiquity of the former. 



The earthwork (bank and ditch) which stretches across Salisbury Plain from 

 North East to South West, and is laid down on the Ordnance and other maps, 

 as ' Old Ditch,' is especially prominent near Tilshead, where is one of the 

 largest of our long barrows, measuring as it does 380 feet in length and 11 

 feet in height. On reaching the east end of this mound, which is situated on 

 its north side the ditch makes a decided curve in order to avoid the tumulus, 

 ' which," as Sir R. Hoare justly observes, ' is a certain proof of the superior 

 date of the barrow.'— (Ancient Wilts, i., 90.) 



" Another example is on the southern border of the county, near the villages 

 of Martin and Tippet, where the course of a branch of Bokerley Ditch has 

 been diverted ' in order to avoid a long barrow, which,' as Sir Richard again 

 Says, ' proves the high antiquity of the sepulchral mound.' — (Ancient Wilts, 

 1., 233.)" 



