On the Excavations at Rotherley, Woodcuts, and Bokerly Dyke. 291 
being on the right track for further discoveries if I live to accomplish 
them. 
Bokerly Dyke, the present boundary-line between Dorset and 
Wilts, is an entrenchment of high relief, nearly four miles in length, 
running in a north-west and south-east direction across the old 
Roman road, which runs from Sarum to Badbury. It has a ditch 
on the north-east side of the rampart, proving that it was from this 
point the enemy was expected. The fact of its being a defensive 
work can, I think, hardly be doubted by anyone who will take the 
trouble to examine it from end to end. It everywhere occupies 
strong ground, if viewed from the standpoint of an enemy advancing 
to attack it from the north-east. It runs somewhat crookedly along 
the ground, and I am inclined to favour the idea, suggested I think 
by Dr. Smart, that this crookedness arose from the constructors 
availing themselves of hollows, as they occurred in the ground, to 
dig their ditch, throwing up the earth upon higher ground, and 
that by conforming to the inequalities of the surface in this way 
they obtained the relief they desired with less expenditure of labour, 
but the general direction was determined by considerations of defence 
that can clearly be recognised. It ran across the Gwent, or open 
downland, between two great forests, which existed at that time, 
and the remains of which still, or until quite lately, did exist on 
both flanks. On the south-east the dyke terminates upon strong 
ground in Martin Wood, which may be considered to be the survival 
of the Forest of Holt, and to have been formerly continuous with 
the New Forest, On the left it terminated in a part of the country 
which within the memory of persons still living was a part of 
Cranborne Chase Wood. It may be said, perhaps, that forests 
would hardly be sufficient to secure the flanks of an extended line 
of entrenchment, and that it might easily be turned if it rested on 
no more inaccessible protection than a wood. But there is reason 
to believe that in this moist climate the primeval forests may have 
consisted of almost inaccessible networks of trees, and where this: 
was not the case it is more than probable that the lines of entrench- 
ment may have been continued through them by abattis of felled 
trees. Czsar speaks of the Britons employing felled trees in their 
