112 The Early History of the Upper Wylye Valley. 
building stone. Probably some evening when the harvest was in 
and the oxen were ploughing, the English fell upon them and slew 
the servants with the edge of the sword. Some perished in the 
defence, and as the smoke went up from the homestead, the 
survivors fled to make a last and fruitless stand on the brow of 
Battlesbury, a name which may preserve the memory of the 
invasion. 
IJ].—Earty ENGLISH TIMES. 
The coming of the English can still be read plainly in the place- 
names. Dr. Guest has with great probability traced out the line of 
their advance. He argues that after the battle of the Mons 
Badonicus in 520 A.D. (probably Badbury, in Dorset), the Upper 
Wylye Valley was still British, not yet English, and that it did 
not become English till the capture of Bath in 577, the name 
“Mere” pointing to the boundary between the two peoples. We 
shall probably be right in dating the English advance shortly after 
the fall of Old Sarum in 552; some may have advanced north-west 
as far as the “ Divise” (“border”) Devizes, some south-west to 
“Mere.” We are concerned here with the western line of advance. 
When the fall of Old Sarum left the country open to them, they 
advanced probably along the ridge leading west, by the well-marked 
track through Groveley Wood, aud thence they would descend off 
the spurs into the Wylye Valley. The advance was along the 
southern rather than the northern height above the river, because 
most of the settlements are on the south bank of the stream. In 
fact, they were passing through a settled and cultivated district, 
as can still be seen on the spurs of the hills by Stockton onwards ; 
and it is likely that they would follow the traces of the former 
occupants, and come down into the valley at various points. Of 
the eleven places whose name ends in -ton, between Bapton and 
Norton, seven stand on the south bank of the stream; two only 
stand entirely on the north, Fisherton and Ashton; and of the two 
remaining, Upton (originally Ubban-ton) stretches to the southern 
slopes of the valley, while Norton joins Sutton, one settlement 
~ 1 Devizes, because the first name would be ‘ad Divisas. Compare “ad 
episcopi arbores,” on p. 116. 

SERENE mer 
