By William Long, Esq. 107 



swept round so as to separate the downs of Hampshire from the 

 woodhmds which encircled Scots Poor.' The hypothesis does not 

 seem an unreasonable one, and I know of no other which can satis- 

 factorily account either for the boundary-line north of Heytesbury, 

 or for the lines which are found in the neighbourhood of Walbury 

 and Andover. It will be seen that the writer differs from Stukeley 

 in considering the first and second of his ditches as forming part of 

 one continuous boundary ; and in denying altogether to the ditch 

 which runs immediately north of Old Sarum, the character of a 

 BeJgic earthwork. 



" The general consent of our antiquaries has fixed upon the Wans- 

 dike as the last of the Belgic boundaries. Were it called the last 

 frontier of the Belgic province — understanding by that phrase the 

 district which the Roman geographers assigned to the Belgse proper 

 — I should be little disposed to quarrel with the conclusion they 

 have come to. . . . This magnificent earthwork reached from 

 the woodlands of Berkshire to the British Channel. Its remains 



'Mr. Jones calls this boundary-line the " Old Dyke," and thus describes it : 

 " This is no doubt a very ancient dyke. It can be traced almost across the 



county from west to east There can be little doubt as to the Old 



Dyke being of British origin, and it well may be anterior to the Roman 

 conquest. It has the foss to the north, so that we may infer that it was made 

 by a people coming up from the south. All along are remains of British 

 villages and earthworks, to say nothing of numberless tumuli, some of them of 

 large size and of the shape, \s-hich, authorities tell us, indicate the greatest 

 antiquity. The most western portion which remains can be traced from Bore- 

 ham down, in the north part of Warminster parish ; thence it runs along till 

 it comes to Knook Castle, the two ancient encampments of Battlesbury and 

 Scratchbury being about two miles to the south of it. Thence it goes on within 

 a couple miles of Tilshead, and, in its course, turns at right angles to avoid, as 

 it would seem, interfering with what is now called Tilshead Long Barrow. 

 Again you trace it just above what is called Silver Barrow (a name corrupted 

 from Sel-berg, i.e., great barrow) ; here it diverges to the north, and you trace 

 it again close by Ell-barrow, (that is Eald-berg, old barrow) and across 

 Compton Down. Again it goes northward, and you meet with it close by 

 Chisenbury Camp and Lidbury Camp, and it reaches what are called the Twin • 

 Barrows, close by Combe Hill. It would seem no unlikely conclusion that it 

 then went on toSidbury, an ancient encampment in the parish of North Tidworth 

 but from this we cannot, as far as I know, trace it, for the j^mesbury bounds 

 mentioned by Dr. Guest are clearly too far from it to be considered as portions 

 of it."— (Wilts Mag., vol. xiv.) 



