110 The Early History of the Upper Wylye Valley. 
IL.—BRITISH AND RoMANO-BRITISH TIMES. 
To take a range slightly beyond this valley, it is evident to 
anyone who stands on the ridge of hills that run from Maiden 
Bradley to Wylye, that it was the home of a large population from 
very ancient times. These downs on the south of the valley were 
even more thickly populated than those on the northern side, partly 
because they are more inaccessible, and partly because there was 
better hunting-ground near. This populous character is shown 
not only by the so-called “camps,” or “castles,” which abound, 
but also by the settlements, and by the round barrows, which are 
to be found in the valleys as well as on the hills—for example, in 
the meadows of Bishopstrow, Norton, Sutton, Sherrington, the hill 
settlements at Knook and Stockton, and the settlements in the 
hill and valley at Hill Deverill. And not far off are the lake- 
dwellings at Glastonbury. The language of this people has left 
its traces in the names of hill and river; Brimsdon, for Brynsdon 
(dryn=a height); Pen, also “height,” not far off; Dead Maiden, 
near, with which may be compared Dead Man, in Cornwall, a 
corruption of the Celtic dod maen, and Dod post, near Longleat; | 
while “ Maiden” can also be seen in Maiden Bradley, and Maiden 
Castle, in Dorset; and at Maedenbeorgh, which appears to have 
been the old name of Maddington, and in the name of Maedenbeorgh 
at Sherrington (Hoare, Heytesbury Hundred, p. 235), just as in 
many other places in England and Scotland. The word probably 
means “hill with a round top,” and has been discussed, but not 
settled, in the Antiquary for June, August, September, and October, 
1902, and March, 1903. Dever-el' is certainly from the common root 
“dev” =water, of which a good example is Deveron,in Aberdeenshire, 
and the Dives,in Normandy. The names of rivers never change, and 
those of hills hardly ever.2 The inhabitants were largely Belgie. 
They had advanced over the district in successive waves, and 

} There is no connection with the name D’Evreux, which was suggested as 
possible in Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxviii., p. 286. The ‘Roll of Battle 
Abbey” is a transparent and grotesque forgery” says Freeman (History of — 
Sicily, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 468). 
? Freeman, History of Sicily, i., 83. 

