Recent Wiltshire Books, Articles, &r. 115 



of things. In the fourteen nailes from Morgan's Hill to Ashley Wood, 

 for which space the dyke follows the course of the old Roman road, it 

 forms a boundary between parishes for the whole distance ; while durnig 

 its course through North Wilts from Chisbury to Morgan's Hill, and 

 through North Somerset, from Ashley Wood to Maes Knoll, it has 

 absolutely no relation at all to parochial boundaries. And there must 

 be some good reason for this condition of things. We know that ancient 

 roads and ancient fortresses and ancient dykes are very frequently 

 followed by parochial boundaries, only in this case, of course, the artificial 

 landmarks must have existed before the parochial boundaries were laid 

 down. When, then, we find that the central third of Wansdyke, where 

 it follows the Roman road, is a parochial boundary for its whole length, 

 and the two extremities are nowhere followed by parochial boundaries, 

 we are driven irresistibly to the conclusion that the Roman road existed 

 before the parochial boundaries were laid down, but that the parochial 

 boundaries as we now see them existed before Wansdyke was brought 

 into existence." 



Tho author then proceeds to try and find a suitable date for the dyke 

 between 552 A.D., when Cynric took Old Sarum, or 556 A.D., when, in 

 company with Ceawlin, he routed the Britons at Beranbyrg (Barbury 

 Camp), (soon after which North Wilts must have been colonised, and 

 the parochial boundaries laid down, he thinks,) and 825, the date at 

 which it has been already assumed that the dyke was in existence. In 

 571, 584, and 614 A.D. we hear of West Saxon victories in Bedfordshire 

 and Oxfordshire far to the north-east of the dyke, and there could have 

 been no need of such a defence, which the author assumes must have 

 been erected against the pressure of the Mercians on the north, who in 

 645, under Penda, drove the West Saxon King Kenwalk from his throne. 

 Kenwalk returned in 648 A.D., and it is about this time, whilst Penda 

 was occupied with an expedition against Northumbria, that Mr. Taylor 

 suggests that the Wansdyke was thrown up by Kenwalk. 



As to the name " Wansdyke" he says:—" We have seen that it was 

 known as Woden's from the earliest times at which we can trace its 

 existence, and this need not mean that our forefathers attributed it to 

 Woden, but rather that the West Saxons theixiselves constructed it as a 

 defence against the Mercians and called it by the name of Woden, who 

 was considered to be the protector of boundaries ; and this dedication 

 would still have been possible in 648." 



The argument is most ingenious, but surely one consideration cuts at 

 the very root of it. It rests entirely on the assumption that the dyke 

 must be more recent than the existing parish boundaries because they 

 do not follow it except where its course coincides with that of the Roman 

 road. Is it, however, conceivable, supposing the dyke to have been 

 thrown up in the 7th century, when the parishes were already mapped 

 out, as the defensive frontier between Wessex and Mercia, that those 

 parishes which were cut in two by the dyke should still have retained 

 their own parochial boundaries, unaltered, regardless of the new frontier, 

 so that part of the parish lay in Mercia and the other part in Wessex? 



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